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Mick Doohan
Michael "Mick" Sydney Doohan, (born 4 June 1965) is an Australian former Grand Prix motorcycle road racing World Champion, who won five consecutive 500 cc World Championships. Only Giacomo Agostini with eight (seven consecutive), Valentino Rossi with seven (five consecutive) and Marc Márquez with six (four consecutive), have won more premier class titles.
Originally from the Gold Coast, near Brisbane, Doohan attended St Joseph's College, Gregory Terrace, Brisbane. He raced in Australian Superbikes in the late 1980s, and also won both races as Superbike World Championship visited Oran Park in as well as the second leg of the Japanese round held earlier in the year. In a break-out season he also won the final Australian motorcycle Grand Prix to be held in the TT format at Mount Panorama before the race became a round of the World Championship the following year and moved to Phillip Island. He is one of the few 500 cc or MotoGP World Champions to have won a Superbike World Championship race.
He made his Grand Prix debut for Honda on an NSR 500 cc two-stroke motorcycle in 1989. Late in the 1990 season Doohan claimed his first victory at the Hungarian Grand Prix on his way to third in the championship. In 1991, he was paired with his fellow Australian Wayne Gardner on a Honda RVF750 superbike and won the Suzuka 8 Hours endurance race. He competed successfully throughout the early 1990s and appeared to be on his way to winning his first world championship when he was seriously injured in a practice crash before the 1992 Dutch TT. He suffered permanent and serious damage to his right leg due to medical complications and, at one stage, faced amputation of the leg. At the time, Doohan was 65 points in the lead of the championship, but could not compete for eight weeks after the crash. After an arduous recovery, he returned to racing for the final two races but could not prevent Yamaha rider Wayne Rainey from winning his third consecutive title (by four points from Doohan). In 1993 he struggled with the healing of his leg and the ability to race the Honda at elite level, stating later that in that year it was all he could do to just keep his ride at Honda. It was also during this time he switched to a left thumb-operated rear brake, as his right foot is no longer able to perform this function.
In 1994 however, he won his first 500 cc World Championship. Thereafter, until 1998, he dominated the class, winning five consecutive 500 cc World Championships. In 1997, his most successful year, Doohan won 12 out of 15 races, finished second in another two, and crashed out of the final race of the season at his home GP while leading by more than six seconds. In June 1996, Doohan was inducted as a Member of the Order of Australia for his contribution to the sport of motor racing.
Despite up to eight rivals on non-factory HRC Honda motorcycles Doohan's margin of superiority over them was such that in many races Doohan would build a comfortable lead and then ride well within his limits to cruise to victory. Although pure riding skill clearly played a large part in his success, the ability of his chief race engineer, Jeremy Burgess, to perfect the suspension and geometry of a racing motorcycle may have given him an advantage over his rivals. Between 1994 and 1998 the bike was said not to have had many changes, with Honda engineers reportedly becoming frustrated at Doohan's reluctance to try innovations such as electronic shifting (it was only when Rossi came to Honda in 2000 that Honda engineers had their head with Rossi willing to try more innovations).
One notable trait of Doohan's post-crash riding style was the use of a thumb-operated rear brake developed during 1993 owing to the reduced range of motion in his ankle. This was operated by a "nudge" bar similar to a personal water craft throttle, but mounted on the left handlebar. In 1999 Doohan had another accident, this time in a very wet qualifying session for the Spanish Grand Prix. He again broke his leg in several places and subsequently announced his retirement. Jeremy Burgess, Doohan's chief engineer for his entire career, later became Valentino Rossi's chief engineer. After Doohan retired he went to work as a roving adviser to Honda's Grand Prix race effort. At the conclusion of the 2004 season, Doohan and Honda parted company.
In June 2011, Doohan made an appearance at the Isle of Man TT. Doohan completed a parade lap, and was most enamored by the thrill and spectacle of the Snaefell Mountain Course. He then went on to pay tribute to his former Honda racing teammate, Joey Dunlop.
On 8 August 2006, Doohan appeared in Darwin Magistrates Court to face charges over a weekend fracas at a strip club. He was fined $2,500 after pleading guilty to assaulting a bouncer and failing to leave a licensed premise. No conviction was recorded.
Doohan married Selina Sines, his partner of eleven years, on Tuesday 21 March 2006, on Hamilton Island; the couple have two children, including racing driver and Red Bull junior Jack Doohan.
After his success in Grand Prix motorcycle racing he got a chance to test a Formula One race car, the Williams FW19, at Circuit de Catalunya (in Spain) in April 1998. He found the car difficult to drive and crashed against a guard rail.
In 2001, Doohan drove a Mercedes Benz CLK55 AMG works rally car with his co-driver Mark Stacey in the 2001 Targa Tasmania rally. He was in thirteenth place on day three when he crashed the car ; he and Stacey were uninjured after the incident.
Doohan helped design an Intamin Motorbike Launch Roller Coaster, named Mick Doohan's Motocoaster. The ride is located at Dreamworld on the Gold Coast, Queensland.
Doohan was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 1996 and received an Australian Sports Medal in 2000. He was awarded the "Key to the City" by the City of Gold Coast in 1997. He was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 2009. The first turn at Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit is named after him.
In 2009 as part of the Q150 celebrations, Mick Doohan was announced as one of the Q150 Icons of Queensland for his role as a "sports legend".
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Mobile Suit Gundam
In 1981, the series was re-edited for theatrical release and split into three movies. The characters were designed by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, and Kunio Okawara was responsible for the mechanical designs, including the eponymous giant robot, the RX-78-2 Gundam. The first movie was released on February 22, 1981. Tomino himself also wrote a trilogy of novels that retell the events of the series. Two manga adaptations of the series have also been written by two manga artists.
Despite initial low ratings that caused the series' cancellation, the popularity of "Gundam" saw a boost from the introduction of Bandai's Gunpla models in 1980 and from reruns and the theatrical release of the anime, leading to the creation of a prolific and lucrative media and toy franchise. The series is famous for revolutionizing the giant robot genre due to the handling of mobile suits as weapons of war as well as the portrayal of their pilots as ordinary soldiers, as opposed to the previous style of portraying hero pilots and their giant super hero robots.
Set in a fictional universe (Universal Century year 0079 according to the Gundam Calendar), the Principality of Zeon has declared independence from the Earth Federation, and subsequently launched a war of independence called the One Year War. The conflict has directly affected every continent on Earth, also nearly every space colony and lunar settlement. Zeon, though smaller, has the tactical upper hand through their use of a new type of humanoid weapons called mobile suits. After half of all humanity perishes in the conflict, the war settled into a bitter stalemate lasting over 8 months.
The story begins with a newly deployed Federation warship, the "White Base", arriving at the secret research base located at the Side 7 colony to pick up the Federation's newest weapon. However, they are closely followed by Zeon forces. A Zeon reconnaissance team member disobeys mission orders and attacks the colony, killing most of the Federation crew and civilians in the process. Out of desperation, young Amuro Ray accidentally finds the Federation's new prototype arsenal—the RX-78 Gundam, and manages to beat back Zeon forces. Scrambling everything they can, the "White Base" sets out with her newly formed crew of civilian recruits and refugees in her journey to survive.
On their journey, the White Base members often encounter the Zeon Lieutenant Commander Char Aznable. Although Char antagonizes Amuro in battle, he takes advantage of their position as Federation members to have them kill members from Zeon's Zabi family as part of his revenge scheme. Amuro also meets ensign Lalah Sune with whom he falls in love, but accidentally kills when facing Char. When the Federation Forces invade the Fortress of A Baoa Qu to defeat the Zeon forces, Amuro engages on a final one-on-one duel against Char due to both blaming the other for Lalah's death. Having realized he forgot his true enemy, Char stops fighting to kill the last surviving Zabi member, Kycilia Zabi. Amuro then reunites with his comrades as the war reaches its end.
The "Mobile Suits" of the show were inspired by the powered armor from the novel "Starship Troopers" from 1959. Mobile suits were conceptualized as human-like robots which would not only appeal to children. Yoshiyuki Tomino's original plot for the anime was considerably much more grim, with Amuro dying halfway through the series, and the crew of the White Base having to ally with Char (who is given a red Gundam), but finally having to battle him after he takes control of the Principality of Zeon. The original concept found expression in a series of novels written by Tomino soon after the show's conclusion, and elements of the storyline weaved themselves into "Zeta Gundam" and "Char's Counterattack".
In previous series Tomino worked in, villains were alien agents. "Mobile Suit Gundam" was the first of his work which featured humans as antagonists. The director commented he wanted to tell a story about war. He aimed to expose thoroughly starting with Japanese aggression in Manchuria in 1939. Tomino did not allow for changes to history and wanted to use the story to make viewers confront the tragic realities of war. The director was unwilling to discuss the message of his work, expecting the viewers to reach their own conclusion. Additionally, he commented he "packed his frustrations" when making "Gundam".
Tomino met mechanical designer Kunio Okawara when he first worked in two television series from Sunrise. Tomino liked Okawara's work and asked him to collaborate with him in his upcoming project. Originally, the anime would be called "Gunboy" but it was renamed "Mobile Suit Gundam". The "White Base", the mothership of the protagonist crew members, is designed with a 3 plane view method by Kunio Okawara, however, it is not specially designed for the anime series Gundam, it was actually a salvaged design from the anime "Invincible Steel Man Daitarn 3". The idea of having a space carrier from Tomino is partly inspired by the earlier science fiction anime "Space Battleship Yamato", in which he claimed to be a fan of. It was intended to be in a more realistic black color, but was changed to white by the order of Sunrise, similar to the color change of the main mecha Gundam was changed from a grayish white to white, red, blue and yellow. Director Tomino showed great disgust in the color change, also noticing the unrealistic non-aerodynamic design of it after the show was on air, said in an interview that such design would never appear in the real world, since it would be a sitting duck from fighter aircraft. Tomino still held a grudge 10 years after the show aired and stated in an interview in "Newtype" 1989 April issue that the imaginary enemies of Gundam are Sunrise, sponsors and television stations.
Tomino compares the machines with religious history in Japan, most notably the worship of Buddha statues located in temples. The relationship between the pilot and the mobile suit has also been compared with the Formula One drivers who rely on machines to achieve a goal. In order to give the mechas fast movements, most of the fights were situated in space where there was low gravity. This led to the creation of space colonies as a common setting. In order to explain how could such a young man as Amuro pilot the Gundam, the team came up with the idea of Newtypes.
In February 1980, "Mobile Suit Gundam" was aired in Italy, the first country to broadcast the show outside Japan. "Mobile Suit Gundam" was also later aired by the anime satellite television network, Animax, across Japan, with the series continuing to be aired on the network currently, and later its respective networks worldwide, including Hong Kong, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and other regions.
Hoping to capitalize on the success of "Gundam Wing" from the previous year, Bandai Entertainment released a heavily edited and English-dubbed version of "Mobile Suit Gundam", premiering on Cartoon Network's Toonami weekday afternoon after-school action programming block across the United States on Monday, July 23, 2001. The series did not do as well as "Wing" but the ratings were high enough for the whole series to be aired and to spawn an enormous toy line. Due to the September 11th attacks, Cartoon Network, like many other American TV stations, began pulling, and editing, war-themed content and violent programming, resulting in the cancellation of the series. However, the series finale was shown as part of Toonami's "New Year's Eve-il" special on December 31, 2001. On Saturday, June 8, 2002, the series was given another chance by Cartoon Network on their late-night Adult Swim block, starting over from the first episode, but it was again pulled before completing its run because of low ratings.
On May 30, 2006, Bandai Entertainment re-released the English dub of the TV series in a 10 volume DVD set. There was no Japanese audio track included, apparently because Yoshiyuki Tomino felt that the original mono mix was in too poor of a condition to use. However, in 2007 the original series was released on DVD in Japan, which sold over 100,000 copies within a month's time from December 21, 2007 to January 21, 2008.
At the 2010 New York Comic Con/New York Anime Festival, Bandai Entertainment announced that they would re-release "Mobile Suit Gundam" with both the original Japanese audio and the English dub. Only one episode out of the 43 episodes (Cucuruz Doan's Island) was not released, at the request of Yoshiyuki Tomino. Bandai released Gundam in two sets in the summer of 2011. The first set was released on September 13, 2011.
Following the closure in 2012 of Bandai Entertainment, the series went out of print. At their New York Comic-Con 2014 panel, Sunrise announced their plans to re-release all of the Gundam series on home video in North America, starting with the original series. They would be distributed via Right Stuf Inc.. They released the series on Blu-ray and DVD in October 2015.
On July 25, 2015, UK anime distributor Anime Limited announced they will release Mobile Suit Gundam in cooperation with Sunrise for the first time in the UK on DVD and Blu-ray.
In both American TV showings and on the international DVD and Blu-ray release, episode 15 ("Cucuruz Doan's Island") was cut out. According to Yoshiyuki Tomino, the removal was made at his request, with the episode becoming a "lost episode" of sorts, never being dubbed. The episode remained on the Japanese DVD and Blu-ray releases.
In 1979, before the end of the anime, Yoshiyuki Tomino himself created the first novelizations of the original Gundam anime series. The novels, issued as a series of three books, allowed him to depict his story in a more sophisticated, adult, and detailed fashion. Along with this adaptation came several major changes to the story. For example, Amuro is already a member of the Federation military at the time of the initial Zeon attack on Side 7, and the main characters in the Federation serve on the "White Base"-class ships "Pegasus" and "Pegasus II" rather than the "Pegasus"-class "White Base". Additionally, the war continues well into the year UC 0080 in the novels, whereas it concludes at the beginning of that year in the anime series. In the novel Amuro Ray is killed in the final attack against the Zeonic stronghold of A Baoa Qu when his RX-78-3 is pierced through the torso by a Rick Dom's beam bazooka. This occurs as Char's unit attempts to warn him about Gihren's intention to destroy the fortress and take the Federation's offensive fleet along with it. Char and the crew of "Pegasus II" ("White Base"), along with handpicked men under Kycilia Zabi's command, make a deep penetrating attack against the Side 3 and together kill Gihren Zabi, after which Kycilia is killed by Char. Tomino later lamented that had he known that anime ending would be different and that another series would be made, he would not have killed off Amuro in the novels.
The three novels were translated into English by Frederik Schodt and published by Del Rey Books in September 1990. At the time, there were no officially recognized romanizations of character and mecha names, and a variety of different spellings were being used in the English-language fan community. In the original three novels, therefore, Mr. Schodt wrote the name "Char" as "Sha." "Sha" is a transliteration of the Japanese pronunciation, although Mr. Tomino later publicly confirmed at Anime Expo New York 2002 that the name was originally based on the French name Charles Aznavour, a popular French-language singer. (The 2004 edition of the English translation revealed that Schodt felt that the "Char" rendering "seemed too close" to Aznavour's name.) He also rendered "Zaku" as "Zak," and (after consulting with Mr. Tomino) "Jion" as "Zeon," instead of "Zion," which was in use in some circles. Some North American fans, already attached to particular spellings, took great umbrage at Schodt's renditions, forgetting that in the original Japanese most character and mecha names are written in "katakana", and that there were, therefore, no "official spellings." Many years later, when the Gundam series was finally licensed in North America, the rights holders came up with a unified list of "official spellings" for English-language material, and some of these spellings include Schodt's renditions, as well as the renditions to which certain North American fans were attached.
In 2004, Frederik Schodt revised his original translation of the books, which had been out of print for nearly a decade. What had been a three volume set in the 1990 Del Rey edition was re-released by Stone Bridge Press as one single volume of 476 pages (with a vastly improved cover design), titled "Mobile Suit Gundam: Awakening, Escalation, Confrontation". Since the rights holders in Japan by this time had created a unified (although still evolving) list of romanized character and mecha names, Schodt was able to use it, and Amuro's rival in the novel thus became "Char" and not "Sha"; the popular Zeon Mobile Suit, similarly, became "Zaku," and not "Zak".
Following the success of the "Mobile Suit Gundam" TV series, in 1981 Tomino reworked the footage into three separate compilation movies. The first two movies, "Mobile Suit Gundam" and "Mobile Suit Gundam: Soldiers of Sorrow", were released in 1981. The third movie, "Mobile Suit Gundam: Encounters in Space", was released in 1982.
Each of the three movies is largely composed of old footage from the TV series, however Tomino felt that some things could be changed for the better. Tomino removed several aspects of the show which he felt were still too super robot-esque for the real robot series he intended "Gundam" to be, such as the Gundam Hammer weapon. The G-Armor upgrade parts were also completely removed and replaced in the narrative by the more realistic Core Booster support fighters, and Hayato receives a RX-77 Guncannon at Jaburo to replace the disadvantaged RX-75 Guntank. The third movie also includes a substantial amount of new footage expanding on the battles of Solomon and A Baoa Qu.
The first "Gundam" film, upon release on 22 February 1981, drew a large crowd of 15,000 people at its premiere, leading to concerns from police and media that it could lead to social unrest from a riotous crowd. The event is considered a turning point in the history of anime, referred to as "the day that anime changed" according to "Asahi Shimbun" newspaper. The first film grossed , and "Gundam II" grossed . "Mobile Suit Gundam III: Encounters in Space" was 1982's fourth highest-grossing Japanese film, with a distribution income of and a total box office gross of . Collectively, the trilogy grossed at the Japanese box office.
In 1998, the three compilation movies were first released directly to VHS subtitled into English as part of Bandai's AnimeVillage releases, which makes them among the first "Gundam" works released in English. A year later, Bandai released an English dub of three compilation movies in 1999, Featuring the voice of Michael Lindsay as Amuro Ray, and Steve Blum as Char Aznable, due to the dub mispronounce the word Gundam as Gun-dam, and the Principality of Zeon being called as "Duchy of Zeon in the dub, causing Sunrise to prevented the English dub from being re-released after its debut on VHS. The movies were released again in North America on May 7, 2002 in DVD format, available separately or in a boxed set. These are also available only with re-done Japanese audio with English subtitles, the DVDs identical to the 20th anniversary release of the movie compilation in Japan. The original Japanese voice cast members rerecorded their lines with the exception of those who were deceased. The 20th anniversary release was digitally remastered and many of the sound effects were replaced, most notably the futuristic gun sounds being replaced by louder machine gun sound effects. Also, the music soundtrack, while not remixed was rearranged and in some cases removed from some scenes. The vocal songs are rearranged also, especially in the closing credits of the second and third movies.
Bandai Visual has announced the re-release of the "Mobile Suit Gundam" movies on DVD from new HD masters and with the original, theatrical, mono audio mix. This boxed set was released in Japan on December 21, 2007. On May 18, 2010, Bandai Entertainment re-released the 20th anniversary version of the trilogy under their Anime Legends label. As with the TV series, the movies were re-released in North America under Sunrise themselves with distribution from Right Stuf Inc.
The trilogy of films were distributed on DVD in the United Kingdom by Beez Entertainment in 2005 in Japanese and with a selection of subtitle tracks including English. Anime Ltd. has since acquired the UK license and has released a limited edition Blu-ray box set of the movie trilogy (limited to 500 units) as an exclusive, sold only on their AllTheAnime.com store. It was released on March, 27th 2017, in Japanese with English subtitles only.
There have been two manga series based on "Mobile Suit Gundam". One was written by Yū Okazaki between 1979 and 1980. Another is "Mobile Suit Gundam 0079" by Kazuhisa Kondo. It was published in "Dengeki Comics" from 1985 to 1986 in a total of twelve "tankōbon" volumes. Viz Media later published its first nine volumes between 2000 and 2003. The second manga is "" by anime character designer Yoshikazu Yasuhiko. It was published from June 2001 to June 2011 in Kadokawa Shoten's "Gundam Ace" magazine and collected in a total of 23 "tankōbon" volumes. The series was first released in English by Viz media but was dropped before it was completed; it was then released by Vertical Publishing from March 2013 to December 2015.
Besides adaptations, there is a popular parody yonkoma manga titled "Mobile Suit Gundam-san", which was written and drawn by Hideki Ohwada and serialized in Kadokawa Shoten's "Gundam Ace" magazine since 2001. This manga was adapted into an anime in 2014. Ohwada also created a spinoff manga, , which follows Yoshiyuki Tomino and the Sunrise staff as they work to make the television series and the compilation movies. This series was serialized in Kadokawa Shoten's "Gundam Ace" magazine from 2009 to 2011 and compiled in the "Gundam-san" tankōbon starting in Volume 5. The manga was also collected in two tankōbon volumes released on January 24, 2014.
There have been many video games based on or with mobile suits from the original "Gundam" series. Of these, the following have been released in North America:
Games that have been unreleased in countries outside Japan include:
"Gundam" was not popular when it first aired, and in fact came close to being cancelled. The series was originally set to run for 52 episodes but was cut down to 39 by the show's sponsors, which included Clover (the original toymakers for the series). However, the staff was able to negotiate a one-month extension to end the series with 43 episodes. When Bandai bought the copyrights to build plastic models for the show's mecha, which was a relatively new market compared to the old Chogokin series Clover was making, things changed completely. With the introduction of their line of Gundam models, the popularity of the show began to soar. The models sold very well, the show began to do very well in reruns and its theatrical compilation was a huge success. Audiences were expecting another Super Robot TV show, and instead found "Gundam", the first work of anime in an entirely new genre: the Real Robot genre. The Anime ranked #2 on "Wizard's Anime" Magazine on their "Top 50 Anime released in North America", and is regarded as changing the concept of Japanese robot anime and the turning point of history in Japan.
Despite being released in 1979, the original "Gundam" series is still remembered and recognized within the anime fan community. The series revolutionized mecha anime, introducing the new Real Robot genre, and over the years became synonymous with the entire genre for many. As a result, for example, parodies of mecha genre commonly feature homages to "Mobile Suit Gundam", thanks to its immediate recognizability.
The series was the first winner of the "Animage" Anime Grand Prix prize, in 1979 and the first half of 1980. In the top 100 anime from "Animage", "Gundam" was twenty-fourth. The magazine "Wizard" listed the series as the second best anime of all time. By the end of 2007, each episode of the original TV series averaged a sales figure of 80,928 copies, including all of the different formats it was published in (VHS, LD, DVD, etc.). The first DVD box set sold over 100,000 copies in the first month of release, from December 21, 2007 to January 21, 2008. As part of the 30th Anniversary of the Gundam series, the company officially announced a project on March 11, 2009 called "Real-G", a plan to build a 1:1 real size scale Gundam in Japan. It was completed in July 2009 and displayed in a Tokyo park then taken down later. The 18-meter tall statue was reconstructed in Shizuoka Prefecture and was taken down in March 2011. In August 2011 it was dismantled only to reopen in Odaiba, Tokyo on April 19, 2012. It stood Odaiba along with a gift shop called "Gundam Front Tokyo" until it was dismantled in March 2016.
Most of the series' critical response has been owed to the setting and characters. John Oppliger observes that the characters of Amuro Ray, to whom the young Japanese of that time could easily relate, and Char Aznable, who was "simply [...] fascinating", made a major contribution to the series' popularity. He also concludes that "in many respects First Gundam stands for the nostalgic identifying values of everything that anime itself represents". The series has been praised by Anime News Network for the way it portrays war with Amuro facing traumatic moments as a result of killing enemy soldiers in his becoming of a soldier. The series is also notable for having humans from a different race as antagonists rather than evil creatures. However, the animation has been noted to have notoriously aged when compared with series seen in the 2000s.
Mecha anime creator Shoji Kawamori attended Keio University in the same years as "Macross" screenwriter Hiroshi Ōnogi and character designer Haruhiko Mikimoto, where they had a "Mobile Suit Gundam" fan club called "Gunsight One", a name they would use years later as the call sign of the bridge of the SDF-1 spaceship from their first "Macross" anime television series. In fact, "The Super Dimension Fortress Macross" mecha anime series was inspired by Gundam in several aspects during its early development. Guillermo Del Toro has cited the series as an influence on "Pacific Rim".
American musician Richie Kotzen, former guitarist from Poison and Mr. Big, released an album called "Ai Senshi ZxR" in 2006 in Japan. The album consisted of covered music from the Gundam series and original songs. American musician Andrew W.K. also released an album called "Gundam Rock" on September 9, 2009, in Japan. The album consists of covered music from the Gundam series to celebrate its 30th Anniversary.
The background research of "Mobile Suit Gundam" is well praised in its field. The positions in which the colonies (sides) are located in orbit are called Lagrangian points, and are real world solutions to the three body problem. The colonies (sides) are based on the O'Neill cylinder design for space habitats. The Gundam franchise was a major contributing factor to the fame of the O'Neil cylinder in Japan.
"Gundam the Ride: A Baoa Qu" was an amusement park attraction at the Fuji-Q Highland Amusement Park located in Fujiyoshida, Yamanashi, Japan. It was a dark ride for the park. Gundam the Ride, which opened to the public on July 20, 2000, was based on "Mobile Suit Gundam". Set during the final chaotic Battle of A Baoa Qu, Gundam the Ride places its riders in an Escape Launch Shuttle about to leave the battleship "Suruga".
The animation of Gundam the Ride used mostly computer graphics, however, all human characters were hand-drawn cel animation, similar to the style current "Gundam" video games are done in. All of the character designs for Gundam the Ride were done by Haruhiko Mikimoto. The ride's characters make a cameo appearance in the video game "Encounters in Space" while the player (playing as Amuro Ray in his Gundam) is making his way through the "Dolos".
The ride closed on January 8, 2007 and replaced with "Gundam Crisis Attraction" The main feature of this attraction is a full size 1:1 Gundam model, lying flat inside the venue. Instead of sitting in a movable cockpit and watching a CG movie, it requires participants to carry handheld devices throughout the attraction to find certain pieces of information, similar to a scavenger hunt, in order to activate the Gundam. The interior of the attraction is a mock-up of a Federation ship, and employees remain in-character inside of the ride.
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Methodism
Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity which derive their doctrine of practice and belief from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother Charles Wesley were also significant early leaders in the movement. It originated as a revival movement within the 18th-century Church of England and became a separate denomination after Wesley's death. The movement spread throughout the British Empire, the United States, and beyond because of vigorous missionary work, today claiming approximately 80 million adherents worldwide.
Wesleyan theology, which is upheld by the Methodist Churches, focuses on sanctification and the effect of faith on the character of a Christian. Distinguishing Methodist doctrines include the new birth, assurance, imparted righteousness, the possibility of entire sanctification, the works of piety, and the primacy of Scripture. Most Methodists teach that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died for all of humanity and that salvation is available for all; in theology, this view is known as Arminianism. This teaching rejects the Calvinist position that God has pre-ordained the salvation of a select group of people. However, Whitefield and several other early leaders of the movement were considered Calvinistic Methodists and held to the Calvinist position. In addition to evangelism, Methodism emphasises charity and support for the sick, the poor, and the afflicted through the works of mercy. These ideals, collectively known as the Social Gospel, are put into practice by the establishment of hospitals, orphanages, soup kitchens, and schools to follow Christ's command to spread the good news and serve all people.
The movement has a wide variety of forms of worship, ranging from high church to low church in liturgical usage. Denominations that descend from the British Methodist tradition are generally less ritualistic, while American Methodism is more so, the United Methodist Church in particular. Methodism is known for its rich musical tradition, and Charles Wesley was instrumental in writing much of the hymnody of the Methodist Church.
Early Methodists were drawn from all levels of society, including the aristocracy, but the Methodist preachers took the message to labourers and criminals who tended to be left outside organized religion at that time. In Britain, the Methodist Church had a major effect in the early decades of the developing working class (1760–1820). In the United States, it became the religion of many slaves who later formed black churches in the Methodist tradition.
The Methodist revival began in England with a group of men, including John Wesley (1703–1791) and his younger brother Charles (1707–1788), as a movement within the Church of England in the 18th century. The Wesley brothers founded the "Holy Club" at the University of Oxford, where John was a fellow and later a lecturer at Lincoln College. The club met weekly and they systematically set about living a holy life. They were accustomed to receiving Communion every week, fasting regularly, abstaining from most forms of amusement and luxury and frequently visited the sick and the poor, as well as prisoners. The fellowship were branded as "Methodist" by their fellow students because of the way they used "rule" and "method" to go about their religious affairs. John, who was leader of the club, took the attempted mockery and turned it into a title of honour.
In 1735, at the invitation of the founder of the Georgia Colony, General James Oglethorpe, both John and Charles Wesley set out for America to be ministers to the colonists and missionaries to the Native Americans. Unsuccessful in their work, the brothers returned to England conscious of their lack of genuine Christian faith. They looked for help to Peter Boehler and other members of the Moravian Church. At a Moravian service in Aldersgate on 24 May 1738, John experienced what has come to be called his evangelical conversion, when he felt his "heart strangely warmed". He records in his journal: "I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death." Charles had reported a similar experience a few days previously. Considered a pivotal moment, Daniel L. Burnett writes: "The significance of [John] Wesley's Aldersgate Experience is monumental … Without it the names of Wesley and Methodism would likely be nothing more than obscure footnotes in the pages of church history."
The Wesley brothers immediately began to preach salvation by faith to individuals and groups, in houses, in religious societies, and in the few churches which had not closed their doors to evangelical preachers. John Wesley came under the influence of the Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius (1560–1609). Arminius had rejected the Calvinist teaching that God had pre-ordained an elect number of people to eternal bliss while others perished eternally. Conversely, George Whitefield (1714–1770), Howell Harris (1714–1773), and Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon (1707–1791) were notable for being Calvinistic Methodists.
George Whitefield, returning from his own mission in Georgia, joined the Wesley brothers in what was rapidly to become a national crusade. Whitefield, who had been a fellow student of the Wesleys at Oxford, became well known for his unorthodox, itinerant ministry, in which he was dedicated to open-air preaching—reaching crowds of thousands. A key step in the development of John Wesley's ministry was, like Whitefield, to preach in fields, collieries and churchyards to those who did not regularly attend parish church services. Accordingly, many Methodist converts were those disconnected from the Church of England; Wesley remained a cleric of the Established Church and insisted that Methodists attend their local parish church as well as Methodist meetings.
Faced with growing evangelistic and pastoral responsibilities, Wesley and Whitefield appointed lay preachers and leaders. Methodist preachers focused particularly on evangelising people who had been "neglected" by the established Church of England. Wesley and his assistant preachers organised the new converts into Methodist societies. These societies were divided into groups called "classes"—intimate meetings where individuals were encouraged to confess their sins to one another and to build each other up. They also took part in love feasts which allowed for the sharing of testimony, a key feature of early Methodism. Growth in numbers and increasing hostility impressed upon the revival converts a deep sense of their corporate identity. Three teachings that Methodists saw as the foundation of Christian faith were:
Wesley's organisational skills soon established him as the primary leader of the movement. Whitefield was a Calvinist, whereas Wesley was an outspoken opponent of the doctrine of predestination. Wesley argued (against Calvinist doctrine) that Christians could enjoy a second blessing—entire sanctification (Christian perfection) in this life: loving God and their neighbours, meekness and lowliness of heart and abstaining from all appearance of evil. These differences put strains on the alliance between Whitefield and Wesley, with Wesley becoming quite hostile toward Whitefield in what had been previously very close relations. Whitefield consistently begged Wesley not to let theological differences sever their friendship and, in time their friendship was restored, though this was seen by many of Whitefield's followers to be a doctrinal compromise.
Many clergy in the established church feared that new doctrines promulgated by the Methodists, such as the necessity of a new birth for salvation—the first work of grace, of justification by faith and of the constant and sustained action of the Holy Spirit upon the believer's soul, would produce ill effects upon weak minds. Theophilus Evans, an early critic of the movement, even wrote that it was "the natural Tendency of their Behaviour, in Voice and Gesture and horrid Expressions, to make People mad". In one of his prints, William Hogarth likewise attacked Methodists as "enthusiasts" full of "Credulity, Superstition, and Fanaticism". Other attacks against the Methodists were physically violent—Wesley was nearly murdered by a mob at Wednesbury in 1743. The Methodists responded vigorously to their critics and thrived despite the attacks against them.
Initially, the Methodists merely sought reform within the Church of England (Anglicanism), but the movement gradually departed from that Church. George Whitefield's preference for extemporaneous prayer rather than the fixed forms of prayer in the "Book of Common Prayer", in addition to his insistence on the necessity of the New Birth, set him at odds with Anglican clergy.
As Methodist societies multiplied, and elements of an ecclesiastical system were, one after another, adopted, the breach between John Wesley and the Church of England gradually widened. In 1784, Wesley responded to the shortage of priests in the American colonies due to the American Revolutionary War by ordaining preachers for America with power to administer the sacraments. This was a major reason for Methodism's final split from the Church of England after Wesley's death. This split created a separate, eventually worldwide, group of church denominations.
With regard to the position of Methodism within Christendom, "John Wesley once noted that what God had achieved in the development of Methodism was no mere human endeavor but the work of God. As such it would be preserved by God so long as history remained." Calling it "the grand depositum" of the Methodist faith, Wesley specifically taught that the propagation of the doctrine of entire sanctification was the reason that God raised up the Methodists in the world.
The influence of Whitefield and Lady Huntingdon on the Church of England was a factor in the founding of the Free Church of England in 1844. At the time of Wesley's death there were over 500 Methodist preachers in British colonies and the United States. Total membership of the Methodist societies in Britain was recorded as 56,000 in 1791, rising to 360,000 in 1836 and 1,463,000 by the national census of 1851.
Early Methodism experienced a radical and spiritual phase that allowed women authority in church leadership. The role of the woman preacher emerged from the sense that the home should be a place of community care and should foster personal growth. Methodist women formed a community that cared for the vulnerable, extending the role of mothering beyond physical care. Women were encouraged to testify their faith. However the centrality of women's role sharply diminished after 1790 as Methodist churches became more structured and more male dominated.
The Wesleyan Education Committee, which existed from 1838 to 1902, has documented the Methodist Church's involvement in the education of children. At first most effort was placed in creating Sunday Schools but in 1836 the British Methodist Conference gave its blessing to the creation of "Weekday schools".
Methodism spread throughout the British Empire and, mostly through Whitefield's preaching during what historians call the First Great Awakening, in colonial America. After Whitefield's death in 1770, however, American Methodism entered a more lasting Wesleyan and Arminian phase of development.
Many Methodist bodies, such as the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the United Methodist Church, base their doctrinal standards on Wesley's Articles of Religion, an abridgment of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England that excised its Calvinist features. Some Methodist denominations also publish catechisms, which concisely summarise Christian doctrine. Methodists generally accept the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed as declarations of shared Christian faith. Methodism also affirms the traditional Christian belief in the triune Godhead: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as well as the orthodox understanding of the consubstantial humanity and divinity of Jesus Christ. Methodism emphasises doctrines that indicate the power of the Holy Spirit to strengthen the faith of believers and to transform their personal lives.
Methodism is broadly evangelical in doctrine and is characterized by Wesleyan–Arminian theology. John Wesley is studied by Methodists for his interpretation of church practice and doctrine. At its heart, the theology of John Wesley stressed the life of Christian holiness: to love God with all one's heart, mind, soul and strength and to love one's neighbour as oneself. One popular expression of Methodist doctrine is in the hymns of Charles Wesley. Since enthusiastic congregational singing was a part of the early evangelical movement, Wesleyan theology took root and spread through this channel.
Wesleyan Methodists identify with the Arminian conception of free will, as opposed to the theological determinism of absolute predestination. Methodism teaches that salvation is initiated when one chooses to respond to God, who draws the individual near to him (the Wesleyan doctrine of prevenient grace), thus teaching synergism. Methodists interpret Scripture as teaching that the saving work of Jesus Christ is for all people (unlimited atonement) but effective only to those who respond and believe, in accordance with the Reformation principles of "sola gratia" (grace alone) and "sola fide" (faith alone). John Wesley taught four key points fundamental to Methodism:
After the first work of grace (the new birth), Methodist soteriology emphasizes the importance of the pursuit of holiness in salvation, a concept best summarized in a quote by Methodist evangelist Phoebe Palmer who stated that "justification would have ended with me had I refused to be holy." Thus, for Methodists, "true faith..."cannot" subsist without works". Methodism, inclusive of the holiness movement, thus teaches that "justification [is made] conditional on obedience and progress in sanctification", emphasizing "a deep reliance upon Christ not only in coming to faith, but in remaining in the faith". John Wesley taught that the keeping of the moral law contained in the Ten Commandments, as well as engaging in the works of piety and the works of mercy, were "indispensible for our sanctification". If a person backslides but later decides to return to God, he or she must confess his or her sins and be entirely sanctified again (see conditional security).
Methodists hold that sacraments are sacred acts of divine institution. Methodism has inherited its liturgy from Anglicanism, although American Methodist theology tends to have a stronger "sacramental emphasis" than that held by Evangelical Anglicans.
In common with most Protestants, Methodists recognise two sacraments as being instituted by Christ: Baptism and Holy Communion (also called the "Lord's Supper", rarely the "Eucharist"). Most Methodist churches practice infant baptism, in anticipation of a response to be made later (confirmation), as well as believer's baptism. The "Catechism for the use of the people called Methodists" states that, "[in Holy Communion] Jesus Christ is present with his worshipping people and gives himself to them as their Lord and Saviour". The explanation of how Christ's presence is made manifest in the elements (bread and wine) is a "Holy Mystery".
Methodist churches generally recognise sacraments to be a means of grace. John Wesley held that God also imparted grace by other established means such as public and private prayer, Scripture reading, study and preaching, public worship, and fasting. These constitute the Works of Piety. Wesley considered means of grace to be "outward signs, words, or actions ... to be the ordinary channels whereby [God] might convey to men, preventing [i.e., preparing], justifying or sanctifying grace". Specifically Methodist means, such as the class meetings, provided his chief examples for these prudential means of grace.
Traditionally, Methodists declare the Bible (Old and New Testaments) to be the only divinely inspired Scripture and the primary source of authority for Christians. The historic Methodist understanding of Scripture is based on the superstructure of Wesleyan covenant theology. Methodists, stemming from John Wesley's own practices of theological reflection, also make use of tradition, drawing primarily from the teachings of the Church Fathers, as a source of authority. Though not infallible like holy Scripture, tradition may serve as a lens through which Scripture is interpreted. Theological discourse for Methodists almost always makes use of Scripture read inside the wider theological tradition of Christianity.
It is a historical position of the church that any disciplined theological work calls for the careful use of reason. By reason, it is said, one reads and is able to interpret the Bible coherently and consistently. By reason, one asks questions of faith and seeks to understand God's action and will. Methodism insists that personal salvation always implies Christian mission and service to the world. Scriptural holiness entails more than personal piety; love of God is always linked with love of neighbours and a passion for justice and renewal in the life of the world.
Methodism was endowed by the Wesley brothers with worship characterised by a twofold practice: the ritual liturgy of the "Book of Common Prayer" on the one hand and the informal preaching service on the other.
This twofold practice became distinctive of Methodism because worship in the Church of England was based, by law, solely on the "Book of Common Prayer" and worship in the Non-conformist churches was almost exclusively that of "services of the word", i.e. preaching services, with Holy Communion being observed infrequently. John Wesley's influence meant that, in Methodism, the two practices were combined, a situation which remains characteristic of the movement. The Lovefeast, traditionally practiced quarterly, was another practice that characterized early Methodism as John Wesley taught that it was an apostolic ordinance.
In America, the United Methodist Church and Free Methodist Church, as well as the Primitive Methodist Church and Wesleyan Methodist Church, have a wide variety of forms of worship, ranging from high church to low church in liturgical usage. When the Methodists in America were separated from the Church of England because of the American Revolution, John Wesley himself provided a revised version of the "Book of Common Prayer" called "The Sunday Service of the Methodists; With Other Occasional Services" (1784). Today, the primary liturgical books of the United Methodist Church are "The United Methodist Hymnal" and "The United Methodist Book of Worship". Congregations employ its liturgy and rituals as optional resources, but their use is not mandatory. These books contain the liturgies of the church that are generally derived from Wesley's "Sunday Service" and from the 20th-century liturgical renewal movement.
The British Methodist Church is less ordered or liturgical in worship, but makes use of the "Methodist Worship Book" (similar to the Church of England's "Common Worship"), containing worship services (liturgies) and rubrics for the celebration of other rites, such as marriage. The "Worship Book" is also ultimately derived from Wesley's "Sunday Service".
A unique feature of American Methodism has been the observance of the season of Kingdomtide, encompassing the last 13 weeks before Advent, thus dividing the long season after Pentecost into two distinct segments. During Kingdomtide, Methodist liturgy has traditionally emphasised charitable work and alleviating the suffering of the poor.
A second distinctive liturgical feature of Methodism is the use of Covenant Services. Although practice varies between different national churches, most Methodist churches annually follow the call of John Wesley for a renewal of their covenant with God. It is common, at least in British Methodism, for each congregation to normally hold an annual Covenant Service on the first convenient Sunday of the year, and Wesley's covenant prayer is still used, with minor modification, in the order of service:
As John Wesley advocated outdoor evangelism, revival services are a traditional worship practice of Methodism that are often held in churches, as well as at camp meetings and at tent revivals.
Early Methodists wore plain dress, with Methodist clergy condemning "high headdresses, ruffles, laces, gold, and 'costly apparel' in general". John Wesley recommended that Methodists annually read his thoughts "On Dress"; in that sermon, John Wesley expressed his desire for Methodists: "Let me see, before I die, a Methodist congregation, full as plain dressed as a Quaker congregation". The 1858 Discipline of the Wesleyan Methodist Connection thus stated that "we would ... enjoin on all who fear God plain dress". Peter Cartwright, a Methodist revivalist, stated that in addition to wearing plain dress, the early Methodists distinguished themselves from other members of society by fasting once a week, abstaining from alcohol (teetotalism), and devoutly observing the Sabbath. Methodist circuit riders were known for practicing the spiritual discipline of mortifying the flesh as they "arose well before dawn for solitary prayer; they remained on their knees without food or drink or physical comforts sometimes for hours on end". The early Methodists did not participate in, and condemned, "worldly habits" including "playing cards, racing horses, gambling, attending the theater, dancing (both in frolics and balls), and cockfighting".
Over time, many of these practices were gradually relaxed in mainline Methodism, although practices such as teetotalism and fasting are still very much encouraged, in addition to the current prohibition of gambling; denominations of the conservative holiness movement, such as the Allegheny Wesleyan Methodist Connection and Bible Methodist Connection of Churches, continue to reflect the spirit of the historic Methodist practice of wearing plain dress, encouraging members in "abstaining from the wearing of extravagant hairstyles, jewelry—to include rings, and expensive clothing for any reason". The General Rules of the Methodist Church in America, which are among the doctrinal standards of many Methodist Churches, promote first-day Sabbatarianism as they require "attending upon all the ordinances of God" including "the public worship of God" and prohibit "profaning the day of the Lord, either by doing ordinary work therein or by buying or selling".
Today, millions belong to Methodist churches, which are present on all populated continents. Although Methodism is declining in Great Britain and North America, it is growing in other places; at a rapid pace in, for example, South Korea.
There is no single Methodist Church with universal juridical authority; Methodists belong to multiple independent denominations or "connexions". The great majority of Methodists are members of denominations which are part of the international World Methodist Council, an association of 80 Methodist, Wesleyan and related united and uniting churches, representing over 80 million people. In 1956, the World Methodist Council established a permanent headquarters in the United States at Lake Junaluska, North Carolina.
Methodism is prevalent in the English-speaking world but it is also organised in mainland Europe, largely due to missionary activity of British and American Methodists. British missionaries were primarily responsible for establishing Methodism across Ireland and Italy. Today the United Methodist Church (UMC)—a large denomination based in the United States—has a presence in Albania, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, and Ukraine. Collectively the European and Eurasian regions of the UMC constitute over 100,000 Methodists. Other smaller Methodist denominations exist in Europe.
The original body founded as a result of Wesley's work came to be known as the Wesleyan Methodist Church. Schisms within the original Church, and independent revivals, led to the formation of a number of separate denominations calling themselves "Methodist". The largest of these were the Primitive Methodist church, deriving from a revival at Mow Cop in Staffordshire, the Bible Christians and the Methodist New Connexion. The original church became known as the Wesleyan Methodist Church to distinguish it from these bodies. In 1907, a union of smaller groups with the Methodist New Connexion and Bible Christian Church brought about the United Methodist Church (Great Britain), then the three major streams of British Methodism united in 1932 to form the current Methodist Church of Great Britain. The fourth-largest denomination in the country, the Methodist Church of Great Britain has about 202,000 members in 4,650 congregations.
Early Methodism was particularly prominent in Devon and Cornwall, which were key centers of activity by the Bible Christian faction of Methodists. The Bible Christians produced many preachers, and sent many missionaries to Australia. Methodism also grew rapidly in the old mill towns of Yorkshire and Lancashire, where the preachers stressed that the working classes were equal to the upper classes in the eyes of God. In Wales, three elements separately welcomed Methodism: Welsh-speaking, English-speaking, and Calvinistic.
British Methodists, in particular the Primitive Methodists, took a leading role in the temperance movement of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Methodists saw alcoholic beverages, and alcoholism, as the root of many social ills and tried to persuade people to abstain from these. Temperance appealed strongly to the Methodist doctrines of sanctification and perfection. To this day, alcohol remains banned in Methodist premises, however this restriction no longer applies to domestic occasions in private homes (i.e. the minister may have a drink at home in the manse). The choice to consume alcohol is now a personal decision for any member.
British Methodism does not have bishops; however, it has always been characterised by a strong central organisation, the Connexion, which holds an annual Conference (note that the Church retains the 18th-century spelling "connexion" for many purposes). The Connexion is divided into Districts in the charge of the Chair (who may be male or female). Methodist districts often correspond approximately, in geographical terms, to counties—as do Church of England dioceses. The districts are divided into circuits governed by the Circuit Meeting and led and administrated principally by a superintendent minister. Ministers are appointed to Circuits rather than to individual churches, although some large inner-city churches, known as "central halls", are designated as circuits in themselves—of these Westminster Central Hall, opposite Westminster Abbey in central London, is the best known. Most circuits have fewer ministers than churches, and the majority of services are led by lay local preachers, or by supernumerary ministers (ministers who have retired, called supernumerary because they are not counted for official purposes in the numbers of ministers for the circuit in which they are listed). The superintendent and other ministers are assisted in the leadership and administration of the Circuit by Circuit Stewards, lay people who may have particular skills who collectively with the ministers form what is normally known as the Circuit Leadership Team.
The Methodist Council also helps to run a number of schools, including two leading public schools in East Anglia: Culford School and the Leys School. It helps to promote an all round education with a strong Christian ethos.
Other Methodist denominations in Britain include: The Salvation Army, founded by Methodist minister William Booth in 1865; the Free Methodist Church, a holiness church; the Church of the Nazarene; the Wesleyan Reform Union, an early secession from the Wesleyan Methodist Church; and the Independent Methodist Connexion.
John Wesley visited Ireland on at least twenty-four occasions and established classes and societies. The Methodist Church in Ireland () today operates across both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland on an all-Ireland basis. there are around 50,000 Methodists across Ireland. The biggest concentration–13,171–is in Belfast, with 2,614 in Dublin. it is the fourth-largest denomination in Northern Ireland, with Methodists accounting for 3 percent of the population.
Eric Gallagher was the President of the Church in the 1970s, becoming a well-known figure in Irish politics. He was one of the group of Protestant churchmen who met with Provisional IRA officers in Feakle, County Clare to try to broker peace. The meeting was unsuccessful due to a Garda raid on the hotel.
The Italian Methodist Church () is a small Protestant community in Italy, with around 7,000 members. Since 1975 it is in a formal covenant of partnership with the Waldensian Church, with a total of 45,000 members. Waldensians are a Protestant movement which started in Lyon, France, in the late 1170s.
Italian Methodism has its origins in the Italian Free Church, British Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, and the American Methodist Episcopal Mission. These movements flowered in the second half of the 19th century in the new climate of political and religious freedom that was established with the end of the Papal States and unification of Italy in 1870.
Bertrand M. Tipple, minister of the American Methodist Church in Rome, founded a college there in 1914.
In April 2016 the World Methodist Council opened an Ecumenical Office in Rome. Methodist leaders and the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis, jointly dedicated the new office. It helps facilitate Methodist relationships with the wider Church, especially the Roman Catholic Church.
The "Nordic and Baltic Area" of the United Methodist Church covers the Nordic countries (Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland) and the Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania). Methodism was introduced to the Nordic countries in the late 19th century. Today the United Methodist Church in Norway () is the largest church in the region with 10,684 members in total ().
The French Methodist movement was founded in the 1820s by Charles Cook in the village of Congénies in Languedoc near Nîmes and Montpellier. The most important chapel of department was built in 1869, where there had been a Quaker community since the 18th century. Sixteen Methodist congregations voted to join the Reformed Church of France in 1938. In the 1980s, missionary work of a Methodist church in Agen led to new initiatives in Fleurance and Mont de Marsan.
Methodism exists today in France under various names. The best-known is the Union of Evangelical Methodist Churches () or UEEM. It is an autonomous regional conference of the United Methodist Church and is the fruit of a fusion in 2005 between the "Methodist Church of France" and the "Union of Methodist Churches". , the UEEM has around 1,200 members and 30 ministers.
The Protestant-Methodist Church () is the name of the United Methodist Church in Germany and Austria. The German church had about 52,031 members . Members are organised into three conferences: north, east and south. Methodism is most prevalent in southern Saxony and around Stuttgart.
British Methodist missionaries introduced Methodism to Germany in 1830, initially in the region of Württemberg. In 1859, the first Methodist minister arrived in Württemberg. Methodism was also spread in Germany through the missionary work of the American Methodist Episcopal Church, which began in 1849 in Bremen, soon spreading to Saxony. Early opposition towards Methodism was partly rooted in theological differences—northern and eastern regions of Germany were predominantly Lutheran and Reformed, and Methodists were dismissed as fanatics. Methodism was also hindered by its unfamiliar church structure (Connectionalism or "Konnexionalismus"), which was more centralised than the hierarchical polity in the Lutheran and Reformed churches. After World War I, the 1919 Weimar Constitution allowed Methodists to worship freely and many new chapels were established. In 1936, German Methodists elected their first bishop.
The first Methodist mission in Hungary was established in 1898 in Bácska, in a then mostly German-speaking town of Verbász (since 1918 part of the Serbian province of Vojvodina). In 1905 a Methodist mission was established also in Budapest. In 1974, a group later known as the Hungarian Evangelical Fellowship seceded from the Hungarian Methodist Church over the question of interference by the communist state.
, the United Methodist Church in Hungary, known locally as the Hungarian Methodist Church (), has 453 professing members in 30 congregations. It runs two student homes, two homes for the elderly, the Forray Methodist High School, the Wesley Scouts and the Methodist Library and Archives. The church has a special ministry among the Roma.
The seceding Hungarian Evangelical Fellowship () also remains Methodist in its organisation and theology. It has eight full congregations and several mission groups, and runs a range of charitable organisations: hostels and soup kitchens for the homeless, a non-denominational theological college, a dozen schools of various kinds, and four old people's homes.
Today there are a dozen Methodist/Wesleyan churches and mission organisations in Hungary, but all Methodist churches lost official church status under new legislation passed in 2011, when the number of officially recognised churches in the country fell to 14. However, the list of recognised churches was lengthened to 32 at the end of February 2012. This gave recognition to Hungarian Methodist Church and the Salvation Army, which was banned in Hungary in 1949 but had returned in 1990, but not to the Hungarian Evangelical Fellowship. The legislation has been strongly criticised by the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe as discriminatory.
The Hungarian Methodist Church, the Salvation Army and the Church of the Nazarene and other Wesleyan groups formed the Wesley Theological Alliance for theological and publishing purposes in 1998. Today the Alliance has 10 Wesleyan member churches and organisations. The Hungarian Evangelical Fellowship does not belong to it and has its own publishing arm.
The Methodist Church established several strongholds in Russia—Saint Petersburg in the west and the Vladivostok region in the east, with big Methodist centres right in the middle, in Moscow and Ekaterinburg (former Sverdlovsk). Methodists began their work in the west among Swedish immigrants in 1881 and started their work in the east in 1910. On 26 June 2009, Methodists celebrated the 120th year since Methodism arrived in Czarist Russia by erecting a new Methodist centre in Saint Petersburg. A Methodist presence was continued in Russia for 14 years after the Russian Revolution of 1917 through the efforts of Deaconess Anna Eklund. In 1939, political antagonism stymied the work of the Church and Deaconess Anna Eklund was coerced to return to her native Finland.
After 1989, the Soviet Union allowed greatly increased religious freedoms and this continued after the USSR's collapse in 1991. During the 1990s, Methodism experienced a powerful wave of revival in the nation. Three sites in particular carried the torch—Samara, Moscow and Ekaterinburg. , the United Methodist Church in Eurasia comprised 116 congregations, each with a native pastor. There are currently 48 students enrolled in residential and extension degree programs at the United Methodist Seminary in Moscow.
Methodism came to the Caribbean in 1760 when the planter, lawyer and Speaker of the Antiguan House of Assembly, Nathaniel Gilbert (c. 1719–1774), returned to his sugar estate home in Antigua. A Methodist revival spread in the British West Indies due to the work of British missionaries. Missionaries established societies which would later become the Methodist Church in the Caribbean and the Americas (MCCA). The MCCA has about 62,000 members in over 700 congregations, ministered by 168 pastors. There are smaller Methodist denominations that have seceded from the parent church.
The story is often told that in 1755, Nathaniel Gilbert, while convalescing, read a treatise of John Wesley, "An Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion" sent to him by his brother Francis. As a result of having read this book Gilbert, two years later, journeyed to England with three of his slaves and there in a drawing room meeting arranged in Wandsworth on 15 January 1759, met the preacher John Wesley. He returned to the Caribbean that same year and on his subsequent return began to preach to his slaves in Antigua.
When Nathaniel Gilbert died in 1774 his work in Antigua was continued by his brother Francis Gilbert to approximately 200 Methodists. However, within a year Francis took ill and had to return to Britain and the work was carried on by Sophia Campbell ("a Negress") and Mary Alley ("a Mulatto"), two devoted women who kept the flock together with class and prayer meetings as best as they could.
On 2 April 1778, John Baxter, a local preacher and skilled shipwright from Chatham in Kent, England, landed at "English" harbour in Antigua (now called Nelson's Dockyard) where he was offered a post at the naval dockyard. Baxter was a Methodist and had heard of the work of the Gilberts and their need for a new preacher. He began preaching and meeting with the Methodist leaders, and within a year the Methodist community had grown to 600 persons. By 1783, the first Methodist chapel was built in Antigua, with John Baxter as the local preacher, its wooden structure seating some 2,000 people.
In 1785, William Turton (1761–1817) a Barbadian son of a planter, met John Baxter in Antigua, and later, as layman, assisted in the Methodist work in the Swedish colony of St. Bartholomew from 1796.
In 1786 the missionary endeavour in the Caribbean was officially recognised by the Conference in England, and that same year Thomas Coke, having been made Superintendent of the church two years previously in America by Wesley, was travelling to Nova Scotia, but weather forced his ship to Antigua.
In 1818 Edward Fraser (1798 – Aft. 1850), a privileged Barbadian slave, moved to Bermuda and subsequently met the new minister James Dunbar. The Nova Scotia Methodist Minister noted young Fraser's sincerity and commitment to his congregation and encouraged him by appointing him as assistant. By 1827 Fraser assisted in building a new chapel. He was later freed and admitted to the Methodist Ministry to serve in Antigua and Jamaica.
Following William J. Shrewsbury's preaching in the 1820s, Sarah Ann Gill (1779–1866), a free-born black woman, used civil disobedience in an attempt to thwart magistrate rulings that prevented parishioners holding prayer meetings. In hopes of building a new chapel, she paid an extraordinary £1,700-0s–0d and ended up having militia appointed by the Governor to protect her home from demolition.
In 1884 an attempt was made at autonomy with the formation of two West Indian Conferences, however by 1903 the venture had failed. It was not until the 1960s that another attempt was made at autonomy. This second attempt resulted in the emergence of the Methodist Church in the Caribbean and the Americas in May 1967.
Francis Godson (1864–1953), a Methodist minister, who having served briefly in several of the Caribbean islands, eventually immersed himself in helping those in hardship of the First World War in Barbados. He was later appointed to the Legislative Council of Barbados, and fought for the rights of pensioners. He was later followed by renowned Barbadian Augustus Rawle Parkinson (1864–1932), who also was the first principal of the Wesley Hall School, Bridgetown in Barbados (which celebrated its 125th anniversary in September 2009).
In more recent times in Barbados, Victor Alphonso Cooke (born 1930) and Lawrence Vernon Harcourt Lewis (born 1932) are strong influences on the Methodist Church on the island. Their contemporary and late member of the Dalkeith Methodist Church, was the former secretary of the University of the West Indies, consultant of the "Canadian Training Aid Programme" and a man of letters – Francis Woodbine Blackman (1922–2010). It was his research and published works that enlightened much of this information on Caribbean Methodism.
Most Methodist denominations in Africa follow the British Methodist tradition and see the Methodist Church of Great Britain as their mother church. Originally modelled on the British structure, since independence most of these churches have adopted an episcopal model.
The Nigerian Methodist Church is one of the largest Methodist denominations in the world and one of the largest Christian churches in Nigeria, with around two million members in 2000 congregations. It has seen exponential growth since the turn of the millennium.
Christianity was established in Nigeria with the arrival in 1842 of a Wesleyan Methodist missionary. He had come in response to the request for missionaries by the ex-slaves who returned to Nigeria from Sierra Leone. From the mission stations established in Badagry and Abeokuta, the Methodist church spread to various parts of the country west of the River Niger and part of the north. In 1893 missionaries of the Primitive Methodist Church arrived from Fernando Po, an island off the southern coast of Nigeria. From there the Methodist Church spread to other parts of the country, east of the River Niger and also to parts of the north. The church west of the River Niger and part of the north was known as the Western Nigeria District and east of the Niger and another part of the north as the Eastern Nigeria District. Both existed independently of each other until 1962 when they constituted the Conference of Methodist Church Nigeria. The conference is composed of seven districts. The church has continued to spread into new areas and has established a department for evangelism and appointed a director of evangelism. An episcopal system adopted in 1976 was not fully accepted by all sections of the church until the two sides came together and resolved to end the disagreement. A new constitution was ratified in 1990. The system is still episcopal but the points which caused discontent were amended to be acceptable to both sides. Today, the Nigerian Methodist Church has a prelate, eight archbishops and 44 bishops.
Methodist Church Ghana is one of the largest Methodist denominations, with around 800,000 members in 2,905 congregations, ministered by 700 pastors. It has fraternal links with the British Methodist and United Methodist churches worldwide.
Methodism in Ghana came into existence as a result of the missionary activities of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, inaugurated with the arrival of Joseph Rhodes Dunwell to the Gold Coast in 1835. Like the mother church, the Methodist Church in Ghana was established by people of Protestant background. Roman Catholic and Anglican missionaries came to the Gold Coast from the 15th century. A school was established in Cape Coast by the Anglicans during the time of Philip Quaque, a Ghanaian priest. Those who came out of this school had Bible copies and study supplied by the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge. A member of the resulting Bible study groups, William De-Graft, requested Bibles through Captain Potter of the ship "Congo". Not only were Bibles sent, but also a Methodist missionary. In the first eight years of the Church's life, 11 out of 21 missionaries who worked in the Gold Coast died. Thomas Birch Freeman, who arrived at the Gold Coast in 1838 was a pioneer of missionary expansion. Between 1838 and 1857 he carried Methodism from the coastal areas to Kumasi in the Asante hinterland of the Gold Coast. He also established Methodist Societies in Badagry and AbeoKuta in Nigeria with the assistance of William De-Graft.
By 1854, the church was organized into circuits constituting a district with T. B. Freeman as chairman. Freeman was replaced in 1856 by William West. The district was divided and extended to include areas in the then Gold Coast and Nigeria by the synod in 1878, a move confirmed at the British Conference. The district were Gold Coast District, with T.R. Picot as chairman and Yoruba and Popo District, with John Milum as chairman. Methodist evangelisation of northern Gold Coast began in 1910. After a long period of conflict with the colonial government, missionary work was established in 1955. Paul Adu was the first indigenous missionary to northern Gold Coast.
In July 1961, the Methodist Church in Ghana became autonomous, and was called the Methodist Church Ghana, based on a deed of foundation, part of the church's "Constitution and Standing Orders".
The Methodist Church operates across South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland, with a limited presence in Zimbabwe and Mozambique. It is a member church of the World Methodist Council.
Methodism in Southern Africa began as a result of lay Christian work by an Irish soldier of the English Regiment, John Irwin, who was stationed at the Cape and began to hold prayer meetings as early as 1795. The first Methodist lay preacher at the Cape, George Middlemiss, was a soldier of the 72nd regiment of the British Army stationed at the Cape in 1805. This foundation paved the way for missionary work by Methodist missionary societies from Great Britain, many of whom sent missionaries with the 1820 English settlers to the Western and Eastern Cape. Among the most notable of the early missionaries were Barnabas Shaw and William Shaw. The largest group was the Wesleyan Methodist Church, but there were a number of others that joined together to form the Methodist Church of South Africa, later known as the Methodist Church of Southern Africa.
The Methodist Church of Southern Africa is the largest mainline Protestant denomination in South Africa—7.3 percent of the South African population recorded their religious affiliation as 'Methodist' in the last national census.
Methodism was brought to China in the autumn of 1847 by the Methodist Episcopal Church. The first missionaries sent out were Judson Dwight Collins and Moses Clark White, who sailed from Boston 15 April 1847, and reached Foochow 6 September. They were followed by Henry Hickok and Robert Samuel Maclay, who arrived 15 April 1848. In 1857 it baptised the first convert in connection with its labours. In August 1856, a brick built church, called the "Church of the True God" (真神堂), the first substantial church building erected at Foochow by Protestant Missions, was dedicated to the worship of God. In the winter of the same year another brick built church, located on the hill in the suburbs on the south bank of the Min, was finished and dedicated, called the "Church of Heavenly Peace" (天安堂). In 1862, the number of members was 87. The Foochow Conference was organised by Isaac W. Wiley on 6 December 1867, by which time the number of members and probationers had reached 2,011.
Hok Chau 周學 (also known as Lai-Tong Chau, 周勵堂) was the first Chinese ordained minister of the South China District of the Methodist Church (incumbent 1877–1916). Benjamin Hobson (1816–1873), a medical missionary sent by the London Missionary Society in 1839, set up a highly successful Wai Ai Clinic (惠愛醫館) Liang Fa (Leung Fat in Cantonese, 梁發, 1789–1855, ordained by the London Missionary Society), Hok Chau and others worked there. Liang (age 63) baptized Chau (quite young) in 1852. The Methodist Church based in Britain sent missionary George Piercy to China. In 1851, Piercy went to Guangzhou (Canton), where he worked in a trading company. In 1853, he started a church in Guangzhou. In 1877, Chau was ordained by the Methodist Church, where he pastored for 39 years.
In 1867, the mission sent out the first missionaries to Central China, who began work at Kiukiang. In 1869 missionaries were also sent to the capital city Peking, where they laid the foundations of the work of the North China Mission. In November 1880, the West China Mission was established in Sichuan Province. In 1896 the work in the Hinghua prefecture (modern-day Putian) and surrounding regions was also organized as a Mission Conference.
In 1947, the Methodist Church in the Republic of China celebrated its centenary. In 1949, however, the Methodist Church moved to Taiwan with the Kuomintang government. On 21 June 1953, Taipei Methodist Church was erected, then local churches and chapels with a baptized membership numbering over 2,500. Various types of educational, medical and social services are provided (including Tunghai University).
In 1972 the Methodist Church in the Republic of China became autonomous and the first bishop was installed in 1986.
Methodism came to India twice, in 1817 and in 1856, according to P. Dayanandan who has done extensive research on the subject. Thomas Coke and six other missionaries set sail for India on New Year's Day in 1814. Coke, then 66, died en route. Rev. James Lynch was the one who finally arrived in Madras in 1817 at a place called Black Town (Broadway), later known as George Town. Lynch conducted the first Methodist missionary service on 2 March 1817, in a stable.
The first Methodist church was dedicated in 1819 at Royapettah. A chapel at Broadway (Black Town) was later built and dedicated on 25 April 1822. This church was rebuilt in 1844 since the earlier structure was collapsing. At this time there were about 100 Methodist members in all of Madras, and they were either Europeans or Eurasians (European and Indian descent). Among names associated with the founding period of Methodism in India are Elijah Hoole and Thomas Cryer, who came as missionaries to Madras.
In 1857, the Methodist Episcopal Church started its work in India, and with prominent evangelists like William Taylor the Emmanuel Methodist Church, Vepery, was born in 1874. The evangelist James Mills Thoburn established the Thoburn Memorial Church in Calcutta in 1873 and the Calcutta Boys' School in 1877.
In 1947 the Wesleyan Methodist Church in India merged with Presbyterians, Anglicans and other Protestant churches to form the Church of South India while the American Methodist Church remained affiliated as the Methodist Church in Southern Asia (MCSA) to the mother church in USA- the United Methodist Church until 1981, when by an enabling act the Methodist Church in India (MCI) became an autonomous church in India. Today, the Methodist Church in India is governed by the General Conference of the Methodist Church of India headed by six Bishops, with headquarters at Methodist Centre, 21 YMCA Road, Mumbai, India.
Missionaries from Britain, North America, and Australia founded Methodist churches in many Commonwealth countries. These are now independent and many of them are stronger than the former "mother" churches. In addition to the churches, these missionaries often also founded schools to serve the local community. A good example of such schools are the Methodist Boys' School in Kuala Lumpur, Methodist Girls' School and Methodist Boys' School in George Town, and Anglo-Chinese School, Methodist Girls' School, Paya Lebar Methodist Girls School and Fairfield Methodist Schools in Singapore.
Methodism in the Philippines began shortly after the United States acquired the Philippines in 1898 as a result the Spanish–American War. On 21 June 1898, after the Battle of Manila Bay but before the Treaty of Paris, executives of the American Mission Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church expressed their desire to join other Protestant denominations in starting mission work in the islands and to enter into a Comity Agreement that would facilitate the establishment of such missions. The first Protestant worship service was conducted on 28 August 1898 by an American military chaplain named George C. Stull. Stull was an ordained Methodist minister from the Montana Annual Conference of The Methodist Episcopal Church (later part of the United Methodist Church after 1968).
Methodist and Wesleyan traditions in the Philippines are shared by three of the largest mainline Protestant churches in the country: The United Methodist Church, "Iglesia Evangelica Metodista En Las Islas Filipinas" ("Evangelical Methodist Church in the Philippine Islands", abbreviated IEMELIF), and The United Church of Christ in the Philippines. There are also evangelical Protestant churches in the country of the Methodist tradition like the Wesleyan Church of the Philippines, Inc. the Free Methodist Church of the Philippines, and the Church of the Nazarene. There are also the IEMELIF Reform Movement (IRM), The Wesleyan (Pilgrim Holiness) Church of the Philippines, the Philippine Bible Methodist Church, Inc., the Pentecostal Free Methodist Church, Inc., the Fundamental Christian Methodist Church, The Reformed Methodist Church, Inc., The Methodist Church of the Living Bread, Inc., and the Wesley Evangelical Methodist Church & Mission, Inc.
There are three Episcopal Areas of the United Methodist Church in the Philippines: the Baguio Episcopal Area, Davao Episcopal Area and Manila Episcopal Area.
A call for autonomy from groups within the United Methodist Church in the Philippines was discussed at several conferences led mostly by episcopal candidates. This led to the establishment of the "Ang Iglesia Metodista sa Pilipinas" ("The Methodist Church in the Philippines") in 2010, led by Bishop Lito C. Tangonan, George Buenaventura, Chita Milan and Atty. Joe Frank E. Zuñiga. The group finally declared full autonomy and legal incorporation with the Securities and Exchange Commission was approved on 7 December 2011 with papers held by present procurators. It now has 126 local churches in Metro Manila, Palawan, Bataan, Zambales, Pangasinan, Bulacan, Aurora, Nueva Ecija, as well as parts of Pampanga and Cavite. Tangonan was consecrated as the denomination's first Presiding Bishop on 17 March 2012.
The Korean Methodist Church (KMC) is one of the largest churches in South Korea with around 1.5 million members and 8,306 ministers. Methodism in Korea grew out of British and American mission work which began in the late 19th century. The first missionary sent out was Robert Samuel Maclay of the Methodist Episcopal Church, who sailed from Japan in 1884 and was given the authority of medical and schooling permission from emperor Gojong. The Korean church became fully autonomous in 1930, retaining affiliation with Methodist churches in America and later the United Methodist Church. The church experienced rapid growth in membership throughout most of the 20th century—in spite of the Korean War—before stabilizing in the 1990s. The KMC is a member of the World Methodist Council and hosted the first Asia Methodist Convention in 2001.
There are many Korean-language Methodist churches in North America catering to Korean-speaking immigrants, not all of which are named as Methodist.
The Methodist Church in Brazil was founded by American missionaries in 1867 after an initial unsuccessful founding in 1835. It has grown steadily since, becoming autonomous in 1930. In the 1970s it ordained its first woman minister. , the Brazilian Methodist Church is divided into eight annual conferences with 162,000 members.
The father of Methodism in Canada was William Black (1760–1834) who began preaching in settlements along the Petitcodiac River of New Brunswick in 1781. A few years afterwards, Methodist Episcopal circuit riders from the U.S. state of New York began to arrive in Canada West at Niagara, and the north shore of Lake Erie in 1786, and at the Kingston region on the northeast shore of Lake Ontario in the early 1790s. At the time the region was part of British North America and became part of Upper Canada after the Constitutional Act of 1791. Upper and Lower Canada were both parts of the New York Episcopal Methodist Conference until 1810 when they were transferred to the newly formed Genesee Conference. Reverend Major George Neal began to preach in Niagara in October 1786 and was ordained in 1810 by Bishop Philip Asbury, at the Lyons, New York Methodist Conference. He was Canada's first saddlebag preacher and travelled from Lake Ontario to Detroit for 50 years preaching the gospel.
The spread of Methodism in the Canadas was seriously disrupted by the War of 1812 but quickly gained lost ground after the Treaty of Ghent was signed in 1815. In 1817 the British Wesleyans arrived in the Canadas from the Maritimes but by 1820 had agreed, with the Episcopal Methodists, to confine their work to Lower Canada (present-day Quebec) while the latter would confine themselves to Upper Canada (present-day Ontario). In the summer of 1818, the first place of public worship was erected for the Wesleyan Methodists in York, later Toronto. The chapel for the First Methodist Church was built on the corner of King Street and Jordan Street, the entire cost of the building was $250, an amount that took the congregation three years to raise. In 1828 Upper Canadian Methodists were permitted by the General Conference in the United States to form an independent Canadian Conference and, in 1833, the Canadian Conference merged with the British Wesleyans to form the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Canada. In 1884, most Canadian Methodists were brought under the umbrella of the Methodist Church, Canada.
During the 19th century, Methodism played a large role in the culture and political affairs of Toronto. The city became known for being very puritanical with strict limits on the sale of alcohol and a rigorous enforcement of the Lord's Day Act.
In 1925, the Methodist Church, Canada and most Presbyterian congregations (then by far the largest Protestant communion in Canada), most Congregational Union of Ontario and Quebec congregations, Union Churches in Western Canada, and the American Presbyterian Church in Montreal merged to form the United Church of Canada. In 1968, the Evangelical United Brethren Church's Canadian congregations joined after their American counterparts joined the United Methodist Church.
The Methodist Church came to Mexico in 1872, with the arrival of two Methodist commissioners from the United States to observe the possibilities of evangelistic work in México. In December 1872, Bishop Gilbert Haven arrived to Mexico City, and he was ordered by M. D. William Butler to go to México. Bishop John C. Keener arrived from the Methodist Episcopal Church, South in January 1873.
In 1874, M. D. William Butler established the first Protestant Methodist school of México, in Puebla. The school was founded under the name "Instituto Metodista Mexicano". Today the school is called "Instituto Mexicano Madero". It is still a Methodist school, and it is one of the most elite, selective, expensive and prestigious private schools in the country, with two campuses in Puebla State, and one in Oaxaca. A few years later the principal of the school created a Methodist university.
On 18 January 1885, the first Annual Conference of the United Episcopal Church of México was established.
Wesley came to believe that the New Testament evidence did not leave the power of ordination to the priesthood in the hands of bishops but that other priests could ordain. In 1784, he ordained preachers for Scotland, England, and America, with power to administer the sacraments (this was a major reason for Methodism's final split from the Church of England after Wesley's death). At that time, Wesley sent Thomas Coke to America. Francis Asbury founded the Methodist Episcopal Church at the Baltimore Christmas Conference in 1784; Coke (already ordained in the Church of England) ordained Asbury deacon, elder, and bishop each on three successive days. Circuit riders, many of whom were laymen, travelled by horseback to preach the gospel and establish churches in many places. One of the most famous circuit riders was Robert Strawbridge who lived in the vicinity of Carroll County, Maryland soon after arriving in the Colonies around 1760.
The First Great Awakening was a religious movement in the 1730s and 1740s, beginning in New Jersey, then spreading to New England, and eventually south into Virginia and North Carolina. The English Methodist preacher George Whitefield played a major role, traveling across the colonies and preaching in a dramatic and emotional style, accepting everyone as his audience.
The new style of sermons and the way people practiced their faith breathed new life into religion in America. People became passionately and emotionally involved in their religion, rather than passively listening to intellectual discourse in a detached manner. People began to study the Bible at home. The effect was akin to the individualistic trends present in Europe during the Protestant Reformation.
The Second Great Awakening was a nationwide wave of revivals, from 1790 to 1840. In New England, the renewed interest in religion inspired a wave of social activism among Yankees; Methodism grew and established several colleges, notably Boston University. In the "burned over district" of western New York, the spirit of revival burned brightly. Methodism saw the emergence of a Holiness movement. In the west, especially at Cane Ridge, Kentucky and in Tennessee, the revival strengthened the Methodists and the Baptists. Methodism grew rapidly in the Second Great Awakening, becoming the nation's largest denomination by 1820. From 58,000 members in 1790, it reached 258,000 in 1820 and 1,661,000 in 1860, growing by a factor of 28.6 in 70 years, while the total American population grew by a factor of eight. Other denominations also used revivals, but the Methodists grew fastest of all because "they combined popular appeal with efficient organization under the command of missionary bishops."
Disputes over slavery placed the church in difficulty in the first half of the 19th century, with the northern church leaders fearful of a split with the South, and reluctant to take a stand. The Wesleyan Methodist Connexion (later renamed the Wesleyan Methodist Church) and the Free Methodist Churches were formed by staunch abolitionists, and the Free Methodists were especially active in the Underground Railroad, which helped to free the slaves. In 1962, the Evangelical Wesleyan Church separated from the Free Methodist Church. In 1968 the Wesleyan Methodist Church and Pilgrim Holiness Church merged to form the Wesleyan Church; a significant amount dissented from this decision resulting in the independence of the Allegheny Wesleyan Methodist Connection and the formation of the Bible Methodist Connection of Churches, both of which fall within the conservative holiness movement.
In a much larger split, in 1845 at Louisville, the churches of the slaveholding states left the Methodist Episcopal Church and formed The Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The northern and southern branches were reunited in 1939, when slavery was no longer an issue. In this merger also joined the Methodist Protestant Church. Some southerners, conservative in theology, opposed the merger, and formed the Southern Methodist Church in 1940.
The Third Great Awakening from 1858 to 1908 saw enormous growth in Methodist membership, and a proliferation of institutions such as colleges (e.g., Morningside College). Methodists were often involved in the "Missionary Awakening" and the Social Gospel Movement. The awakening in so many cities in 1858 started the movement, but in the North it was interrupted by the Civil War. In the South, on the other hand, the Civil War stimulated revivals, especially in Lee's army.
In 1914–1917 many Methodist ministers made strong pleas for world peace. President Woodrow Wilson (a Presbyterian), promised "a war to end all wars," using language of a future peace that had been a watchword for the postmillennial movement. In the 1930s many Methodists favored isolationist policies. Thus in 1936, Methodist Bishop James Baker, of the San Francisco Conference, released a poll of ministers showing 56% opposed warfare. However, the Methodist Federation did call for a boycott of Japan, which had invaded China and was disrupting missionary activity there. In Chicago, 62 local African Methodist Episcopal churches voted their support for the Roosevelt administration's policy, while opposing any plan to send American troops overseas to fight. When war came in 1941, the vast majority of Methodists strongly supported the national war effort, but there were also a few (673) conscientious objectors.
The United Methodist Church (UMC) was formed in 1968 as a result of a merger between the Evangelical United Brethren Church (EUB) and The Methodist Church. The former church had resulted from mergers of several groups of German Methodist heritage, however there was no longer any need or desire to worship in the German language. The latter church was a result of union between the Methodist Protestant Church and the northern and southern factions of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The merged church had approximately nine million members as of the late 1990s. While United Methodist Church in America membership has been declining, associated groups in developing countries are growing rapidly. Prior to the merge that led to the formation of the United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Methodist Church entered into a schism with the Methodist Church, citing modernism in its parent body as the reason for the departure in 1946.
American Methodist churches are generally organized on a "connectional" model, related, but not identical to that used in Britain. Pastors are assigned to congregations by bishops, distinguishing it from presbyterian government. Methodist denominations typically give lay members representation at regional and national Conferences at which the business of the church is conducted, making it different from most episcopal government. This connectional organizational model differs further from the congregational model, for example of Baptist, and Congregationalist Churches, among others.
In addition to the United Methodist Church, there are over 40 other denominations that descend from John Wesley's Methodist movement. Some, such as the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the Free Methodists and the Wesleyan Church (formerly Wesleyan Methodist), are explicitly Methodist. There are also independent Methodist churches, many of which are affiliated with the Association of Independent Methodists. Others do not call themselves Methodist, but grew out of the Methodist movement: for example, The Salvation Army and the Church of the Nazarene. Some of the charismatic or Pentecostal churches such as the Pentecostal Holiness Church and the Assemblies of God USA also have roots in or draw from Wesleyan thought.
The Holiness Revival was primarily among people of Methodist persuasion, who felt that the church had once again become apathetic, losing the Wesleyan zeal. Some important events of this revival were the writings of Phoebe Palmer during the mid-1800s, the establishment of the first of many holiness camp meetings at Vineland, New Jersey in 1867, and the founding of Asbury College, (1890), and other similar institutions in the U.S. around the turn of the 20th century.
In 2020, United Methodists announced a plan to split the denomination over the issue of same-sex marriage.
In the 19th century there were Annual Conferences in each colony (including New Zealand). Various branches of Methodism in Australia merged during the 20 years from 1881. The Methodist Church of Australasia was formed on 1 January 1902 when five Methodist denominations in Australia – the Wesleyan Methodist Church, the Primitive Methodists, the Bible Christian Church, the United Methodist Free and the Methodist New Connexion Churches came together. In polity it largely followed the Wesleyan Methodist Church. The only sizable Methodist group outside this new structure were the Lay Methodists.
In 1945 Kingsley Ridgway offered himself as a Melbourne-based "field representative" for a possible Australian branch of the Wesleyan Methodist Church of America, after meeting an American serviceman who was a member of that denomination. The Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australia was founded on his work.
The Methodist Church of Australasia merged with the majority of the Presbyterian Church of Australia and the Congregational Union of Australia in 1977, becoming the Uniting Church. The Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australia and some independent congregations chose not to join the union.
From the mid-1980s a number of independent Methodist churches were founded by missionaries and other members from the Methodist Churches of Malaysia and Singapore. Some of these came together to form what is now known as the Chinese Methodist Church in Australia in 1993, and it held its first full Annual Conference in 2002.
Since the 2000s many independent Methodist churches have been established or grown by Tongan immigrants. Many Pacific Islander immigrants of a Methodist background have also joined Uniting Church congregations.
Wesley Mission in Pitt Street, Sydney, the largest parish in the Uniting Church, remains strongly in the Wesleyan tradition.
As a result of the early efforts of missionaries, most of the natives of the Fiji Islands were converted to Methodism in the 1840s and 1850s. Most ethnic Fijians are Methodists today (the others are largely Roman Catholic and further divided into minor denominations such as Baptist, All Nations, Assemblies of God, Christian Mission Fellowship, Jehovah's Witnesses, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Souls to Jesus and a few others), and the Methodist Church of Fiji and Rotuma is an important social force.
The Methodist Church of New Zealand was the fourth most frequent religious affiliation chosen by those who declared one in the 2006 national census.
Since the early 1990s, missionaries and Methodist Church members from Malaysia and Singapore established Churches around major centres in New Zealand. These congregations came together to form The Chinese Methodist Church in New Zealand (CMCNZ) in 2003, and constituted as a Provisional Annual Conference to elect its first president in 2018.
In 1868, Piula Theological College was established in Lufilufi on the north coast of Upolu island in Samoa and serves as the main headquarters of the Methodist church in the country. The college includes the historic Piula Monastery as well as Piula Cave Pool, a natural spring situated beneath the church by the sea. The Methodist Church is the third largest denomination throughout the Samoan Islands, in both Samoa and American Samoa.
Methodism had a particular resonance with the inhabitants of Tonga. somewhat more than a third of Tongans adhered to the Methodist tradition. Methodism is represented on the island by a number of churches including the Free Church of Tonga and the Free Wesleyan Church, which is the largest church in Tonga. The royal family of the country are prominent members, and the late king was a lay preacher.
Many Methodists have been involved in the ecumenical movement, which has sought to unite the fractured denominations of Christianity. Because Methodism grew out of the Church of England, a denomination from which neither of the Wesley brothers seceded, some Methodist scholars and historians, such as Rupert E. Davies, have regarded their 'movement' more as a preaching order within wider Christian life than as a church, comparing them with the Franciscans, who formed a religious order within the medieval European church and not a separate denomination. Certainly, Methodists have been deeply involved in early examples of church union, especially the United Church of Canada and the Church of South India.
Also, a disproportionate number of Methodists take part in inter-faith dialogue. For example, Wesley Ariarajah, a long-serving director of the World Council of Churches' sub-unit on "Dialogue with People of Living Faiths and Ideologies" is a Methodist.
In October 1999, an executive committee of the World Methodist Council resolved to explore the possibility of its member churches becoming associated with the doctrinal agreement which had been reached by the Catholic Church and Lutheran World Federation (LWF). In May 2006, the International Methodist–Catholic Dialogue Commission completed its most recent report, entitled "The Grace Given You in Christ: Catholics and Methodists Reflect Further on the Church," and submitted the text to Methodist and Catholic authorities. In July of the same year, in Seoul, South Korea, the Member Churches of the World Methodist Council (WMC) voted to approve and sign a "Methodist Statement of Association" with the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, the agreement which was reached and officially accepted in 1999 by the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation and which proclaimed that:
"Together we confess: By grace alone, in faith in Christ's saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works... as sinners our new life is solely due to the forgiving and renewing mercy that God imparts as a gift and we receive in faith, and never can merit in any way," affirming "fundamental doctrinal agreement" concerning justification between the Catholic Church, the LWF, and the World Methodist Council.
This is not to say there is perfect agreement between the three denominational traditions; while Catholics and Methodists believe that salvation involves cooperation between God and man, Lutherans believe that God brings about the salvation of individuals without any cooperation on their part.
Commenting on the ongoing dialogues with Catholic Church leaders, Ken Howcroft, Methodist minister and the Ecumenical Officer for the Methodist Church of Great Britain, noted that "these conversations have been immensely fruitful." Methodists are increasingly recognizing that the 15 centuries prior to the Reformation constitute a shared history with Catholics, and are gaining new appreciation for neglected aspects of the Catholic tradition. There are, however, important unresolved doctrinal differences separating Roman Catholicism and Methodism, which include "the nature and validity of the ministry of those who preside at the Eucharist, the precise meaning of the Eucharist as the sacramental 'memorial' of Christ's saving death and resurrection, the particular way in which Christ is present in Holy Communion, and the link between eucharistic communion and ecclesial communion.
In the 1960s, the Methodist Church of Great Britain made ecumenical overtures to the Church of England, aimed at denominational union. Formally, these failed when they were rejected by the Church of England's General Synod in 1972; conversations and co-operation continued, however, leading in 2003 to the signing of a covenant between the two churches. From the 1970s onward, the Methodist Church also started several Local Ecumenical Projects (LEPs, later renamed Local Ecumenical Partnerships) with local neighbouring denominations, which involved sharing churches, schools and in some cases ministers. In many towns and villages there are United Churches which are sometimes with Anglican or Baptist churches, but most commonly are Methodist and URC, simply because in terms of belief, practice and churchmanship, many Methodists see themselves as closer to the United Reformed Church than to other denominations such as the Church of England. In the 1990s and early 21st century, the British Methodist Church was involved in the Scottish Church Initiative for Union, seeking greater unity with the established and Presbyterian Church of Scotland, the Scottish Episcopal Church and the United Reformed Church in Scotland.
The Methodist Church of Great Britain is a member of several ecumenical organisations, including the World Council of Churches, the Conference of European Churches, the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe, Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, Churches Together in England, Action of Churches Together in Scotland and Cytûn (Wales).
Methodist denominations in the United States have also strengthened ties with other Christian traditions. In April 2005, bishops in the United Methodist Church approved "A Proposal for Interim Eucharistic Sharing." This document was the first step toward full communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). The ELCA approved this same document in August 2005. At the 2008 General Conference, the United Methodist Church approved full communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The UMC is also in dialogue with the Episcopal Church for full communion by 2012. The two denominations are working on a document called "Confessing Our Faith Together".
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20119
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Mancala
Mancala is one of the oldest known games to still be widely played today. "Mancala" is a generic name for a family of two-player turn-based strategy board games played with small stones, beans, or seeds and rows of holes or pits in the earth, a board or other playing surface. The objective is usually to capture all or some set of the opponent's pieces. Versions of the game date back to the 7th century and evidence suggests the game existed in ancient Egypt.
The name is a classification or type of game, rather than any specific game. Some of the most popular mancala games (with regard to distribution area, the numbers of players and tournaments, and publications) are:
A notable subtype of mancala are the Southeast Asian mancalas like the Malaysian "congkak", Indonesians "congklak" or "dakon", and Filipino "sungka", among others. They differ from other mancala types in that the player's store is included in the placing of the seeds. The most common type has seven holes for each player, in addition to the player store holes. This version has identical rules throughout its range. But there are also numerous variations with the number of holes and rules by region. Sometimes more than one version can be played in a single locality.
Although more than 800 names of traditional mancala games are known, some names denote the same game, while some names are used for more than one game. Almost 200 modern invented versions have also been described.
Evidence of the game was uncovered in Israel in the city of Gedera in an excavated Roman bathhouse where pottery boards and rock cuts were unearthed dating back to between the 2nd and 3rd century AD. Among other early evidence of the game are fragments of a pottery board and several rock cuts found in Aksumite areas in Matara (in Eritrea) and Yeha (in Ethiopia), which are dated by archaeologists to between the 6th and 7th century AD; the game may have been mentioned by Giyorgis of Segla in his 14th century Ge'ez text "Mysteries of Heaven and Earth", where he refers to a game called qarqis, a term used in Ge'ez to refer to both Gebet'a (mancala) and "Sant'araz" (modern "sent'erazh", Ethiopian chess).
The similarity of some aspects of the game to agricultural activity and the absence of a need for specialized equipment present the intriguing possibility that it could date to the beginnings of civilization itself; however, there is little verifiable evidence that the game is older than about 1300 years. Some purported evidence comes from the Kurna temple graffiti in Egypt, as reported by Parker in 1909 and Murray in his "A History of Board-Games Other Than Chess". However, accurate dating of this graffiti seems to be unavailable, and what designs have been found by modern scholars generally resemble games common to the Roman world, rather than anything like mancala.
Some historians believe that mancala is the oldest game in the world based on the archaeological evidence found in Jordan that dates around 6000 BCE. The game might have been played by ancient Nabataeans and could have been an ancient version of the modern mancala game.
The games existed in especially eastern Europe. In the Baltic area, it was once very popular ("Bohnenspiel"); in Bosnia, where it is called Ban-Ban and still played today; Serbia; and Greece ("Mandoli", Cyclades). Two mancala tables from the early 18th century are to be found in Weikersheim Castle in southern Germany. In western Europe, it never caught on, but was documented by Oxford University orientalist Thomas Hyde.
The United States has a larger mancala-playing population. A traditional mancala game called Warra was still played in Louisiana in the early 20th century, and a commercial version called Kalah became popular in the 1940s. In Cape Verde, mancala is known as "ouril". It is played in the Islands and was brought to the United States by Cape Verdean immigrants. It is played to this day in Cape Verdean communities in New England.
Recent studies of mancala rules have given insight into the distribution of mancala. This distribution has been linked to migration routes, which may go back several hundred years. There is evidence that the game was played in Egypt before 1000 B.C. It spread from Egypt through other parts of Africa, probably with traders moving up and down the Nile. Excavations in Lebanon uncovered Phoenician mancala pieces dated from the 6th century B.C. The statue was discovered lying on her stomach on a marble floor covering a drainage channel from the Roman period (second century AD). Two rows of five holes etched into the back revealed that "it was also used to support a board game called mancala, derived from the Arabic word naqala, meaning literally move", said the lead archaeologist, thus referring to the explanations provided by Irving Finkel, an expert on ancient games in the British Museum.
The word "mancala" (منقلة) comes from the Arabic word "naqala" (نقلة) meaning literally "to move". No one game exists with the name "mancala"; the name is a classification or type of game. This word is used in Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt, but is not consistently applied to any one game, and has been used for backgammon in the ancient near east. Mancala is a game that first appeared in Africa, and later, the ancient near east.
Most mancala games share a common general game play. Players begin by placing a certain number of seeds, prescribed for the particular game, in each of the pits on the game board. A player may count their stones to plot the game. A turn consists of removing all seeds from a pit, "sowing" the seeds (placing one in each of the following pits in sequence) and capturing based on the state of the board. The object of the game is to plant the most seeds in the bank. This leads to the English phrase "count and capture" sometimes used to describe the gameplay. Although the details differ greatly, this general sequence applies to all games.
If playing in capture mode, once a player ends his/her turn in an empty pit on his/her own side, he/she captures the opponent's pieces directly across. Once captured, the player gets to put the seeds in his/her own bank. After capturing, the opponent forfeits a turn.
Equipment is typically a board, constructed of various materials, with a series of holes arranged in rows, usually two or four. The materials include clay and other shape-able materials. Some games are more often played with holes dug in the earth, or carved in stone. The holes may be referred to as "depressions", "pits", or "houses". Sometimes, large holes on the ends of the board, called "stores", are used for holding the pieces.
Playing pieces are seeds, beans, stones, cowry shells, half-marbles or other small undifferentiated counters that are placed in and transferred about the holes during play.
Board configurations vary among different games but also within variations of a given game; for example Endodoi is played on boards from 2×6 to 2×10. The largest are Tchouba (Mozambique) with a board of 160 (4×40) holes requiring 320 seeds; and En Gehé (Tanzania), played on longer rows with up to 50 pits (a total of 2×50=100) and using 400 seeds. The most minimalistic variants are Nano-Wari and Micro-Wari, created by the Bulgarian ethnologue Assia Popova. The Nano-Wari board has eight seeds in just two pits; Micro-Wari has a total of four seeds in four pits.
With a two-rank board, players usually are considered to control their respective sides of the board, although moves often are made into the opponent's side. With a four-rank board, players control an inner row and an outer row, and a player's seeds will remain in these closest two rows unless the opponent captured them.
The objective of most two- and three-row mancala games is to capture more stones than the opponent; in four-row games, one usually seeks to leave the opponent with no legal move or sometimes to capture all counters in their front row.
At the beginning of a player's turn, they select a hole with seeds that will be sown around the board. This selection is often limited to holes on the current player's side of the board, as well as holes with a certain minimum number of seeds.
In a process known as "sowing", all the seeds from a hole are dropped one-by-one into subsequent holes in a motion wrapping around the board. Sowing is an apt name for this activity, since not only are many games traditionally played with seeds, but placing seeds one at a time in different holes reflects the physical act of sowing. If the sowing action stops after dropping the last seed, the game is considered a "single lap" game.
"Multiple laps" or "relay sowing" is a frequent feature of mancala games, although not universal. When relay sowing, if the last seed during sowing lands in an occupied hole, all the contents of that hole, including the last sown seed, are immediately re-sown from the hole. The process usually will continue until sowing ends in an empty hole. Another common way to receive "multiple laps" is when the final seed sown lands in your designated hole.
Many games from the Indian subcontinent use "pussa kanawa laps". These are like standard multilaps, but instead of continuing the movement with the contents of the last hole filled, a player continues with the next hole. A pussakanawa lap move will then end when a lap ends just prior to an empty hole.
If a player ends his stone with a point move he gets a "free turn".
Depending on the last hole sown in a lap, a player may "capture" stones from the board. The exact requirements for capture, as well as what is done with captured stones, vary considerably among games. Typically, a capture requires sowing to end in a hole with a certain number of stones, ending across the board from stones in specific configurations, or landing in an empty hole adjacent to an opponent's hole that contains one or more pieces.
Another common way of capturing is to capture the stones that reach a certain number of seeds at any moment.
Also, several games include the notion of capturing holes, and thus all seeds sown on a captured hole belong at the end of the game to the player who captured it.
Like other board games, mancala games have led to psychological studies. Retschitzki has studied the cognitive processes used by awalé players. Some of Restchitzki's results on memory and problem solving have recently been simulated by Fernand Gobet with the CHREST computer model. De Voogt has studied the psychology of Bao playing.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20124
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Maastricht
Maastricht (, also , ; Limburgish : ; ; ) is a city and a municipality in the southeast of the Netherlands. It is the capital and largest city of the province of Limburg. Maastricht is located on both sides of the Meuse (Dutch: "Maas"), at the point where the Jeker joins it. It is adjacent to the border with Belgium.
Maastricht developed from a Roman settlement (Trajectum ad Mosam) to a medieval religious centre. In the 16th century it became a garrison town and in the 19th century an early industrial city. Today, the city is a thriving cultural and regional hub. It became well known through the Maastricht Treaty and as the birthplace of the euro. Maastricht has 1677 national heritage buildings ("Rijksmonumenten"), the second highest number in the Netherlands, after Amsterdam. The city is visited by tourists for shopping and recreation, and has a large international student population. Maastricht is a member of the Most Ancient European Towns Network and is part of the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion, which includes the nearby German and Belgian cities of Aachen, Eupen, Hasselt, Liège, and Tongeren. The Meuse-Rhine Euroregion is a metropolis with a population of about 3.9 million with several international universities.
Maastricht is mentioned in ancient documents as "[Ad] Treiectinsem [urbem]" ab. 575, "Treiectensis" in 634, "Triecto, Triectu" in 7th century, "Triiect" in 768–781, "Traiecto" in 945, "Masetrieth" in 1051.
The place name "Maastricht" is an Old Dutch compound "Masa-" (> "Maas" "the Meuse river") + Old Dutch "*treiekt", itself borrowed from Gallo-Romance *TRA(I)ECTU cf. its Walloon name "li trek", from Classical Latin "trajectus" ("ford , passage, place to cross a river") with the later addition of "Maas" "Meuse" to avoid the confusion with the "-trecht" of Utrecht having exactly the same original form and etymology. The Latin name first appears in medieval documents and it is not known whether "*Trajectu(s)" was Maastricht's name during Roman times. A resident of Maastricht is referred to as "Maastrichtenaar" whilst in the local dialect it is either "Mestreechteneer" or, colloquially, "Sjeng" (derived from the formerly popular French name "Jean").
Neanderthal remains have been found to the west of Maastricht (Belvédère excavations). Of a later date are Palaeolithic remains, between 8,000 and 25,000 years old. Celts lived here around 500 BC, at a spot where the river Meuse was shallow and therefore easy to cross.
It is not known when the Romans arrived in Maastricht, or whether the settlement was founded by them. The Romans built a bridge across the Meuse in the 1st century AD, during the reign of Augustus Caesar. The bridge was an important link in the main road between Bavay and Cologne. Roman Maastricht was probably relatively small. Remains of the Roman road, the bridge, a religious shrine, a Roman bath, a granary, some houses and the 4th-century castrum walls and gates, have been excavated. Fragments of provincial Roman sculptures, as well as coins, jewellery, glass, pottery and other objects from Roman Maastricht are on display in the exhibition space of the city's public library ("Centre Céramique").
According to legend, the Armenian-born Saint Servatius, Bishop of Tongeren, died in Maastricht in 384 where he was interred along the Roman road, outside the castrum. According to Gregory of Tours bishop Monulph was to have built around 570 the first stone church on the grave of Servatius, the present-day Basilica of Saint Servatius. The city remained an early Christian diocese until it lost the distinction to nearby Liège in the 8th or 9th century.
In the early Middle Ages Maastricht was part of the heartland of the Carolingian Empire along with Aachen and the area around Liège. The town was an important centre for trade and manufacturing. Merovingian coins minted in Maastricht have been found in places throughout Europe. In 881 the town was plundered by the Vikings. In the 10th century it briefly became the capital of the duchy of Lower Lorraine.
During the 12th century the town flourished culturally. The provosts of the church of Saint Servatius held important positions in the Holy Roman Empire during this era. The two collegiate churches were largely rebuilt and redecorated. Maastricht Romanesque stone sculpture and silversmithing are regarded as highlights of Mosan art. Maastricht painters were praised by Wolfram von Eschenbach in his Parzival. Around the same time, the poet Henric van Veldeke wrote a legend of Saint Servatius, one of the earliest works in Dutch literature. The two main churches acquired a wealth of relics and the septennial Maastricht Pilgrimage became a major event.
Unlike most Dutch towns, Maastricht did not receive city rights at a certain date. These developed gradually during its long history. In 1204 the city's dual authority was formalised in a treaty, with the prince-bishops of Liège and the dukes of Brabant holding joint sovereignty over the city. Soon afterwards the first ring of medieval walls were built. In 1275, the old Roman bridge collapsed under the weight of a procession, killing 400 people. A replacement, funded by church indulgences, was built slightly to the north and survives until today, the Sint Servaasbrug.
Throughout the Middle Ages, the city remained a centre for trade and manufacturing principally of wool and leather but gradually economic decline set in. After a brief period of economic prosperity around 1500, the city's economy suffered during the wars of religion of the 16th and 17th centuries, and recovery did not happen until the industrial revolution in the early 19th century.
The important strategic location of Maastricht resulted in the construction of an impressive array of fortifications around the city during this period. The Spanish and Dutch garrisons became an important factor in the city's economy. In 1579 the city was sacked by the Spanish army led by the Duke of Parma (Siege of Maastricht, 1579). For over fifty years the Spanish crown took over the role previously held by the dukes of Brabant in the joint sovereignty over Maastricht. In 1632 the city was conquered by Prince Frederick Henry of Orange and the Dutch States General replaced the Spanish crown in the joint government of Maastricht.
Another Siege of Maastricht (1673) took place during the Franco-Dutch War. In June 1673, Louis XIV laid siege to the city because French supply lines were being threatened. During this siege, Vauban, the famous French military engineer, developed a new tactic in order to break down the strong fortifications surrounding Maastricht. His systematic approach remained the standard method of attacking fortresses until the 20th century. On 25 June 1673, while preparing to storm the city, captain-lieutenant Charles de Batz de Castelmore, also known as the "comte d'Artagnan", was killed by a musket shot outside the Tongerse Poort. This event was embellished in Alexandre Dumas' novel "The Vicomte de Bragelonne", part of the D'Artagnan Romances. French troops occupied Maastricht from 1673 to 1678.
In 1748 the French again conquered the city at what is known as the Second French Siege of Maastricht, during the War of Austrian Succession. The French took the city for the last time in 1794, when the condominium was dissolved and Maastricht was annexed to the First French Empire (1794–1814). For twenty years Maastricht remained the capital of the French département of Meuse-Inférieure.
After the Napoleonic era, Maastricht became part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1815. It was made the capital of the newly formed Province of Limburg (1815–1839). When the southern provinces of the newly formed kingdom seceded in 1830, the Dutch garrison in Maastricht remained loyal to the Dutch king, William I, even when most of the inhabitants of the town and the surrounding area sided with the Belgian revolutionaries. In 1831, arbitration by the Great Powers allocated the city to the Netherlands. However, neither the Dutch nor the Belgians agreed to this and the arrangement was not implemented until the 1839 Treaty of London. During this period of isolation Maastricht developed into an early industrial town.
Because of its eccentric location in the southeastern Netherlands, and its geographical and cultural proximity to Belgium and Germany, integration of Maastricht and Limburg into the Netherlands did not come about easily. Maastricht retained a distinctly non-Dutch appearance during much of the 19th century and it was not until the First World War that the city was forced to look northwards.
Like the rest of the Netherlands, Maastricht remained neutral during World War I. However, being wedged between Germany and Belgium, it received large numbers of refugees, putting a strain on the city's resources. Early in World War II, the city was taken by the Germans by surprise during the Battle of Maastricht of May 1940. On 13 and 14 September 1944 it was the first Dutch city to be liberated by Allied forces of the US Old Hickory Division. The three Meuse bridges were destroyed or severely damaged during the war. As elsewhere in the Netherlands, the majority of Maastricht Jews died in Nazi concentration camps.
During the latter half of the century, traditional industries (such as Maastricht's potteries) declined and the city's economy shifted to a service economy. Maastricht University was founded in 1976. Several European institutions found their base in Maastricht. In 1981 and 1991 European Councils were held in Maastricht, the latter one resulting a year later in the signing of the Maastricht Treaty, leading to the creation of the European Union and the euro. Since 1988, The European Fine Art Fair, regarded as the world's leading art fair, annually draws in some of the wealthiest art collectors.
In recent years, Maastricht launched several campaigns against drug-dealing in an attempt to stop foreign buyers taking advantage of the liberal Dutch legislation and causing trouble in the downtown area.
Since the 1990s, large parts of the city have been refurbished, including the areas around the main railway station and the Maasboulevard promenade along the Meuse, the Entre Deux and Mosae Forum shopping centres, as well as some of the main shopping streets. A prestigious quarter designed by international architects and including the new Bonnefanten Museum, a public library, and a theatre was built on the grounds of the former Société Céramique factory near the town centre. Further large-scale projects, such as the redevelopment of the area around the A2 motorway, the Sphinx Quarter and the Belvédère area are under construction.
Maastricht consists of five districts ("stadsdelen") and 44 neighbourhoods ("wijken"). Each neighbourhood has a number which corresponds to its postal code.
The neighbourhoods of Itteren, Borgharen, Limmel, Amby, Heer, Heugem, Scharn, Oud-Caberg, Sint Pieter and Wolder all used to be separate municipalities or villages until they were annexed by the city of Maastricht in the course of the 20th century.
The outlying areas of the following municipalities are bordering the municipality of Maastricht directly.
"Clockwise from north-east to north-west:"
"(B = Situated in Belgium)"
Maastricht's city limits has an international border with Belgium. Most of it borders Belgium's Flemish region, but a small part to the south also has a border with the Walloon region. Both countries are part of Europe's Schengen Area thus are open without border controls.
Maastricht features the same climate as most of the Netherlands ("Cfb", Oceanic climate), however, due to its more inland location in between hills, summers tend to be warmer (especially in the Meuse valley, which lies 70 metres lower than the meteorological station) and winters a bit colder, although the difference is only noticeable on just a few days a year. The highest temperature recorded was on 25 July 2019 at .
Maastricht is a city of linguistic diversity, partly as a result of its location at the crossroads of multiple language areas and its international student population.
In 2010-2014 69.8% of the population of Maastricht regarded themselves as religious. 60.4% of the total population stated an affiliation with the Roman Catholic Church. 13.9% attended a religious ceremony at least once a month.
Since the 1980s a number of European and international institutions have made Maastricht their base. They provide an increasing number of employment opportunities for expats living in the Maastricht area.
Maastricht is known in the Netherlands and beyond for its lively squares, narrow streets, and historic buildings. The city has 1,677 national heritage buildings ("rijksmonumenten"), more than any Dutch city outside Amsterdam. In addition to that there are 3,500 locally listed buildings ("gemeentelijke monumenten"). The entire city centre is a conservation area ("beschermd stadsgezicht"). The tourist information office (VVV) is located in the Dinghuis, a medieval courthouse overlooking Grote Staat.
Maastricht's main sights include:
Furthermore, the Maastricht Exposition and Congress Centre (MECC) hosts many events throughout the year.
There are several city parks and recreational areas in Maastricht:
The municipal government of Maastricht consists of a city council, a mayor and a number of aldermen. The city council, a 39-member legislative body directly elected for four years, appoints the aldermen on the basis of a coalition agreement between two or more parties after each election. The 2006 municipal elections in the Netherlands were, as often, dominated by national politics and led to a shift from right to left throughout the country. In Maastricht, the traditional broad governing coalition of Christian Democrats (CDA), Labour (PvdA), Greens (GreenLeft) and Liberals (VVD) was replaced by a centre-left coalition of Labour, Christian Democrats and Greens. Two Labour aldermen were appointed, along with one Christian Democrat and one Green alderman. Due to internal disagreements, one of the VVD council members left the party in 2005 and formed a new liberal group in 2006 (Liberalen Maastricht). The other opposition parties in the current city council are the Socialist Party (SP), the Democrats (D66) and two local parties (Stadsbelangen Mestreech (SBM) and the Seniorenpartij).
The aldermen and the mayor make up the executive branch of the municipal government. After the previous mayor, Gerd Leers (CDA), decided to step down in January 2010 following the 'Bulgarian Villa' affair, an affair concerning a holiday villa project in Byala, Bulgaria, in which the mayor was alleged to have been involved in shady deals to raise the value of villas he had ownership of. Up until July 1, 2015 the mayor of Maastricht was Onno Hoes, a Liberal (VVD), the only male mayor in the country, who officially was married to a male person. In 2013 Hoes was the subject of some political commotion, after facts had been disclosed about intimate affairs with several other male persons. The affair had no consequences for his political career. Because of a new affair in 2014 Hoes eventually stepped down.
Since July 1, 2015 the current mayor of Maastricht has been Annemarie Penn-te Strake. Penn is independent and serves no political party, although her husband is a former chairman of the Maastricht Seniorenpartij. She has served for the Dutch judicial system for many years in many different positions. During her tenure as mayor she still serves as attorney general.
One controversial issue which has dominated Maastricht politics for many years and which has also affected national and international politics, is the city's approach to soft drugs. Under the pragmatic Dutch soft drug policy, a policy of non-enforcement, individuals may buy and use cannabis from 'coffeeshops' (cannabis bars) under certain conditions. Maastricht, like many other border towns, has seen a growing influx of 'drug tourists', mainly young people from Belgium, France and Germany, who provide a large amount of revenue for the coffeeshops (around 13) in the city centre. The city government, most notably ex-mayor Leers, have been actively promoting drug policy reform in order to deal with its negative side effects.
One of the proposals, known as the 'Coffee Corner Plan', proposed by then-mayor Leers and supported unanimously by the city council in 2008, was to relocate the coffeeshops from the city centre to the outskirts of the town (in some cases near the national Dutch-Belgian border). The purpose of this plan was to reduce the impact of drug tourism on the city centre, such as parking problems and the illegal sale of hard drugs in the vicinity of the coffeeshops, and to monitor the sale and use of cannabis more closely in areas away from the crowded city centre. The Coffee Corner Plan, however, has met with fierce opposition from neighbouring municipalities (some in Belgium) and from members of the Dutch and Belgian parliament. The plan has been the subject of various legal challenges and has not been carried out up to this date (2014).
On 16 December 2010, the Court of Justice of the European Union upheld a local Maastricht ban on the sale of cannabis to foreign tourists, restricting entrance to coffeeshops to residents of Maastricht. The ban did not affect scientific or medical usage. In 2011, the Dutch government introduced a similar national system, the "wietpas" ("cannabis pass"), restricting access to Dutch coffeeshops to residents of the Netherlands. After protests from local mayors about the difficulty of implementing the issuing of wietpasses, Dutch parliament in 2012 agreed to replace the pass by any proof of residency. The new system has led to a slight reduction in drug tourism to cannabis shops in Maastricht but at the same time to an increase of drug dealing on the street.
Maastricht is served by the A2 and A79 motorways. The city can be reached from Brussels and Cologne in approximately one hour and from Amsterdam in about two and a half hours.
The A2 motorway runs through Maastricht in a double-decked tunnel. Before 2016, the A2 motorway ran through the city; heavily congested, it caused air pollution in the urban area. Construction of a two-level tunnel designed to solve these problems started in 2011 and was opened (in stages) by December 2016.
In spite of several large underground car parks, parking in the city centre forms a major problem during weekends and bank holidays because of the large numbers of visitors. Parking fees are deliberately high to make visitors to use public transport or park and ride facilities away from the centre.
Maastricht is served by three rail operators, all of which call at the main Maastricht railway station near the centre and two of which call at the smaller Maastricht Randwyck, near the business and university district. Only Arriva also calls at Maastricht Noord, which opened in 2013. Intercity trains northwards to Amsterdam, Eindhoven, Den Bosch and Utrecht are operated by Dutch Railways. The National Railway Company of Belgium runs south to Liège in Belgium. The line to Heerlen, Valkenburg and Kerkrade is operated by Arriva. The former railway to Aachen was closed down in the 1980s. A small section of the old westbound railway to Hasselt (Belgium) was restored in recent years and will be used as a modern tramline, scheduled to open in 2023.
The Dutch and Flanders governments reached an agreement in 2014 to build a new tram route, the Hasselt – Maastricht tramway, as part of the larger Spartacus scheme. It was scheduled to take three years, from 2015 to 2018, and to cost €283 million. However, the planning process has been heavily delayed, and as of 2018, construction has not yet started. The tram is now scheduled to be operating in 2024. When completed, the tram will carry passengers from Maastricht city centre to Hasselt city centre in 30 minutes. It will be operated by the Belgian transport company De Lijn, with 2 scheduled stops in Maastricht and another 10 in Flanders.
Regular bus lines connect the city centre, outer areas, business districts and railway stations. The regional Arriva bus network extends to most parts of South Limburg and Aachen in Germany. Regional buses by De Lijn connect Maastricht with Hasselt, Tongeren and Maasmechelen, and one bus connects Maastricht with Liège, operated by TEC.
Maastricht is served by the nearby Maastricht Aachen Airport , in nearby Beek, and it is informally referred to by that name. The airport is located about north of the city centre. The airport is served by Corendon Dutch Airlines and Ryanair which operate scheduled flights to destinations around the Mediterranean, the Canary Islands and North-Africa . There are also charter flights to Lourdes which are operated by Enter Air.
Maastricht has a river port ("Beatrixhaven") and is connected by water with Belgium and the rest of the Netherlands through the river Meuse, the Juliana Canal, the Albert Canal and the Zuid-Willemsvaart. Although there are no regular boat connections to other cities, various organized boat trips for tourists connect Maastricht with Belgium cities such as Liège.
These distances are as the crow flies and so do not represent actual overland distances.
Maastricht is twinned with:
In 2002 the municipal government officially adopted a local anthem (Limburgish (Maastrichtian variant): "Mestreechs Volksleed", ) composed of lyrics in Maastrichtian. The theme was originally written by Ciprian Porumbescu (1853–1883).
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M. C. Escher
Maurits Cornelis Escher (; 17 June 1898 – 27 March 1972) was a Dutch graphic artist who made mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints.
Despite wide popular interest, Escher was for long somewhat neglected in the art world, even in his native Netherlands. He was 70 before a retrospective exhibition was held. In the twenty-first century, he became more widely appreciated, with exhibitions across the world.
His work features mathematical objects and operations including impossible objects, explorations of infinity, reflection, symmetry, perspective, truncated and stellated polyhedra, hyperbolic geometry, and tessellations. Although Escher believed he had no mathematical ability, he interacted with the mathematicians George Pólya, Roger Penrose, Harold Coxeter and crystallographer Friedrich Haag, and conducted his own research into tessellation.
Early in his career, he drew inspiration from nature, making studies of insects, landscapes, and plants such as lichens, all of which he used as details in his artworks. He traveled in Italy and Spain, sketching buildings, townscapes, architecture and the tilings of the Alhambra and the Mezquita of Cordoba, and became steadily more interested in their mathematical structure.
Escher's art became well known among scientists and mathematicians, and in popular culture, especially after it was featured by Martin Gardner in his April 1966 Mathematical Games column in "Scientific American". Apart from being used in a variety of technical papers, his work has appeared on the covers of many books and albums. He was one of the major inspirations of Douglas Hofstadter's Pulitzer Prize-winning 1979 book "Gödel, Escher, Bach".
Maurits Cornelis Escher was born on 17 June 1898 in Leeuwarden, Friesland, the Netherlands, in a house that forms part of the Princessehof Ceramics Museum today. He was the youngest son of the civil engineer George Arnold Escher and his second wife, Sara Gleichman. In 1903, the family moved to Arnhem, where he attended primary and secondary school until 1918. Known to his friends and family as "Mauk", he was a sickly child and was placed in a special school at the age of seven; he failed the second grade. Although he excelled at drawing, his grades were generally poor. He took carpentry and piano lessons until he was thirteen years old.
In 1918, he went to the Technical College of Delft. From 1919 to 1922, Escher attended the Haarlem School of Architecture and Decorative Arts, learning drawing and the art of making woodcuts. He briefly studied architecture, but he failed a number of subjects (due partly to a persistent skin infection) and switched to decorative arts, studying under the graphic artist Samuel Jessurun de Mesquita.
In 1922, an important year of his life, Escher traveled through Italy, visiting Florence, San Gimignano, Volterra, Siena, and Ravello. In the same year, he traveled through Spain, visiting Madrid, Toledo, and Granada. He was impressed by the Italian countryside and, in Granada, by the Moorish architecture of the fourteenth-century Alhambra. The intricate decorative designs of the Alhambra, based on geometrical symmetries featuring interlocking repetitive patterns in the coloured tiles or sculpted into the walls and ceilings, triggered his interest in the mathematics of tessellation and became a powerful influence on his work.
Escher returned to Italy and lived in Rome from 1923 to 1935. While in Italy, Escher met Jetta Umiker – a Swiss woman, like himself attracted to Italy – whom he married in 1924. The couple settled in Rome where their first son, Giorgio (George) Arnaldo Escher, named after his grandfather, was born. Escher and Jetta later had two more sons – Arthur and Jan.
He travelled frequently, visiting (among other places) Viterbo in 1926, the Abruzzi in 1927 and 1929, Corsica in 1928 and 1933, Calabria in 1930, the Amalfi coast in 1931 and 1934, and Gargano and Sicily in 1932 and 1935. The townscapes and landscapes of these places feature prominently in his artworks. In May and June 1936, Escher travelled back to Spain, revisiting the Alhambra and spending days at a time making detailed drawings of its mosaic patterns. It was here that he became fascinated, to the point of obsession, with tessellation, explaining:
The sketches he made in the Alhambra formed a major source for his work from that time on. He also studied the architecture of the Mezquita, the Moorish mosque of Cordoba. This turned out to be the last of his long study journeys; after 1937, his artworks were created in his studio rather than in the field. His art correspondingly changed sharply from being mainly observational, with a strong emphasis on the realistic details of things seen in nature and architecture, to being the product of his geometric analysis and his visual imagination. All the same, even his early work already shows his interest in the nature of space, the unusual, perspective, and multiple points of view.
In 1935, the political climate in Italy (under Mussolini) became unacceptable to Escher. He had no interest in politics, finding it impossible to involve himself with any ideals other than the expressions of his own concepts through his own particular medium, but he was averse to fanaticism and hypocrisy. When his eldest son, George, was forced at the age of nine to wear a Ballila uniform in school, the family left Italy and moved to Château-d'Œx, Switzerland, where they remained for two years.
The Netherlands post office had Escher design a semi-postal stamp for the "Air Fund" in 1935, and again in 1949 he designed Netherlands stamps. These were for the 75th anniversary of the Universal Postal Union; a different design was used by Surinam and the Netherlands Antilles for the same commemoration.
Escher, who had been very fond of and inspired by the landscapes in Italy, was decidedly unhappy in Switzerland. In 1937, the family moved again, to Uccle (Ukkel), a suburb of Brussels, Belgium. World War II forced them to move in January 1941, this time to Baarn, Netherlands, where Escher lived until 1970. Most of Escher's best-known works date from this period. The sometimes cloudy, cold, and wet weather of the Netherlands allowed him to focus intently on his work. After 1953, Escher lectured widely. A planned series of lectures in North America in 1962 was cancelled after an illness, and he stopped creating artworks for a time, but the illustrations and text for the lectures were later published as part of the book "Escher on Escher". He was awarded the Knighthood of the Order of Orange-Nassau in 1955; he was later made an Officer in 1967.
In July 1969 he finished his last work, a large woodcut with threefold rotational symmetry called "Snakes", in which snakes wind through a pattern of linked rings. These shrink to infinity toward both the center and the edge of a circle. It was exceptionally elaborate, being printed using three blocks, each rotated three times about the center of the image and precisely aligned to avoid gaps and overlaps, for a total of nine print operations for each finished print. The image encapsulates Escher's love of symmetry; of interlocking patterns; and, at the end of his life, of his approach to infinity. The care that Escher took in creating and printing this woodcut can be seen in a video recording.
Escher moved to the Rosa Spier Huis in Laren in 1970, an artists' retirement home in which he had his own studio. He died in a hospital in Hilversum on 27 March 1972, aged 73. He is buried at the New Cemetery in Baarn.
Escher's work is inescapably mathematical. This has caused a disconnect between his full-on popular fame and the lack of esteem with which he has been viewed in the art world. His originality and mastery of graphic techniques are respected, but his works have been thought too intellectual and insufficiently lyrical. Movements such as conceptual art have, to a degree, reversed the art world's attitude to intellectuality and lyricism, but this did not rehabilitate Escher, because traditional critics still disliked his narrative themes and his use of perspective. However, these same qualities made his work highly attractive to the public.
Escher is not the first artist to explore mathematical themes: Parmigianino (1503–1540) had explored spherical geometry and reflection in his 1524 "Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror", depicting his own image in a curved mirror, while William Hogarth's 1754 "Satire on False Perspective" foreshadows Escher's playful exploration of errors in perspective. Another early artistic forerunner is Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778), whose dark "fantastical" prints such as "The Drawbridge" in his "Carceri" ("Prisons") sequence depict perspectives of complex architecture with many stairs and ramps, peopled by walking figures. Only with 20th century movements such as Cubism, De Stijl, Dadaism, and Surrealism did mainstream art start to explore Escher-like ways of looking at the world with multiple simultaneous viewpoints. However, although Escher had much in common with, for example, Magritte's surrealism, he did not make contact with any of these movements.
In his early years, Escher sketched landscapes and nature. He also sketched insects such as ants, bees, grasshoppers, and mantises, which appeared frequently in his later work. His early love of Roman and Italian landscapes and of nature created an interest in tessellation, which he called "Regular Division of the Plane"; this became the title of his 1958 book, complete with reproductions of a series of woodcuts based on tessellations of the plane, in which he described the systematic buildup of mathematical designs in his artworks. He wrote, "Mathematicians have opened the gate leading to an extensive domain".
After his 1936 journey to the Alhambra and to La Mezquita, Cordoba, where he sketched the Moorish architecture and the tessellated mosaic decorations, Escher began to explore the properties and possibilities of tessellation using geometric grids as the basis for his sketches. He then extended these to form complex interlocking designs, for example with animals such as birds, fish, and reptiles. One of his first attempts at a tessellation was his pencil, India ink, and watercolour "Study of Regular Division of the Plane with Reptiles" (1939), constructed on a hexagonal grid. The heads of the red, green, and white reptiles meet at a vertex; the tails, legs, and sides of the animals interlock exactly. It was used as the basis for his 1943 lithograph "Reptiles".
His first study of mathematics began with papers by George Pólya and by the crystallographer Friedrich Haag on plane symmetry groups, sent to him by his brother Berend, a geologist. He carefully studied the 17 canonical wallpaper groups and created periodic tilings with 43 drawings of different types of symmetry. From this point on, he developed a mathematical approach to expressions of symmetry in his artworks using his own notation. Starting in 1937, he created woodcuts based on the 17 groups. His "Metamorphosis I" (1937) began a series of designs that told a story through the use of pictures. In "Metamorphosis I", he transformed convex polygons into regular patterns in a plane to form a human motif. He extended the approach in his piece "Metamorphosis III", which is four metres long.
In 1941 and 1942, Escher summarized his findings for his own artistic use in a sketchbook, which he labeled (following Haag) "Regelmatige vlakverdeling in asymmetrische congruente veelhoeken" ("Regular division of the plane with asymmetric congruent polygons"). The mathematician Doris Schattschneider unequivocally described this notebook as recording "a methodical investigation that can only be termed mathematical research." She defined the research questions he was following as
Although Escher did not have mathematical training—his understanding of mathematics was largely visual and intuitive—his art had a strong mathematical component, and several of the worlds that he drew were built around impossible objects. After 1924, Escher turned to sketching landscapes in Italy and Corsica with irregular perspectives that are impossible in natural form. His first print of an impossible reality was "Still Life and Street" (1937); impossible stairs and multiple visual and gravitational perspectives feature in popular works such as "Relativity" (1953). "House of Stairs" (1951) attracted the interest of the mathematician Roger Penrose and his father, the biologist Lionel Penrose. In 1956, they published a paper, "Impossible Objects: A Special Type of Visual Illusion" and later sent Escher a copy. Escher replied, admiring the Penroses' continuously rising flights of steps, and enclosed a print of "Ascending and Descending" (1960). The paper also contained the tribar or Penrose triangle, which Escher used repeatedly in his lithograph of a building that appears to function as a perpetual motion machine, "Waterfall" (1961).
Escher was interested enough in Hieronymus Bosch's 1500 triptych "The Garden of Earthly Delights" to re-create part of its right-hand panel, "Hell", as a lithograph in 1935. He reused the figure of a Mediaeval woman in a two-pointed headdress and a long gown in his lithograph "Belvedere" in 1958; the image is, like many of his other "extraordinary invented places", peopled with "jesters, knaves, and contemplators". Thus, Escher not only was interested in possible or impossible geometry but was, in his own words, a "reality enthusiast"; he combined "formal astonishment with a vivid and idiosyncratic vision".
Escher worked primarily in the media of lithographs and woodcuts, although the few mezzotints he made are considered to be masterpieces of the technique. In his graphic art, he portrayed mathematical relationships among shapes, figures, and space. Integrated into his prints were mirror images of cones, spheres, cubes, rings, and spirals.
Escher was also fascinated by mathematical objects such as the Möbius strip, which has only one surface. His wood engraving "Möbius Strip II" (1963) depicts a chain of ants marching forever over what, at any one place, are the two opposite faces of the object—which are seen on inspection to be parts of the strip's single surface. In Escher's own words:
The mathematical influence in his work became prominent after 1936, when, having boldly asked the Adria Shipping Company if he could sail with them as travelling artist in return for making drawings of their ships, they surprisingly agreed, and he sailed the Mediterranean, becoming interested in order and symmetry. Escher described this journey, including his repeat visit to the Alhambra, as "the richest source of inspiration I have ever tapped".
Escher's interest in curvilinear perspective was encouraged by his friend and "kindred spirit", the art historian and artist Albert Flocon, in another example of constructive mutual influence. Flocon identified Escher as a "thinking artist" alongside Piero della Francesca, Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Dürer, Wenzel Jamnitzer, Abraham Bosse, Girard Desargues, and Père Nicon. Flocon was delighted by Escher's "Grafiek en tekeningen" ("Graphics in Drawing"), which he read in 1959. This stimulated Flocon and André Barre to correspond with Escher and to write the book "La Perspective curviligne" ("Curvilinear perspective").
Escher often incorporated three-dimensional objects such as the Platonic solids such as spheres, tetrahedrons, and cubes into his works, as well as mathematical objects such as cylinders and stellated polyhedra. In the print "Reptiles", he combined two- and three-dimensional images. In one of his papers, Escher emphasized the importance of dimensionality:
Escher's artwork is especially well-liked by mathematicians such as Doris Schattschneider and scientists such as Roger Penrose, who enjoy his use of polyhedra and geometric distortions. For example, in "Gravitation", animals climb around a stellated dodecahedron.
The two towers of "Waterfall" impossible building are topped with compound polyhedra, one a compound of three cubes, the other a stellated rhombic dodecahedron now known as Escher's solid. Escher had used this solid in his 1948 woodcut "Stars", which also contains all five of the Platonic solids and various stellated solids, representing stars; the central solid is animated by chameleons climbing through the frame as it whirls in space. Escher possessed a 6 cm refracting telescope and was a keen-enough amateur astronomer to have recorded observations of binary stars.
Escher's artistic expression was created from images in his mind, rather than directly from observations and travels to other countries. His interest in the multiple levels of reality in art is seen in works such as "Drawing Hands" (1948), where two hands are shown, each drawing the other. The critic Steven Poole commented that
In 1954, the International Congress of Mathematicians met in Amsterdam, and N. G. de Bruin organized a display of Escher's work at the Stedelijk Museum for the participants. Both Roger Penrose and H. S. M. Coxeter were deeply impressed with Escher's intuitive grasp of mathematics. Inspired by "Relativity", Penrose devised his tribar, and his father, Lionel Penrose, devised an endless staircase. Roger Penrose sent sketches of both objects to Escher, and the cycle of invention was closed when Escher then created the perpetual motion machine of "Waterfall" and the endless march of the monk-figures of "Ascending and Descending".
In 1957, Coxeter obtained Escher's permission to use two of his drawings in his paper "Crystal symmetry and its generalizations". He sent Escher a copy of the paper; Escher recorded that Coxeter's figure of a hyperbolic tessellation "gave me quite a shock": the infinite regular repetition of the tiles in the hyperbolic plane, growing rapidly smaller towards the edge of the circle, was precisely what he wanted to allow him to represent infinity on a two-dimensional plane.
Escher carefully studied Coxeter's figure, marking it up to analyse the successively smaller circles with which (he deduced) it had been constructed. He then constructed a diagram, which he sent to Coxeter, showing his analysis; Coxeter confirmed it was correct, but disappointed Escher with his highly technical reply. All the same, Escher persisted with hyperbolic tiling, which he called "Coxetering". Among the results were the series of wood engravings "Circle Limit I–IV". In 1959, Coxeter published his finding that these works were extraordinarily accurate: "Escher got it absolutely right to the millimeter".
Escher's special way of thinking and rich graphics have had a continuous influence in mathematics and art, as well as in popular culture.
The Escher intellectual property is controlled by the M.C. Escher Company, while exhibitions of his artworks are managed separately by the M.C. Escher Foundation.
The primary institutional collections of original works by M.C. Escher are the Escher Museum in The Hague; the National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC); the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa); the Israel Museum (Jerusalem); and the Huis ten Bosch (Nagasaki, Japan).
Despite wide popular interest, Escher was for a long time somewhat neglected in the art world; even in his native Netherlands, he was 70 before a retrospective exhibition was held. In the twenty-first century, major exhibitions have been held in cities across the world. An exhibition of his work in Rio de Janeiro attracted more than 573,000 visitors in 2011; its daily visitor count of 9,677 made it the most visited museum exhibition of the year, anywhere in the world. No major exhibition of Escher's work was held in Britain until 2015, when the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art ran one in Edinburgh from June to September 2015, moving in October 2015 to the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London. The exhibition moved to Italy in 2015–2016, attracting over 500,000 visitors in Rome and Bologna, and then Milan.
Doris Schattschneider identifies eleven strands of mathematical and scientific research anticipated or directly inspired by Escher. These are the classification of regular tilings using the edge relationships of tiles: two-color and two-motif tilings (counterchange symmetry or antisymmetry); color symmetry (in crystallography); metamorphosis or topological change; covering surfaces with symmetric patterns; Escher's algorithm (for generating patterns using decorated squares); creating tile shapes; local versus global definitions of regularity; symmetry of a tiling induced by the symmetry of a tile; orderliness not induced by symmetry groups; the filling of the central void in Escher's lithograph "Print Gallery" by H. Lenstra and B. de Smit.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning 1979 book "Gödel, Escher, Bach" by Douglas Hofstadter discusses the ideas of self-reference and strange loops, drawing on a wide range of artistic and scientific sources including Escher's art and the music of J. S. Bach.
The asteroid 4444 Escher was named in Escher's honor in 1985.
Escher's fame in popular culture grew when his work was featured by Martin Gardner in his April 1966 "Mathematical Games" column in "Scientific American". Escher's works have appeared on many album covers including The Scaffold's 1969 "L the P" with "Ascending and Descending"; Mott the Hoople's eponymous 1969 record with "Reptiles", Beaver & Krause's 1970 "In A Wild Sanctuary" with "Three Worlds"; and Mandrake Memorial's 1970 "Puzzle" with "House of Stairs" and (inside) "Curl Up". His works have similarly been used on many book covers, including some editions of Edwin Abbott's "Flatland", which used "Three Spheres"; E. H. Gombrich's "Meditations on a Hobby Horse" with "Horseman"; Pamela Hall's "Heads You Lose" with "Plane Filling 1"; Patrick A. Horton's "Mastering the Power of Story" with "Drawing Hands"; Erich Gamma et al.'s "Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-oriented software" with "Swans"; and Arthur Markman's "Knowledge Representation" with "Reptiles". The "World of Escher" markets posters, neckties, T-shirts, and jigsaw puzzles of Escher's artworks. Both Austria and the Netherlands have issued postage stamps commemorating the artist and his works.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20127
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Shang-Chi
Shang-Chi is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character was created by writer Steve Englehart and artist Jim Starlin, first appearing in "Special Marvel Edition" #15 (cover-dated December 1973) in the Bronze Age of Comic Books. Often referred to as the "Master of Kung Fu", Shang-Chi is proficient in numerous unarmed and weaponry-based wushu styles, including the use of the "gùn", "nunchaku", and "jian". In later years, he gains the power to create countless duplicates of himself and joins the Avengers.
Shang-Chi was spun off from novelist Sax Rohmer's licensed property as the unknown son of fictional villain Fu Manchu. In later editions, his connection to Fu was underplayed after Marvel lost the comic book rights to the latter's character.
Shang-Chi is set to make his live-action debut in the upcoming film "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" (2021), set within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He will be played by Canadian actor Simu Liu.
The character was conceived in late 1972. Marvel had wished to acquire the rights to adapt the "Kung Fu" television program, but were denied permission by the show's owner, Warner Communications, owner of Marvel's primary rival, DC Comics. Instead, Marvel acquired the comic book rights to Sax Rohmer's pulp villain Dr. Fu Manchu. They developed Shang-Chi, a master of kung fu, who was introduced as a previously unknown son of Fu Manchu. Though an original character himself, many of Shang-Chi's supporting characters (most notably Fu Manchu, Sir Denis Nayland Smith, Dr. James Petrie and Fah Lo Suee) were Rohmer creations. No characters from the "Kung Fu" television series carried over into the comic series, though the character Lu Sun, in an early issue, bears a strong resemblance to Kwai Chang Caine with the addition of a moustache. With artist Paul Gulacy, his visual appearance was modeled after that of Bruce Lee.
Shang-Chi first appeared in "Special Marvel Edition" #15 (December 1973) by Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin. He appeared again in issue #16, and with issue #17 (April 1974) the title was changed to "The Hands of Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu". Amidst the martial arts craze in the United States in the 1970s, the book became very popular, surviving until issue #125 (June 1983), a run including four giant-size issues and an annual. "Special Collector's Edition" #1 (1975) cover-titled as "Savage Fists of Kung Fu" reprinted stories from "The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu" #1-2; "The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu Special" #1; and "Special Marvel Edition" #15. He did several crossovers with other Marvel martial artists, including the White Tiger, Iron Fist and the Daughters of the Dragon (Colleen Wing and Misty Knight). He appeared regularly in "The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu".
Shang-Chi had two more short series: the "Master of Kung Fu: Bleeding Black" one-shot (1990) and the MAX miniseries "Master of Kung Fu: Hellfire Apocalypse" (2002) with artist Paul Gulacy on art again. The character had two stories in the comics anthology series "Marvel Comics Presents", including one by Moench that ran in the series' first eight issues in 1988, and co-starred in the "Moon Knight Special" (1992). In 1997 a story arc starring Shang-Chi ran in "Journey into Mystery" #514-516, and was intended to lead into a miniseries for the character in 1998. In 2017, after a 34-year gap, Shang-Chi once again starred in "Master of Kung Fu"'s 126th issue as part of the "Marvel Legacy" relaunch, written by mixed martial artist CM Punk and illustrated by Dalibor Talajic.
Although spun out of licensed properties, Shang-Chi is a Marvel-owned character and has been firmly established as a part of the Marvel Universe with guest appearances in numerous other titles, such as "Marvel Team-Up", "Marvel Knights" and "X-Men". Most of the original, licensed characters in the supporting cast have been either phased out or renamed in the more recent series and stories.
In some of his modern appearances, mention is made of his villainous father either in cryptic terms or using a variety of new names, due to Marvel no longer having the rights to Fu Manchu. In 2010's "Secret Avengers" #6-10, writer Ed Brubaker officially sidestepped the entire issue via a storyline where the Shadow Council resurrects a zombified version of Fu Manchu, only to discover that "Fu Manchu" was only an alias and that Shang-Chi's father real name was Zheng Zu, an ancient Chinese sorcerer who discovered the secret to immortality. Similarly, Shang-Chi's half sister Fah Lo Suee was later renamed Zheng Bao Yu in 2013's "Fearless Defenders" #8 while Smith and Petrie have not appeared in any Marvel properties since the end of the "Master of Kung Fu" series in 1983.
Shang-Chi returned as a main character in the 2007 "Heroes for Hire" comic book. He, along with other Asian and Asian American superheroes, became a main character in Greg Pak's "Agents of Atlas" series in 2019.
In 2015, Shang-Chi starred in the "Master of Kung Fu" revival in the "Secret Wars" storyline. Written by Haden Blackman and illustrated by Taljic, the four-issue series is a "wuxia"-inspired story that takes place in the Battleworld domain of K'un-Lun and centered around Shang-Chi in his fight to overthrow his despotic father, Emperor Zheng Zu.
Shang-Chi will star in a self-titled five issue miniseries beginning in June 2020. The series will be written by "American Born Chinese" author Gene Luen Yang with art by Dike Ruan and Philip Tan. According to Yang, the story will explore Shang-Chi's relationships with his father Zheng Zu and his half-siblings.
Shang-Chi was born in Henan province of the People's Republic of China, and is the son of Fu Manchu, the Chinese mastermind who has repeatedly attempted world conquest and had a thirst for blood. His mother was a white American woman genetically selected by his father. Shang-Chi was raised and trained from infancy in the martial arts by his father and his tutors. Believing his father was a benevolent humanitarian, Shang-Chi was sent on a mission to London to murder Dr. James Petrie, who his father claimed was evil and a threat to peace. After successfully assassinating Petrie, he encountered Fu Manchu's archenemy, Sir Denis Nayland Smith, who revealed to Shang-Chi his father's true nature. After confronting his mother in New York City for the truth, Shang-Chi realized that Fu Manchu was evil. Shang-Chi fought his way past Fu Manchu's Si-Fan assassins at his Manhattan headquarters, telling his father that they were now enemies and vowing to put an end to his evil schemes. Shang-Chi subsequently fought his adoptive brother Midnight, who was sent by their father to kill Shang-Chi for his defection, and then encountered Smith's aide-de-camp and MI-6 agent Black Jack Tarr, sent by Smith to apprehend Shang-Chi. After several encounters and coming to trust one another, Shang-Chi eventually became an ally of Sir Denis Nayland Smith and MI-6. Together with Smith, Tarr, fellow MI-6 agents Clive Reston and Leiko Wu, his eventual love interest, and Dr Petrie, who was revealed to still be alive, Shang-Chi went on many adventures and missions, usually thwarting his father's numerous plans for world domination. Shang-Chi would occasionally encounter his half-sister who led her own faction of the Si-Fan, but opposed her attempts to make him a pawn in her own schemes to usurp their father from his criminal empire.
With Smith, Tarr, Reston, Wu and Petrie, he formed Freelance Restorations, Ltd, an independent spy agency based in Stormhaven Castle, Scotland. After many skirmishes and battles, Shang-Chi finally witnessed the death of Fu Manchu. Not long after his father's death, a guilt-ridden Shang-Chi quit Freelance Restorations, cut ties with his former allies, forsook his life as an adventurer, and retired to a village in remote Yang-Tin, China, to live as a fisherman.
Some time later, Shang-Chi returned from China and rejoined Tarr, Reston, and Wu. They battled Argus' terroristic group, formed to cause the United States to act more aggressively against all terrorists. In order to gain information, Argus had Wu tortured, cutting off her hand as a message. She was rescued by Shang-Chi and the others, but not before Shang-Chi suffered a dose of a slow-acting poison. Before the poison could kill him, he was cured of its effects by Fu Manchu's elixir vitae.
After his father was revealed to still be alive, Shang-Chi would later assist his old allies (who had rejoined MI-6) against him and his previously unknown half-brother . The mission was a success, resulting in his father's Hellfire weapon being destroyed and Moving Shadow's death at their father's hand for his failure in killing Shang-Chi.
As a member of the restored Heroes for Hire, Shang-Chi had put his strength of character at the service of their teammates. Humbug, turning against the heroes, tried to double cross both his friends and the "Earth Hive" of insects, joining the Hive, and offering Colleen Wing and Tarantula to a lifetime of tortures. Even so, when a dying Humbug begged his friend to mercy kill him, Shang-Chi refuses, until he finds that Humbug actually had no qualms to torture Tarantula, if it meant less suffering for Colleen. Shang-Chi then snaps his neck and leaves with the catatonic Tarantula, ashamed of what he believed he had to become, a soulless murderer.
Still working for MI-6, he went on to collaborate with Pete Wisdom of MI-13 in facing the Welsh dragon, which had turned amnesiac and become a human crime lord. Shang-Chi had been told by Wisdom that the dragon (being inherently noble) would go free once it remembered its true origins, and was embittered to find this had been a lie. He became the tutor of a young Earth-616 Killraven.
In the "Shadowland" storyline, Shang-Chi is one of the heroes fighting the Hand's ninjas. He later works together with Spider-Man against Mister Negative and temporarily takes Mister Negative's powers until Shang-Chi is brought back to normal by Spider-Man.
In "Secret Avengers", Steve Rogers tracks Shang-Chi down to help turn back the Shadow Council, which has partially resurrected Shang-Chi's father (who died sometime after their last encounter) and employed the Hai-Dai, a squad of assassins, to hunt Shang-Chi down. After further research, Beast reveals to Shang-Chi and the Secret Avengers that his father's true identity is that of an ancient sorcerer named Zheng Zu who gained immortality after stealing one of his brothers' life essence and that "Fu Manchu" was merely an alias. When Shang-Chi and Rogers meet with John Steele and the Shadow Council for the prisoner exchange for a captured Sharon Carter, Rogers is overpowered by Steele and Shang-Chi is captured. While Zheng Zu prepares to sacrifice Shang-Chi to complete his resurrection, the Avengers and Moon Knight drop in on the him and the Shadow Council. The Prince of Orphans disrupts the ritual, resulting in Zheng Zu's permanent death and Shang-Chi's rescue. Shang-Chi would subsequently join the Secret Avengers but left the team following the defeat of Arnim Zola 4.2.3, believing he had adequately repaid the favor he owed Rogers.
Per the instructions of the new Madame Web, Shang-Chi has begun training Spider-Man in kung fu to help him compensate for the recent loss of his spider-sense. Under Shang-Chi's tutelage, Spider-Man develops his own martial arts style, the "Way of the Spider".
During the events of "Spider-Island", Shang-Chi is one of the many inhabitants of Manhattan infected by the Spider-Virus, giving him the same powers and abilities as Spider-Man. Shang-Chi is also plagued by recurring nightmares of himself as a spider attacking innocent civilians. While consulting Madame Web, Shang-Chi is told that people with spider powers are currently running amok in the city. When he sees Iron Fist and other heroes fighting Spider-Man impostors and Peter Parker nearby, Shang-Chi springs into action to protect Parker; he is able to confirm Spider-Man's identity to the other heroes, who had mistaken him for one of the costumed hooligans. Meanwhile, the Bride of Nine Spiders inexplicably starts attacking and abducting her teammates in the Immortal Weapons. Shang-Chi attempts to stop the Bride of Nine Spiders from abducting Iron Fist with his newly acquired powers, but is unsuccessful. Shang-Chi learns from Silver Sable that she has found possible locations in Manhattan for Bride of Nine Spider's lair. Although Shang-Chi manages to defeat Bride of Nine Spiders and frees Iron Fist, he discovers that the person behind this is the demon Ai Apaec who seeks to feed off the Immortal Weapons. As Shang-Chi fights Ai Apeac, Iron Fist scrambles to free the other Immortal Weapons. Shang-Chi mutates into a spider during the battle as a result of his infection, but Iron Fist uses his Chi force to cure Shang-Chi, leaving Iron Fist in a weakened state. After making sure Iron Fist and the rest of the Immortal Weapons are evacuated, Shang-Chi collapses the mansion hide-out on Ai Apeac, leaving him immobilized for the Avengers to put back into custody. Shang-Chi and the Immortal Weapons arrive to join the heroes during the final stand against the Spider Queen.
During the "Marvel NOW!" relaunch, Shang-Chi joins the Avengers after being recruited by Captain America and Iron Man.
During the events of "Infinity", Shang-Chi and the Avengers join the Galactic Council to fight against the Builders and their crusade against all life in the universe. When several allies were captured by the enemy, Shang forms a rescue team with Black Widow, Spider-Woman and Manifold. Wielding a pair of energy projecting gauntlets, Shang's timely intervention prevented his friends from being vaporized by an Aleph. After the Builders' defeat, the Avengers return to Earth with their new Galactic Council allies to face off against an even bigger threat back home - Thanos. Shang is sent along with Black Widow and Manifold the infiltrate the Peak and shut down Thanos' first line of defense. However, the team is intercepted by Black Dwarf and his guards. As Manifold returned to grab reinforcements, Shang and Natasha managed to defeat the entire security force, save the general who proved to be too much for even the Master of Kung Fu. The combined might of Gladiator, Ronan the Accuser and other Council members eventually made short work of Black Dwarf and allows Shang and the infiltration team to complete their mission.
With the threat of both the Builders and Thanos thwarted, Shang-Chi is sent to Madripoor along with Black Widow, Falcon, and Wolverine to stop a full-scale riot that has broken throughout out the island nation. Shang-Chi infiltrates a temple housed by Hand but is too late to stop the Hand's new leader Gorgon from completing a ritual which raises the island out of the water up upon the head of a massive dragon. When the dragon begins to take flight, Shang-Chi quickly takes out all of the present Hand ninjas at the temple and challenges the Gorgon. Despite a valiant effort, Shang-Chi is defeated by the Gorgon, who throws Shang-Chi from the edge of the dragon's head several hundred feet above the earth. Shang-Chi is rescued by the Chinese intelligence-gathering agency S.P.E.A.R and is taken to their air-bound base, the Circle, to recuperate. Shang-Chi, along with the Avengers and S.P.E.A.R.'s superhuman response team the Ascendants go to Shanghai to defend the city from the dragon and the Hand's forces. Using Pym Particles supplied to him by S.P.E.A.R director Xian Zheng, Shang Chi grows to the size of a giant and defeats the dragon in combat, but not before enacting payback by tearing off the Hand's temple (with a screaming Gorgon still trapped inside) from the dragon's head and throwing it several miles away.
When the Illuminati were exposed to have tampered with the mind of Captain America and attempting to destroy worlds threatening Earth as part of the Incursions as seen in the "Time Runs Out" storyline, Shang-Chi joined a faction of the Avengers led by Sunspot. Sunspot's Avengers, having taken control over A.I.M., discovered that "Incursion points" (points where an Incursion world that is about to hit Earth can be seen) were causing a massive number of physical mutations among those who stumbled upon the locations. Sending Shang-Chi to an incursion point in Japan, Shang-Chi was exposed to cosmic-level radiation that transformed Shang-Chi into a mutate capable of creating duplicates of himself.
After capturing Crossbones for a mission, Shang-Chi is informed by Captain America about his former lover Leiko Wu's murder at the hands of Razor Fist while working undercover for MI-6 in one of London's triads. Shang-Chi travels to London for Leiko's funeral and while wondering around Chinatown (where Leiko was murdered), he is attacked by unknown assailants, one whom reveals to Shang that the crime lord White Dragon was behind the murder. Shang-Chi is approached by triad clan leader and former enemy Skull-Crusher who offers him a truce; Chao Sina reveals he and Leiko became lovers while she was working undercover and had planned to defect from MI-6 for him. With help from Skull-Crusher and the newly arrived Daughters of the Dragon and the Sons of the Tiger, Shang-Chi confirms that Razor Fist was hired by White Dragon to kill Leiko due to her involvement with his rival clan leader Skull-Crusher and discovers that White Dragon has access to the Mao Shan Pai, a powerful Chinese black magic. Shang-Chi and Skull-Crusher infiltrate White Dragon's estate where they discover a room displaying the decapitated heads of missing triad leaders. The two of them fight White Dragon but are captured by Shang-Chi's brother, Midnight Sun, who reveals himself to be the true mastermind behind White Dragon. With the Mao Shan Pai spellbook taken by White Dragon's men, M'Nai plans to use its magic to give him power and influence over the triad clans, finally fulfilling Zheng Zu's legacy. Needing the heads of the clan leaders in order to complete the ritual, Midnight Sun beheads White Dragon and Skull-Crusher and proceeds to cast the spell. Instead of giving him power, the spell resurrects Leiko from Chao's spilled blood. The vengeful and black magic wielding Leiko reveals that Skull-Crusher made her the leader of his clan before her death; Chao's death made the ritual invalid and instead brought her back from the dead to punish Midnight Sun. Shang-Chi is able to knock out Midnight Sun during their fight while Leiko brutally defeats Razor Fist by ripping off his bladed arms. Leiko uses her newfound powers to summon the dead spirits of Skull-Crusher, White Dragon and the other dead triad leaders, who drag Midnight Sun into their realm. When Leiko attempts to execute a maimed Razor Fist, Shang-Chi pleads with his former lover to stop; while he is able to get Leiko to spare Razor Fist, he is unable to bring her back to her normal self. Black Jack Tarr (now director of MI-6) and his men raid the estate; Razor Fist and White Dragon's men are arrested while Leiko escapes. Before leaving London, Shang-Chi leaves a photo of him and Leiko at her grave, which is later taken by Leiko after he leaves.
Shang-Chi joins several other Asian American superheroes (Hulk (Amadeus Cho), Silk, Ms. Marvel, Jimmy Woo, and S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Jake Oh) for a fundraiser in Flushing, Queens. Later while the group is spending the night out in Koreatown, Manhattan they are ambushed by the alien Prince Regent Phalkan and his small army from Seknarf Seven. Shang-Chi and his allies briefly fight off the invaders before they and a large group of bystanders are teleported near Seknarf Seven, where Phalkan demands that the group offer a few people for food within a time limit. Dubbing their group "The Protectors", Woo rallies the group and bystanders into working together to escape, while Shang-Chi leads an attack with Silk and Ms. Marvel. The Protectors are eventually able to free themselves and defeat Phalkan and his forces with the help of the bystanders. The Alpha Flight Space Program arrives to rescue the Protectors and bystanders and arrest Phalkan, who Sasquatch reveals was exiled from Seknarf Seven for treason.
During the "Secret Empire" storyline, Shang-Chi was found to have been a prisoner of HYDRA in Madripoor following HYDRA's takeover of the United States. After Hive and Gorgon are defeated, the Tony Stark A.I. finds him and he states that he does not have the Cosmic Cube shard anymore. A flashback revealed that Emma Frost took the Cosmic Cube shard from him when he was unconscious. Shang-Chi was later seen with the Underground when they and other superheroes are fighting HYDRA's forces in Washington, D.C.
Seeking a way to fight her ability stealing adversary Topaz, Domino approaches Shang-Chi (who was referred to her by his Protectors teammate Amadeus Cho) at his retreat in Lantau Island for training. After a long training session, the two spend a romantic night out in Hong Kong, only to be ambushed at a night club by a large group of Shang-Chi's enemies, led by Midnight and including Razor Fist, Shen Kuei, Shockwave, Death-Hand, Shadow Stalker, Tiger-Claw and others. Domino and Shang-Chi defeat them with relative ease. The two are eventually confronted by Topaz who Domino defeats using Shang-Chi's teachings. Despite Shang-Chi's pleas for mercy, Domino kills Topaz. Disappointed, Shang-Chi breaks up with Domino and dismisses her as his student.
After taking part in a demonstration for Jimmy Woo's Pan-Asian School for the Unusually Gifted in Mumbai, Shang-Chi and the Protectors are offered membership to Jimmy's Agents of Atlas. Shang-Chi and the others are suddenly alerted by the news of Malekith's invasion of Earth; most of the New Agents of Atlas head to Seoul while Ms. Marvel joins Jake Oh and the Champions in New York. Shang-Chi and the others defend Seoul from Malekith's ally Queen Sindr and her Fire Goblin forces from Muspelheim with help from the Korean heroes White Fox, Crescent, Io and Luna Snow. After Sindr threatens to summon a volcano in the middle of the city and kill millions of innocents, Brawn teleports Atlas and their new allies away from the battle, allowing Sindr to peacefully annex South Korea. Brawn eventually summons the Chinese heroes Sword Master and Aero, Filipina heroine Wave, and the Hawaiian Goddess of Fire and Volcanoes Pele from Shanghai to help assist in the fight against Sindr. The newly summoned heroes are less than pleased for being taken out of their previous battle, but Pele quickly puts a stop to the infighting, warning the group that Sindr plans to melt the polar ice caps if they don't work together. When Sword Master continues to protest, Shang-Chi knocks him to the ground, surprising the young hero. After formulating a plan, Brawn confronts Sindr and her forces directly while Aero, Wave and Luna use Sindr's Black Bifrost to travel to the Arctic to decrease its temperature; Shang-Chi and the others are teleported to Atlas' ally Monkey King of the Ascendants in Northern China where Shang-Chi begins training the remaining members for their final fight. When Sun Wukong scoffs at the idea of being trained by a mortal, Shang-Chi disarms him, impressing the Monkey King. As planned by Brawn, the Queen of Cinders arrives in Northern China with a captured Brawn, only to be taken by surprise by Shang-Chi and the others, who defeat Sindr with Shang-Chi's training, although Pele (who is revealed to have been M-41 Zu, a mystically enhanced Atlas Android) and Monkey King sacrifice themselves in the process. Despite given the chance to surrender, Sindr flees using the Black Bifrost, only for Shang-Chi and the others to follow her with Brawn's teleporter, where they help Captain Marvel defeat her and her remaining forces at the Great Wall of China near Beijing. Shang-Chi is later shown fighting the remaining Fire Goblins alongside Wolverine, Hawkeye, Shuri and the Warriors Three in Shanghai. After Malekith's defeat, Shang-Chi is seen with the other Agents in Shanghai looking on while the captured Fire Goblins are escorted back to Muspelheim.
Shortly after the "War of the Realms" event, Shang-Chi encounters Sword Master in New York City, who is searching for his missing father. Noticing the upstart hero's inexperience and recklessness, Shang takes Lin Lie under his wing to improve his skills. While Shang-Chi and Sword Master are continuing their training in Flushing, they are interrupted when white lights begin engulfing the city. The two, who are reunited with the other Atlas agents and Giant-Man discover the cities they were in (along with other Asian, Pacific and predominantly Asian cities outside of Asia) have been merged and connected together with portals. Mike Nguyen of the Big Nguyen Company reveals himself to be behind the newly merged city, "Pan", which he states for 24 hours would allow every citizen to easily explore each other's respective cities without any political and economic restrictions. Shortly after the announcement, Pan is suddenly beset by wyverns, which the agents confront with Isaac Ikeda, the self-proclaimed "Protector of Pan". After the wyverns are successfully driven off, Shang-Chi notices that the city itself wasn't damaged, which makes him suspect the group was only having their strength tested. The group is praised by Nguyen for their heroics, who are offered membership as Pan's protectors with Ikeda as well as giving them lifetime Pan Passes; when Nguyen offers financial compensation as well, Sword-Master becomes open to the idea, much to Shang-Chi's dismay. Shang-Chi is present when Amadeus summons the team back to the Atlas secret bunker in Seoul. When Ikeda (who was invited by Giant-Man) is interrogated by Amadeus the team about his and Nguyen's motives, Issac explains that he was hired by Nguyen due to his expertise in fighting dragons, but offers little about Nguyen. Isacc has his own suspicions of Mike and suggests that the Atlas agents to join him as Pan's protectors as it would be easier for them to gather information about the Big Nguyen Company on the inside. Amadeus reluctantly agrees to have the team continue helping Pan and to find out more about Nguyen; when the team goes their separate ways to different Pan sectors, Shang-Chi and Sword-Master return to Flushing with Crescent, where the three are seen training several citizens in martial arts.
Sometime later, Shang-Chi and Sword Master are confronted by Ares and his legion of Dragonborn soldiers near Shang-Chi's apartment in Flushing. After a brief fight, Lin Lie loses the sword to Ares, who plans to use its power to kill another god. While Ares leaves, Shang-Chi belittles him for his cowardice, comparing him unfavorably to Chiyou, the Chinese God of War. Lie is outraged over losing his sword, as it was his only clue to finding his father, but Shang is able to calm him down, explaining that despite his godhood, Ares' stupidity would prevent him from using the sword's magical abilities. The two eventually track Ares to a repair shop, where he and Ares' dwarven ally Orgarb, an exiled master smith from Nidavellir, are unable to unlock the sword's power. A fight breaks out between the three over the sword, which ends with Shang-Chi using the sword (albeit without activating its power) to break Ares' hammer, impressing the Olympian. Shang-Chi makes a compromise to Ares: in exchange for Shang-Chi and Sword Master helping him, Ares would help find Lin Lie's missing father. Ares accepts, explaining that his drakon son Ismenios had been abducted and that he wished to use the Fuxi sword to kill Ismenios' kidnapper, who Ares believes to be a powerful opponent. The three then head though a Pan Portal from Flushing to Madripoor, where Ares warns them of the gods residing there. Due to Lin Lie's skill with solving puzzles, the group eventually finds an imprisoned Ismenios within a Madripoorian temple. However Sword Master's destruction of Ismenios' cage activates the temple's stone dragon guards and summons Davi Naka, the Mother Goddess of Madripoor. Despite Shang-Chi's attempts to negotiate, Ares, Ismenios and Sword Master attack Naka but are easily defeated by the Mother Goddess. Naka explains her reasoning behind Ismenios's kidnapping: Ismenios attempted to plunder Atlantis's treasure hoard during the absence of its sea serpent guardian but was caught by Namor. Due to her duty to protect all dragons, Naka rescued Ismenios from Namor's wrath and imprisoned the young drakon in her temple for his protection and to placate Atlantis. Naka further warns the group that despite her efforts, Atlantis is still outraged over the disappearance of their sea serpent and implores them to find her.
Amadeus later approaches Shang-Chi and tasks him with locating Jimmy, who has not contacted the team since the merger. With help from an undercover Dan Bi, Shang-Chi infiltrates Jimmy's office in the Pan-Asian School for the Unusually Gifted in the Mumbai sector of Pan, where he discovers a photograph of Jimmy and Nguyen together. While Shang-Chi relays this to Amadeus, he also uncovers a laptop that broadcasts the sound of a dragon's roar from Nguyen's tower in the Heart of Pan. Shang-Chi and Crescent discover a secret tunnel in Jimmy's office that takes them to the Atlas Foundation's headquarters in the Pan sector of San Francisco, where they come face to face with Jimmy and the Atlas Foundation's dragon adviser Mr. Lao, who introduces himself to the Atlas agents. Concurrently, Amadeus, Silk, Sword Master and White Fox break into Nguyen's tower and discover a sea serpent imprisoned in a lab. Nguyen denies that he and Jimmy are in league with each other, other than signing nonaggression treaty between Atlas and Pan, which the agents just violated. Nguyen explains that since dragon scales contain magical properties associated with portals and teleportation, the imprisoned dragon was having its scales harvested to supply Pan's portal and teleportation technology. Suspecting the serpent's identity, Lao and Jimmy order to agents to free her lest awakening the wrath every dragon on the planet, while Nguyen and Ikeda argue that releasing the dragon will cause the portals to collapse, displacing every citizen and refugee that had settled in the portal-city. Before a decision can be made, a massive storm begins engulfing the city. While Ikeda reveals that the imprisoned dragon is none other than Atlantis' missing guardian that he captured a year ago for terrorizing the Mediterranean, Namor emerges from the waters off of Pan's coast and begins invading the city.
In the "Atlantis Attacks" storyline, Shang-Chi and the other New Agents of Atlas are summoned by Brawn during his confrontation with Namor. Namor warns the group to return the dragon the Big Nguyen Company stole in a day or else face the wrath of Atlantis before retreating. Shortly after the skirmish, Shang-Chi and the other New Agents are introduced to the original Agents of Atlas by Jimmy. When Jimmy sends Namora, Venus, and to Atlantis for a diplomatic mission, Brawn discretely orders Shang-Chi and Sword Master to spy on Namora, due to her familial ties with Namor. The dragon is eventually released from captivity, but upon arriving home she unexpectedly goes berserk and attacks the underwater kingdom. Witnessing the destruction caused by the dragon, Shang-Chi relays to Amadeus that Atlantis' scientists discovered an implant embedded in dragon's scales to be the source of her behavior and that Namor believes Amadeus to be behind the sabotage, prompting the king to resume his attack on Pan.
Although it has never been determined exactly how extensive Shang-Chi's fighting skills are, he has beaten numerous superhuman opponents. Shang-Chi is classed as an athlete but he is one of the best non-superhumans in martial arts and has dedicated much of his life to the art, being referred to by some as the greatest empty-handed fighter and practitioner of kung fu alive, with even the Greek God of War Ares acknowledging him as one of the few mortals who can hold their own against a god, even without the use of magic. Much of his physical abilities seem to stem from his mastery of chi, which often allows him to surpass physical limitations of normal athletes. He has also demonstrated the ability to dodge bullets from machine guns and sniper rifles, and is able to deflect gunshots with his bracers. Shang-Chi is also highly trained in the arts of concentration and meditation, and is an expert in various hand weapons including swords, staves, kali sticks, nunchaku, and shuriken.
Due to his martial arts prowess, Shang-Chi is a highly sought out teacher and has mentored many characters in kung fu and hand-to-hand combat. Some of Shang-Chi's most prominent students and sparring partners have included Captain America, Spider-Man, Wolverine, and Domino. Another testament to his skill as an instructor was during the "War of the Realms" where he was able to train a group of novices in a short amount of time, to the point where his proteges were able to easily fend off an army of powerful Fire Demons using the techniques he taught.
He is also very in tune with the chi emitted by all living beings, to the point where he was able to detect a psionically-masked Jean Grey by sensing her energy.
During his time with the Avengers, Shang-Chi was given special equipment by Tony Stark, including a pair of bracelets that allowed him to focus his chi in ways that increased his strength and a pair of repulsor-powered nunchaku.
Originally having no superpowers, Shang-Chi has temporarily gained superpowers on several occasions. During the events of "Spider-Island", he briefly gained the same powers and abilities as Spider-Man after being infected by the Spider-Virus. After mutating into giant spider, he was cured of his infection by Iron Fist's chi, although at the cost of him losing his spider powers. In "Avengers World" Shang-Chi briefly used Pym Particles to grow to immense size. Following exposure to the cosmic radiation from the Incursions, Shang-Chi was able to create an unlimited number of duplicates of himself.
In the "Secret Wars" storyline from the , Shang-Chi is able to use nine of the ten techniques of the Ten Rings school, which are based on the powers of the Mandarin's ten rings from the mainstream continuity. Shang-Chi later learns and masters his student Kitten's technique of intangibility and develops a new technique that turns his opponents into stone.
In "Secret Wars", a version of Shang-Chi resides in the "wuxia"-inspired K'un-Lun region of Battleworld. In this continuity, he is the exiled son of Emperor Zheng Zu, Master of the Ten Rings, a ruthless martial arts school that uses mystical powers and techniques based off the powers of the Mandarin's ten rings from the mainstream continuity. Shang-Chi is wanted for the murder of Lord Tuan, the master of the Iron Fist school, the main rivals of the Ten Rings school. A drunk vagabond, Shang-Chi is approached by Kitten to help teach her and her group of fellow outcasts who had been exiled from each of their respective schools the techniques of the Ten Rings. Ashamed by his upbringing, Shang-Chi coldly refuses and insults the group, outraging their leader, Callisto, who informs the emperor of Shang-Chi's whereabouts. The gang's hideout raided by K'un Lun's sheriff and Tuan's student Rand-K'ai, the emperor's assassin Red Sai of the Red Hand school and Ten Rings enforcer Laughing Skull but after Laughing Skull kills outcast Cy against Rand-K'ai's orders, Shang-Chi helps the group escape with the Nightbringer technique. A guilt ridden Shang-Chi agrees to take the outcasts as his pupils, dubbing their new school The Lowest Caste. Shang-Chi returns from his exile to represent the Lowest Caste for the tournament held every thirteen years to decide which participating master would be the next ruler of K'un-Lun. Zu allows Shang-Chi to participate but alters the rules so Shang-Chi would have to defeat every representative before facing him in the Thirteen Chambers. After defeating Namor, Drew, Karnak, Lady Mandarin, Ava, Creed, Spector and T'Challa in consecutive matches, Shang-Chi encounters Rand-K'ai and Red Sai in the penultimate match of the Thirteen Chambers. During the fight, Red Sai confesses that Zu had sent her to assassinate his rival Tuan but ultimately failed. To spare his lover and her students from the emperor's wrath, Shang-Chi killed Tuan; Zu implicated and exiled his son for the murder to cover his own involvement. After the truth is revealed, Red Sai and Rand-K'ai let Shang-Chi pass so that he could defeat his father. During the fight between Shang-Chi and Zheng Zu, Zu attempts to kill his son with the Spectral Touch technique, only for the move to pass through him due to Shang-Chi learning Kitten's technique to become intangible. Shang-Chi proceeds to use nine of the Ten Ring techniques against his father and ultimately defeats him with The Gorgon's Eye, which turns him into stone. With Zu's defeat, Shang-Chi becomes the new emperor of K'un-Lun.
Shang-Chi never realizes his father's evil doings before his death at Magneto's hands. This causes him to become consumed with a desire for vengeance. In this reality, Shang-Chi is the head of the Dragons criminal organization, alongside Colleen Wing, Swordsman, Mantis, Zaran and Machete. The Dragons later resolved their rivalry against Luke Cage's gang, but were eventually captured in a trap created by both the Kingpin's assassins and Thunderbird's agents. The Dragons and the Wolfpack were freed by Luke Cage, in which Shang-Chi's gang join the Avengers in their battle against the Brotherhood.
In this simian version of the Marvel Universe, Shang-Chi and his father work as a subversive organization, trying to get the local sentients to work in peace and not in animalistic domination. The Avengers (Ape-vengers) murder him for this 'weak-minded' sentiment.
In the Marvel Zombies continuity, Shang-Chi is turned into a zombie during a multi-hero effort to rescue surviving civilians. In a mid-Manhattan battle, detailed in "Ultimate Fantastic Four" #23, he and dozens of other zombie-heroes attempt to consume the last batch of humans. These humans are defended by that universe's Magneto and the Ultimate Fantastic Four. During a successful rescue attempt, Thing sends Shang-Chi flying through the air with one punch. Shang-Chi is then seen attacking Magneto once again, but he is cut in half by the Master of Magnetism. A different Shang-Chi appears in "Marvel Zombies Return" in an alternate universe where he is unaffected by the zombie outbreak. The zombie Wolverine finds him in an underground fight club, engaging with other infamous martial artists. The flesh-hungry mutant slashes him to death.
In the Ultimate Marvel universe, Shang-Chi first appeared in "Ultimate Marvel Team-Up" #15. He is the son of an international crime lord. Trained from birth to become a living weapon, he became the world's greatest martial artist. A noble spirit, he eventually came to renounce his father's empire. Seeking to get away from his father's reach, he emigrated to New York where he worked as a floor sweeper at Wu's Fish Market in Chinatown. Feeling that the denizens of New York's Chinatown needed someone to protect them, he and his friend Danny Rand were drawn into the gang war between the Kingpin and Hammerhead after the latter targeted him to win over the Chinatown gangs to his cause. The conflict climaxed when Shang-Chi, Danny Rand, Spider-Man, Black Cat, Moon Knight and Elektra ambushed Hammerhead's penthouse, where a battle royale ensued. It ended with an unconscious Elektra, Hammerhead and Moon Knight. The gang members were then arrested by the police.
The martial arts warrior disguised himself as a costumed criminal in order to take down the Kingpin. The Kingpin discovered his plan and threatened to kill the hero, but he was rescued by Daredevil, who then recruited him as a part of his team to take down the Kingpin. After the Kingpin's identity is leaked to the New York Police Department, Shang-Chi and the team disbanded and went their separate ways.
In A.I.M.'s pocket dimension of Earth-13584, Shang-Chi appears as a member of Spider-Man's gang.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20129
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Marv Albert
Marv Albert (born Marvin Philip Aufrichtig; June 12, 1941) is an American sportscaster. Honored for his work as a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, he is commonly referred to as "the voice of basketball." From 1967 to 2004, he was also known as "the voice of the New York Knicks." Albert currently works for Turner Sports, serving as lead announcer for NBA games on TNT.
In addition to calling both professional and college basketball, he has experience announcing other sports such as American football, ice hockey, horse racing, boxing, and tennis. Albert has called the play-by-play of eight Super Bowls, NBA Finals, and seven Stanley Cup Finals. He has also called the Wimbledon Tennis Championships for TNT with Jim Courier and Mary Carillo. He also worked as a co-host and reporter for two World Series (1986 and 1988)
Albert was born to a Jewish family in Brooklyn, where he went to Abraham Lincoln High School. While Albert grew up, members of his family owned a grocery store on Brighton Beach Avenue between 3rd and 4th streets known as Aufrichtig's. He then attended Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communications from 1960 through 1963. In 1962, he served as the voice of the AAA Syracuse Chiefs. He then graduated from New York University in 1965.
Marv did his first Knicks game on January 27, 1963, on WCBS Radio, filling in for his mentor, Marty Glickman who was away in Europe. The game was against the Celtics at the Boston Garden. For 37 years beginning in 1967, Albert was the voice of the New York Knicks on radio and television (getting his start by being a ball boy for the Knicks before getting his first break on New York radio by sportscaster Marty Glickman) before being let go by James L. Dolan, the chairman of the MSG Network and Cablevision, after Albert criticized the Knicks' poor play on-air in 2004. It was said that Marv's high salary was also a factor. His son Kenny Albert has been a part-time play-by-play announcer for the Knicks since 2009, whenever the older Albert's successor Mike Breen (whom he later followed on the "NBA on NBC" broadcasts and now works on ESPN and ABC aside from his role at MSG) is unavailable.
For a brief period before he resumed his normal broadcasting duties following his sexual assault arrest (see below), Albert anchored MSG's former nightly sports news report, "MSG SportsDesk".
Marv Albert was the lead play-by-play broadcaster for the "NBA on NBC" for most of its run from 1990 to 2002, calling every NBA Finals during that timeframe except for 1998, 1999, and 2000. During this time, Bob Costas had taken over the lead job and called the Finals after Marv's arrest for sexual assault had brought him national disgrace. Marv resumed his previous position for the 2000–2001 season and called Game 4 of the 2002 NBA Finals which was the final NBA telecast on NBC. During his time on NBC, Albert continued as lead play-by-play man for the New York Knicks on local MSG Network telecasts and began calling national games for TNT in 1999 as well. When he regained the lead broadcaster position on NBC, he continued to call play-by-play for both networks until the end of NBC's coverage in 2002.
Albert continues to be the lead play-by-play announcer for National Basketball Association games on TNT, a position he assumed in 1999. Indeed, TNT has become his primary commitment ever since his longtime employer NBC lost the NBA broadcasting rights in 2002, and may have played a role in his departure from the Knicks' broadcast booth. The Knicks reportedly wanted Albert to accept a salary commensurate with his reduced Knicks schedule, but also weren't happy about Albert making what Knicks management felt were overly critical comments about their team in spite of their losing record.
In basketball, his most famous call is his simple "Yes!" for a basket, rendered in many variations of volume and length depending on the situation; and a catchphrase he began using in his youth when playing pickup games with friends.
On April 17, 2002, shortly after calling a game between the Indiana Pacers and Philadelphia 76ers on TNT, both Albert and color analyst Mike Fratello were injured in a limo accident in Trenton, New Jersey. Albert sustained facial lacerations, a concussion, and a sprained ankle. The 2002 NBA Playoffs were set to begin two days later, with Albert scheduled to call multiple games that week. Bob Costas filled in for those games and Albert returned to call Game 1 of the Western Conference Semifinals between the Dallas Mavericks and Sacramento Kings.
In 2018, Sports Broadcast Journal speculated Albert might be the first network play-by-play broadcaster to continue into his 80s, Will Marv Albert be the first network play-by-play announcer to call games into his 80s
In 2005, Albert officially became the lead play-by-play man for the New Jersey Nets franchise and started calling their games on the YES Network, often teaming with Brooklyn native and NBA veteran, Mark Jackson. With that, the Nets employed all three Albert brothers during the franchise's history; Al started his broadcast career with the Nets during their ABA days, while Steve called Nets games during the late 1970s and 1980s. Beginning with the 2008–09 season, Albert was also paired with his TNT broadcast colleague Mike Fratello on the YES Network. However, with the Nets' struggles in the 2009–10 season, Nets management relegated Albert to secondary play-by-play, to avoid a similar incident while Albert was with the Knicks. Since then Ian Eagle has taken over the broadcasts. In 2011, Albert left the YES Network to join CBS Sports for NFL and NCAA tournament coverage.
Albert hosts a basketball-focused interview show on NBA TV, which also airs later on YES.
Since 2003, Albert has also been providing the play-by-play voice on the "NBA Live" video-game series on EA Sports, a role he fulfilled until "NBA Live 10".
From 2011 to 2015, Albert announced NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship tournament games, the result of longtime tournament broadcaster CBS handing off some of its coverage to Turner Sports.
In February 2016, Albert and Turner Sports announced that he would no longer call NCAA Tournament basketball games, stating that calling four games in one day during the first round, and a total of six matches in three days during the first two rounds, was too much for his 74-year-old voice to handle. Albert said that he "felt it was the wiser move to go primarily NBA at this stage".
In addition to the Knicks, Albert had a lengthy tenure (beginning in 1965) calling the games of another Madison Square Garden tenant, the New York Rangers. He handled the radio call of the Rangers' Stanley Cup–clinching victory in 1994.
He also famously coined the nickname "Red Light" for radio analyst Sal Messina, a former Rangers goaltender. His signature play-by-play phrase was "kick save and a beauty."
Over his years as the Rangers broadcaster, Albert missed a large number of games for other commitments. Many other broadcasters filled in, including several who later served long stints for other NHL teams, including Howie Rose, Mike Emrick and John Kelly, as well as brothers Al and Steve. It was Albert's absence from Game 7 of the Rangers–Devils Conference Championship game that led to Rose's famed "Matteau, Matteau, Matteau" call.
Albert left the Rangers after the 1994–95 season at the same time Rose took the job as play-by-play announcer of the New York Islanders. Albert's son, Kenny, replaced him, and has been the radio voice of the Rangers ever since. Kenny also calls NHL and Olympic ice hockey for NBC Sports, while also serving as the national radio voice of the Stanley Cup Finals since 2016.
From 1973 to 1976, Albert called radio broadcasts of New York Giants football games, succeeding Marty Glickman after the latter's defection to the New York Jets.
Albert was also the lead play-by-play voice of the Westwood One radio network's NFL coverage from 2002 to 2009 seasons, calling "Monday Night Football" as well as numerous playoff games and every Super Bowl from 2003 to 2010. On June 4, 2010, it was announced that Albert was leaving his "NFL on Westwood One" duties. He was succeeded on the broadcasts by Kevin Harlan.
On June 6, 2011, it was announced Albert was joining CBS Sports to call play-by-play for "The NFL on CBS". Albert was usually teamed with Rich Gannon on broadcasts.
On May 29, 2014, Albert stepped down from calling "The NFL on CBS" to focus more on his basketball duties for TNT and CBS.
Other NBC Sports duties that Albert held were play-by-play announcing for the NFL (by 1983, Albert was the #2 play-by-play man behind Dick Enberg, usually alternating the secondary NFL role year to year with Don Criqui), college basketball (teaming with Bucky Waters on Big East/ECAC games), horse racing, boxing (often working with Ferdie Pacheco and subsequently, Sugar Ray Leonard when NBC relaunched boxing under the "Premier Boxing Champions" umbrella), NHL All-Star Games (Albert called the NHL All-Star Game with John Davidson on NBC from 1990-1994), and Major League Baseball, as well as hosting baseball (including NBC's coverage of the 1986 and 1988 World Series alongside Bob Costas). He also spent 13 years as the sports director of the network's flagship station, WNBC-TV in New York.
Albert also called regular-season and playoff NHL games for the syndicated NHL Network in the 1976–77 season, and from 2000 to 2002 he helped call TNT's coverage of the Wimbledon Championships tennis tournament.
Albert made 53 guest appearances on David Letterman's late night talk shows for NBC and CBS. Each time Albert appeared, he brought with him a group of clips featuring sports bloopers and outstanding plays, which he narrated and dubbed the "Albert Achievement Awards". The music accompanying the bloopers was "12th Street Rag".
Albert was placed as number 14 on David J. Halberstam's list of Top 50 All Time Network Television Sports Announcers on Yahoo! Sports.
In 1992, he appeared as himself on Roger Waters' rock album "Amused to Death", giving a play-by-play account of the destruction of an oil rig on the song "Perfect Sense, Part II".
An "Albert Achievement Awards" video was released in 1993. It featured cameos by Mike Fratello, Ahmad Rashād, Charles Barkley, David Letterman, O.J. Simpson, Bob Costas, and Tom Brokaw.
Albert became the first guest commentator in MTV's "Celebrity Deathmatch" cartoon series. He appeared in the 1998 pilot episode before being replaced with Stacey Cornbred.
Albert was briefly mentioned in the 2006 film "Grandma's Boy".
Albert's voice is imitated in Futurama, in the Season 3 episode "Time Keeps On Slippin'" in 2001.
Albert also appeared as a special guest on "The Simpsons", in the Season 20 episode "The Burns and the Bees" in 2008.
Albert’s voice is imitated in Pinky and the Brain, in the season 2, episode "Hoop Schemes" in 1997.
Albert's voice is imitated in the popular video game "NBA Jam". The announcer was modeled on Albert although there is no mention of Albert in the game and was actually voiced by Tim Kitzrow.
Albert did play-by-play commentary in the video games "NFL Quarterback Club '98" and "NBA Live".
In the 1999 episode "Tube Steaks" of the CBS sitcom "The King of Queens", Doug and his friends watch a Knicks-game with Albert's voice commentary.
He authored (with Rick Reilly) an autobiography, "I'd Love to But I Have a Game", in 1993.
Albert appeared in a short scene in the 2015 comedy film "Trainwreck".
Albert did the commentary, along with Mike Fratello and Steve Kerr, on NBA Live video games made by EA Sports from 2003 to 2009.
Jesse Eisenberg wrote a comedic piece for The New Yorker titled "Marv Albert is my therapist".
Albert's son, Kenny, is also a sports commentator, who calls baseball and football for Fox, New York Rangers games on the radio, and has been one of NBC's commentators for ice hockey at the Winter Olympics, as well as NBC's NHL coverage. His daughter, Denise, is a reporter for NBA TV. Marv also has two other children: Brian and Jackie Albert; his eight grandchildren are Amanda, Sydney, Jonathan, Laya, Logan, Jaylan, and Mia.
Marv has two younger brothers who also are announcers. Steve Albert was the Phoenix Suns play-by-play announcer before his retirement following the 2016-17 season, and has also called play-by-play for several other teams, including the New Orleans Hornets, New Jersey Nets, New York Islanders, New York Mets, and Golden State Warriors. Steve is best known for his work on "Showtime Championship Boxing", notably the Holyfield–Tyson bouts. Al Albert was the former play-by-play announcer for the New York Nets (ABA), "USA Tuesday Night Fights", the Indiana Pacers and the Denver Nuggets. Al also called national NBA games on the USA Network during its brief tenure in the early 1980s.
Albert became embroiled in a sex scandal in 1997. A 42-year-old woman named Vanessa Perhach accused Albert of throwing her onto a bed, biting her, then forcing her to perform oral sex after a February 12, 1997, argument in his Pentagon City hotel room. DNA testing linked Albert to genetic material taken from the bite marks and from semen in Perhach's underwear. During the trial, testimony was presented from another woman, Patricia Masden, who told the jury Albert had bitten her on two different occasions in 1993 and 1994 in Miami and Dallas hotels respectively, which she viewed as unwanted sexual advances. Masden claimed that in Dallas, Albert called her to his hotel room to help him send a fax, only for her to find him wearing "white panties and garter belt". Albert maintained that Perhach had requested that he bite her and denied her accusation he had asked her to bring another man into their sexual affair. He described the recorded conversation of hers with the police on the night of the incident as "an Academy Award performance". After tests proved that the bite marks were his, he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault and battery charges, while the sodomy charge was dropped. Albert was given a 12-month suspended sentence.
Consequently, NBC – for which Albert worked for over 20 years – fired him shortly before the 1997–98 NBA season began on "The NBA on NBC". Bob Costas took over for Albert on the basketball side in the 1997–98 season before stepping down after the 2000 NBA Finals for Albert's return. In addition, Tom Hammond spelled his football duties. It is also revealed on a "Simpsons" DVD commentary that he was to appear in the episode "Bart Star" but, due to the scandal, was replaced by Roy Firestone. He eventually did appear on the Simpsons in the episode The Burns and the Bees.
NBC brought Albert back less than two years later, and he was the network's main play-by-play man for the 2000–01 and 2001–02 NBA seasons, including the Finals (working with Doug Collins and later Bill Walton and Steve Jones). NBC lost the rights to the NBA to ABC following the 2001–02 season.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20132
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Minnesota Vikings
The Minnesota Vikings are a professional American football team based in Minneapolis. The Vikings joined the National Football League (NFL) as an expansion team in 1960, and first took the field for the 1961 season. The team competes in the National Football Conference (NFC) North division.
During the 1960s, the Vikings' record was typical for an expansion franchise, but improved over the course of the decade, resulting in a Central Division title in 1968. In 1969, their dominant defense led to a league championship, the last NFL championship prior to the merger of the NFL with the AFL.
The Vikings are arguably the most successful NFL franchise to never win a Super Bowl. Minnesota ranks sixth all-time in win percentage and seventh overall in combined regular season and postseason wins. The Vikings have won 20 division titles, and have made 30 playoff appearances. The club has appeared in 10 conference championship games, winning four to reach the Super Bowl. They are one of only three teams, along with the Pittsburgh Steelers and Los Angeles Rams, to appear in at least one conference title game every decade since the 1970s. Since their inception, the Vikings have posted an all-time record of 488–403–11.
The team plays its home games at U.S. Bank Stadium in the Downtown East section of Minneapolis.
Professional football in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area (the "Twin Cities") began with the Minneapolis Marines/Red Jackets, an NFL team that played intermittently in the 1920s and 1930s. However, a new professional team in the area did not surface again until August 1959, when Minnesota businessmen Bill Boyer, H.P. Skoglund, and Max Winter were awarded a franchise in the new American Football League (AFL). Five months later, in January 1960, after significant pressure from the NFL, the ownership group, along with Bernard H. Ridder Jr., reneged on its agreement with the AFL and then was awarded the National Football League's 14th franchise, with play to begin in 1961. Ole Haugsrud was added to the NFL team ownership because, in the 1920s, when he sold his Duluth Eskimos team back to the league, the agreement allowed him 10 percent of any future Minnesota team. The teams from Ole Haugsrud's high school, Central High School in Superior, Wisconsin, were also called the Vikings and had a similar purple-and-yellow color scheme.
From the team's first season in 1961 to 1981, the team called Metropolitan Stadium in suburban Bloomington home. The Vikings conducted summer training camp at Bemidji State University from 1961 to 1965. In 1966, the team moved to their training camp to Minnesota State University in Mankato. The training camp at Minnesota State was one of the longest continuously running training camp events in the NFL and is remembered as part of the golden era history of the team. The Vikings played their home games at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis from 1982 to 2013. The Vikings played their last game at the Metrodome on December 29, 2013, defeating the Detroit Lions 14–13 to end the season.
Since the team's first season in 1961, the Vikings have had one of the highest winning percentages in the NFL. As of 2019, they have won at least three games in every season except in 1962, and are one of only seven NFL teams to win at least 15 games in a regular season. The Vikings have won one NFL Championship, in 1969, before the league's merger with the American Football League (AFL) in 1970. Since the merger, the team has qualified for the playoffs 28 times, third-most in the league (trailing only the Dallas Cowboys and Pittsburgh Steelers). The team played in Super Bowls IV, VIII, IX and XI, but failed to win any of them. In addition, they have lost in their last six NFC Championship Game appearances, stretching back to 1978. The Vikings have 15 members in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
The team was officially named the Minnesota Vikings on September 27, 1960; the name is partly meant to reflect Minnesota's place as a center of Scandinavian American culture. From the start, the Vikings embraced an energetic marketing program that produced first-year season ticket sales of nearly 26,000 and an average home attendance of 34,586, about 85 percent of Metropolitan Stadium's capacity of 40,800. Eventually, the capacity of Met Stadium was increased to 47,900. Bert Rose, former public relations director for the Los Angeles Rams, was appointed the team's first general manager. The search for the first head coach saw the team court then-Northwestern University head coach Ara Parseghian, who, according to "Minneapolis Star" writer Jim Klobuchar—the Vikings' first beat reporter for that newspaper—visited team management in the Twin Cities under the condition that his visit was to be kept secret from his current employer. His cover was blown by local columnist Sid Hartman, who reported the visit and forced Parseghian to issue denials. Philadelphia Eagles assistant Nick Skorich and a man with Minnesota ties who was working in the CFL, Bud Grant, were also candidates until a different Eagle, quarterback Norm Van Brocklin, was hired on January 18, 1961. Van Brocklin had just finished his career as a player on a high note, having defeated the Green Bay Packers in the 1960 NFL Championship Game.
As a new franchise, the Vikings had the first overall selection in the 1961 NFL Draft, and they picked running back Tommy Mason of Tulane. They also took a young quarterback from the University of Georgia named Fran Tarkenton in the third round. Notable veterans acquired in the offseason were George Shaw and Hugh McElhenny. The Vikings won their first regular season game, defeating the Chicago Bears 37–13 on Opening Day 1961; Tarkenton came off the bench to throw four touchdown passes and run for another to lead the upset. Reality set in as the expansion team lost its next seven games on their way to a 3–11 record. The losing continued throughout much of the 1960s as the Vikings had a combined record of 32 wins, 59 losses, and 7 ties in their first seven seasons with only one winning season (8–5–1 in 1964).
On March 7, 1967, quarterback Fran Tarkenton was traded to the New York Giants for a first-round and second-round draft choice in 1967, a first-round choice in 1968 and a second-round choice in 1969. With the picks, Minnesota selected Clinton Jones and Bob Grim in 1967, Ron Yary in 1968 and Ed White in 1969. On March 10, 1967 the Vikings hired new head coach Bud Grant to replace Van Brocklin, who had resigned on February 11, 1967. Grant came to the Vikings from the Canadian Football League as head coach for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, whom he led to four Grey Cup Championships in 10 years. Replacing Tarkenton at quarterback was eight-year CFL veteran and Grey Cup champion Joe Kapp. During the late 1960s, the Vikings built a powerful defense known as the Purple People Eaters, led by Alan Page, Carl Eller, Gary Larsen, and Jim Marshall. In 1968, that stingy defense earned the Vikings their first Central Division title and their first playoff berth.
In 1969, the Vikings secured a 12–2 record. The team had 12 straight regular-season victories after a season-opening loss to the New York Giants, which was the longest single-season winning streak in 35 years. The Vikings defeated the Cleveland Browns 27–7 in the last pre-merger NFL Championship Game on January 4, 1970, at Metropolitan Stadium. The Vikings became the first modern NFL expansion team to win an NFL Championship Game, and earned a berth in Super Bowl IV; however, the heavily favored Vikings lost that game to the Kansas City Chiefs, 23–7. The team MVP that season was Joe Kapp, who threw for seven touchdowns against the Baltimore Colts – still an all-time NFL record; however, Kapp refused to accept the award, stating, "There is not one most valuable Viking... there are 40 most valuable Vikings!"
The team continued to dominate in 1970 (moving into the newly-formed NFC Central) and 1971, reaching the playoffs behind the stubborn "Purple People Eaters" defensive line. In 1971, Alan Page won the NFL Most Valuable Player Award given by the Associated Press. He was the first defensive player to win the award.
On January 27, 1972, the Vikings traded Norm Snead, Bob Grim, Vince Clements and first-round draft picks in 1972 and 1973 to the New York Giants to reacquire the popular Fran Tarkenton. While the acquisitions of Tarkenton and wide receiver John Gilliam improved the passing attack, the running game was inconsistent and the Vikings finished with a disappointing 7–7 record. The Vikings addressed the problem by drafting running back Chuck Foreman with their first pick in the 1973 Draft. Co-owner Bill Boyer died on February 19, 1973 and was replaced on the team's board of directors by his son-in-law Jack Steele.
The Vikings won their first nine games of 1973 and finished the season with a 12–2 record. They then advanced to their second Super Bowl in franchise history, Super Bowl VIII, against the Miami Dolphins at Rice Stadium in Houston, Texas; however, the Dolphins prevailed, 24–7.
The Vikings won the Central Division again in 1974 with a 10–4 record. In the playoffs they built on their cold weather reputation, defeating both the St. Louis Cardinals and the Los Angeles Rams in frozen Metropolitan Stadium. The Vikings played in their second straight Super Bowl, Super Bowl IX (3rd overall), losing to the Pittsburgh Steelers, 16–6, at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans on January 12, 1975.
Led by Tarkenton and running back Chuck Foreman, the 1975 Vikings got off to a 10–0 start and easily won another division title. However, the Vikings lost to the Dallas Cowboys in the , 17–14, on a controversial touchdown pass from the Cowboys' quarterback Roger Staubach to wide receiver Drew Pearson that became known as the Hail Mary. The touchdown was controversial because many felt that Pearson pushed off on Vikings defensive back Nate Wright, committing pass interference. As the Metropolitan Stadium crowd was stunned to learn that no penalty was called, debris was thrown on the field for several minutes. A Corby's Whiskey bottle struck game official Armen Terzian, rendering him unconscious.
The Vikings played in Super Bowl XI, their third Super Bowl (fourth overall) in four years, against the Oakland Raiders at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, on January 9, 1977. The Vikings, however, lost 32–14.
In 1977, the Vikings again won the Central Division with a 9–5 record and advanced to their 4th NFC Championship Game in 5 years, but were defeated by the eventual Super Bowl Champion Cowboys, 23–6, at Texas Stadium.
By 1978, age was taking its toll on the Vikings, but they still made the playoffs with an 8–7–1 record. There was no more playoff magic as the Rams finally defeated the Vikings, 34–10 in Los Angeles after having lost in their previous four playoff matchups (in 1969, '74, '76 and '77). Quarterback Fran Tarkenton retired following the season holding league passer records in attempts (6,467), completions (3,686), yards (47,003), and touchdowns (342).
In December 1979, ground was broken for construction of the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in downtown Minneapolis.
On May 15, 1981, the Vikings moved into a new facility in suburban Eden Prairie that housed the team's offices, locker room and practice fields. The complex was named "Winter Park" after Max Winter, one of the Vikings' founders, who served as the team's president from 1965 to 1987. The Vikings played their final game at Metropolitan Stadium on December 20 to conclude the 1981 NFL season by losing to the Kansas City Chiefs, 10–6.
The Vikings played their first game at the Metrodome in a preseason matchup against the Seattle Seahawks on August 21, 1982 in a game Minnesota won, 7–3. The first touchdown in the new facility was scored by Joe Senser on an 11-yard pass from Tommy Kramer. The first regular-season game in the Metrodome was the 1982 opener on September 12, when the Vikings defeated Tampa Bay, 17–10. Rickey Young scored the first regular-season touchdown in the facility on a 3-yard run in the 2nd quarter. That year the defense led by Joey Browner began a dominant 10-year run as a premier NFL defensive back. The Vikings beat the St. Louis Cardinals 28-10 on August 6, 1983 at Wembley Stadium in London in the very first international game in the NFL.
On January 27, 1984, Bud Grant retired as head coach of the Vikings. With a career regular-season record of 151–87–5 (.632) in 17 seasons with Minnesota, Grant led the franchise to 12 playoff appearances, 11 division titles, and four Super Bowls. Les Steckel, who was an offensive assistant with the Vikings for 5 seasons, was then named the 3rd head coach in franchise history. Steckel, who came to the Vikings in 1979 after working as an assistant with the 49ers, was the youngest head coach in the NFL in 1984 at age 38. However, the Vikings lost a franchise-worst 13 games. After the season Steckel was fired, and on December 18, 1984, Bud Grant came out of retirement and was rehired as the head coach of the Vikings.
On January 6, 1986, following the 1985 season, Bud Grant re-retired, this time permanently, as head coach of the Vikings. At the time of his retirement he was the 6th winningest coach in NFL history with 168 career wins, including playoffs. In 18 seasons, he led the Vikings to a 158–96–5 regular season record. Longtime Vikings assistant coach Jerry Burns was named the fourth head coach in team history on January 7, 1986. He served as the Vikings' offensive coordinator from 1968 to 1985, when the team won 11 division titles and played in four Super Bowls. In his first season, the Vikings, led by the NFL Comeback Player of the Year Tommy Kramer, went 9–7, their first winning record in four years. On August 2, 1986, Fran Tarkenton was the first player who played the majority of his career with the Vikings to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Following the strike-shortened 1987 season, the 8–7 Vikings, who had finished 8–4 in regular games but 0–3 using strike-replacement players, pulled two upsets in the playoffs. They defeated the 12–3 New Orleans Saints 44–10 at the Louisiana Superdome in the Wild Card game. The following week, in the Divisional Playoff game, they beat the 13–2 San Francisco 49ers 36–24 at Candlestick Park. During that game, Anthony Carter set the all-time record for most receiving yards in a playoff game with 227 yards. The Vikings played the Washington Redskins in the NFC Championship Game on January 17, 1988, at RFK Stadium. Trailing 17–10, the Vikings drove to the Redskins' 6-yard line with a little over a minute left in the game, but failed to get the ball into the end zone. The Vikings' hopes of a Super Bowl ended when Darrin Nelson dropped a pass from Wade Wilson on fourth down at the goal line.
On October 12, 1989, the Vikings acquired Herschel Walker from Dallas. The final result of the trade gave the Vikings Walker, third-round choice Mike Jones, fifth-round choice Reggie Thornton and 10th-round choice Pat Newman in 1990 and a third-round choice Jake Reed in 1991. Dallas received Issiac Holt, David Howard, Darrin Nelson, Jesse Solomon, Alex Stewart, a first-, second- and a sixth-round choice in 1990, first- and second-round choices in 1991 and a first-, second- and third-round choice in 1992. Two of those selections turned into Emmitt Smith and Darren Woodson. Walker's performance fell short of expectations in his three seasons with the Vikings, while the Cowboys rode their draft picks to three Super Bowl victories in the early-to-mid-1990s.
On December 3, 1991, Jerry Burns announced his retirement effective at the end of the 1991 season. In six seasons as Head Coach of the Vikings, Burns compiled a career record of 52–43 (.547). He also led Minnesota to three playoff appearances, including a division title and an NFC Championship Game. Dennis Green was later named the fifth head coach in team history, after turning around a struggling Stanford University football program as head coach from 1989 to 1991. In his 10 seasons as the coach of the Vikings, Green won four NFC Central division titles, had eight playoff appearances, two NFC Championship Game appearances and an all-time record of 97–62. The Vikings therefore had the fifth highest winning percentage among all NFL teams during the regular season in the 1990s.
1998 was a year to remember for the franchise. With a spectacular offense led by quarterback Randall Cunningham (who replaced an injured Brad Johnson), running back Robert Smith, veteran wide receiver Cris Carter, and explosive rookie Randy Moss, the Vikings set a then-NFL record by scoring a total of 556 points, never scoring fewer than 24 in a game. The Vikings finished the season 15–1, their only loss was to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 27–24 in Week 9. In the playoffs, the Vikings rolled past the Arizona Cardinals 41–21, and came into the Metrodome heavily favored for their NFC title showdown with the Atlanta Falcons, who had gone 14–2 in the regular season. After kicker Gary Anderson, who had just completed the first perfect regular season in NFL history (not missing a single extra point or field goal attempt the entire year), missed a 38-yard field goal attempt with just over 2 minutes remaining, the Falcons' ensuing drive tied the game. This led to a controversial decision by head coach Dennis Green to run out the clock and let the game go to overtime. Though the Vikings won the coin toss, Atlanta went on to win it 30–27 in overtime on Morten Andersen's 38-yard field goal. The Vikings became the first 15–1 team to fail to reach the Super Bowl. The Falcons lost Super Bowl XXXIII to John Elway and the Denver Broncos.
Cunningham resumed duties again in 1999, but after a lukewarm 2–4 start, Jeff George replaced him as starting quarterback. He finished the season with an 8–2 record, and led the Vikings into the postseason once again, with an overall team record of 10–6. Minnesota beat Dallas in the Wild Card game 27–10, and faced playoff newcomer Kurt Warner and the St. Louis Rams in the Divisional matchup. The game was a shootout that Minnesota led 17–14 at halftime, but the Rams outscored Minnesota 35–20 in the second half to win 49–37. St. Louis would go on to win Super Bowl XXXIV.
The Vikings entered the decade by winning the divisional championship and an appearance in the NFC Championship game, where they were defeated 41–0 by the New York Giants. The following season, they struggled by posting a 5–11 record in 2001. The team made the playoffs again in 2004, but did not win a divisional title again until 2008. Since the merger, the 2000s became the decade with the fewest playoff berths for the franchise.
In 2000, the Vikings went 11–5. The Vikings were 11–2 after 14 weeks, but slumped briefly, losing their last three to the Rams, Packers and Colts while starting quarterback Daunte Culpepper was hampered by injury. Nonetheless, the Vikings made the playoffs for the fifth straight year. After easily beating the Saints in the Divisional game 34–16, they traveled to New York City to face the Giants in the NFC Championship Game. Though they were the road team, the Vikings were favored to win the game (since most considered their 11–2 record with Culpepper more indicative than their 0–3 record when he was out); instead, the Vikings were defeated 41–0, their worst defeat in playoff history. Robert Smith, who ran for 1,521 yards that season, retired at the end of the year after only playing eight NFL seasons.
In 2001, after a disappointing 5–11 season, the Vikings bought out the contract of Dennis Green, despite his successful coaching tenure with the team. Mike Tice coached the final game of 2001, losing to the Ravens 19–3. Tice was named the permanent coach after the season, but he would not lead the Vikings back to the playoffs until 2004. In 2002, as part of the league's realignment with the addition of the Houston Texans, the Vikings and their other traditional NFC Central rivals became part of the newly-formed NFC North.
During the 2003 season, the Vikings came close to getting into the playoffs. However, the Arizona Cardinals completed a game-winning touchdown on 4th-and-28 with 0:00 left, knocking the Vikings out of the playoffs. The moment of Arizona's touchdown was actually the first moment the entire season in which the Vikings hadn't led their division. The Vikings became the second team in football history to miss the playoffs after getting off to a 6–0 start, following the 1978 Washington Redskins.
In 2004, Daunte Culpepper amassed MVP-like statistics, throwing for 4,717 passing yards (leading the NFL), 39 passing touchdowns (a Viking record), and 5,123 total yards (an NFL record). In the wild card game, the Vikings the rival Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field in their first-ever playoff meeting, 31–17. In doing so, the Vikings became the second team in NFL history to have a .500 record (8–8) in the regular season and win a playoff game (The St. Louis Rams did the same thing only a day earlier). In the divisional round, the Vikings by the eventual NFC champion Philadelphia Eagles.
On March 2, 2005, Vikings wide receiver Randy Moss was traded to the Oakland Raiders for linebacker Napoleon Harris and the Raiders' first round draft pick. After struggling to a disappointing 2–5 start to the 2005 season, Vikings lost quarterback Daunte Culpepper to a season-ending knee injury. This injury was a very significant part to this Minnesota Vikings team due to the fact they also lost Moss. The dynamic duo from years earlier were now gone and a new leader would eventually emerge. The Vikings finished the 2005 season with a 9–7 record. However, this season would be more notable for off-the-field events. In October, 17 team members were part of a party of about 90 that went out on a pleasure cruise on local Lake Minnetonka. The incident erupted into scandal when media reported that a number of the players had performed sex acts and that prostitutes had been flown in. Four players were ultimately charged with misdemeanors related to the party.
Mike Tice was let go after the 2005 season and was replaced by Brad Childress. This was one of many significant front office moves made by the new ownership team, led by Zygi Wilf.
Minnesota began the 2006 season 4–2 (with Childress becoming the first Vikings coach to start his career 2–0), but finished the year at 6–10, receiving the 7th pick in the NFL Draft; with it, the Vikings selected Adrian Peterson out of the University of Oklahoma.
Peterson's first career touchdown was a 60-yard screen pass against the Atlanta Falcons in his first career game. When the Vikings played the Chicago Bears in Week 6, Peterson broke the record for single game All-Purpose (rushing, receiving, kick returning) yards (361 total yards, 224 rushing). In Week 9, Peterson broke the NFL single game rushing record set by Jamal Lewis in 2003 by rushing for 296 yards against the San Diego Chargers. Despite a strong push in the middle of the season, winning five straight games, the Vikings lost their final two games to finish the season at 8–8 and missed the playoffs.
In Week 13 of the 2008 season against the Bears, Gus Frerotte hooked up with Bernard Berrian and set the record for longest play in franchise history with a 99-yard touchdown pass. In the 2009 season, Adrian Peterson led the NFL with 1760 rushing yards, breaking the franchise record. The Vikings clinched the NFC North championship for the first time after defeating the New York Giants 20–19 in Week 17, when kicker Ryan Longwell made the game-winning field goal. Peterson had 19 carries for 109 yards and added a touchdown during the game.
On January 4, 2009, the Vikings hosted the Philadelphia Eagles for the Wild Card round, their first home playoff game in eight years. The Eagles led the Viking 16–14 at halftime and, coming off a 44–6 victory over the Dallas Cowboys, went on to defeat the Vikings 26–14. The Eagles would go on to defeat the defending Super Bowl champion New York Giants in the Divisional round, only to lose to the Arizona Cardinals in the NFC Championship Game.
Since 2006, the Vikings have been known especially for their strong run defense (#1 in the NFL in 2006, 2007, and 2008; they are the first NFL team to accomplish this since the AFL–NFL merger in 1970), anchored by the Williams Wall consisting of defensive tackle Kevin Williams and nose tackle Pat Williams (no relation). With the addition of sack-leader Jared Allen in 2008, the dominant front four began being called by several nicknames, including "Thunder and Plunder" and "Shock and AWE" (an acronym of their surname initials).
On August 18, 2009, after months of speculation and negotiations, twice-retired veteran quarterback Brett Favre, who until 2007 had played 16 years for division archrival Green Bay Packers, signed a two-year, $25 million deal with the Vikings.
On October 5, 2009, the Vikings hosted the Green Bay Packers as Favre played his former team for the first time. With a 30–23 victory on Monday Night Football, the Vikings moved to a 4–0 record. Favre became the first quarterback in NFL history to defeat all 32 current teams as a starter. Over 21.8 million viewers tuned in to watch the game, beating the previous record for a cable television program set by a game between the Philadelphia Eagles and the Dallas Cowboys in 2008 (18.6 million viewers).
The Vikings beat the New York Giants, 44–7, in Week 17 to help the team clinch the second seed in the conference and a first round-bye with an Eagles loss later that same day. The Vikings ended the regular season with a 12–4 record, their best record since 2000 and the first 11-plus win season since their record-setting 1998 campaign. The Vikings played the Dallas Cowboys in the divisional round on January 17, 2010, and won the game by a score of 34–3, advancing the Vikings to the NFC Championship game, the ninth in franchise history. This would also be the first NFC Championship game for the team since the 2000 season. Minnesota would travel to New Orleans the following week to face the top-seeded Saints in the first conference championship game held at the Superdome. Despite out-gaining the Saints on offense by nearly a twofold margin, the Vikings were severely hindered by five turnovers, including a Favre interception in the final minute of the fourth quarter in Saints territory. They were ousted in overtime, 31–28, as the Saints won the coin toss and kicked a 40-yard field goal on the first possession of overtime.
In the first week of the 2010 NFL regular season, the Vikings played the defending Super Bowl champions, the New Orleans Saints. The Vikings lost 14–9. In Week 2, the Vikings played the Miami Dolphins and lost 14–10. The Vikings defeated the Detroit Lions 24–10 in the third week of the season. After a week four bye-week, the Vikings received star wide receiver Randy Moss in a trade with the New England Patriots. Even with the addition of Moss, the Vikings lost to the New York Jets 29–20 in Week 5. The Vikings won a crucial victory against another struggling team in the form of the Dallas Cowboys 24–21, but in Week 7 the Vikings lost to the arch-rival Green Bay Packers 28–24. In Week 9, the Vikings played the Arizona Cardinals at home and won 27–24 in overtime, coming back from a 24–10 deficit in the final four minutes of regulation. Favre threw for a career-high 446 passing yards. The Vikings then went on to face the Chicago Bears, but were defeated, and then went on to be blown out 31–3 at home by the Packers the following game. Head coach Brad Childress was fired the following Monday. With Leslie Frazier filling in for the fired Childress, the Vikings won two games in a row. One against the Washington Redskins on the road, and a blowout win over the Buffalo Bills at home.
After a winter storm dropped nearly 17 inches of snow in the Minneapolis/St Paul area the Saturday before the Vikings December 12 home game versus the New York Giants and 30 mph gusts drove snow removers off the dome's roof overnight, several panels were damaged as the weight of the snow caused the roof to collapse. After viewing the damage, Vikings management and the NFL decided to move the game to Monday and play it at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan. Because of on-going repairs to the roof of the Metrodome, the Vikings played their December 20 game versus the Chicago Bears at TCF Bank Stadium. Favre threw the final touchdown pass of his career (to Percy Harvin) in this game. The game was played 29 years to the day after the last outdoor game at old Met Stadium. On December 26, the NFL announced that the game versus the Philadelphia Eagles was being postponed to Tuesday, December 28, 2010 because of blizzard conditions. This marks the third consecutive venue or date change for a Vikings game and was the first NFL game played on a Tuesday since 1964. The Vikings proceeded to upset the dynamic Eagles offense, led by a resurgent Michael Vick, 24–14 with rookie Joe Webb at the helm. The Vikings finished the season 6–10 with a 20–13 loss against the Detroit Lions.
The 2010–11 season was a step down for the Minnesota Vikings. After coming within a few plays of Super Bowl XLIV, Minnesota ended the 2010 season with a 6–10 record and a last place finish in the NFC North for the first time since 1990. During the season, the Vikings had many distractions, including trading for Randy Moss and then waiving him only a month later, Brett Favre's NFL investigation for allegedly sending inappropriate text messages to Jets' employee Jenn Sterger while he was with the team in 2008, the Metrodome's collapse and resulting venue changes, and finally head coach Brad Childress' firing on November 22 following a 31–3 loss at the hands of the rival Green Bay Packers.
After serving as the interim head coach for the final six games of the season (finishing with a 3–3 record), defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier was officially named the head coach on January 3, 2011, after signing a three-year contract. On January 17, Brett Favre retired for the third, and officially last, time, leaving the team in search for a long term replacement at the quarterback position. Wasting no time after being appointed head coach, Frazier began to restructure the team's coaching staff, including letting go of offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell and hiring Mike Singletary as linebackers coach and Bill Musgrave as the new offensive coordinator. Their first-round draft pick was Christian Ponder, a quarterback from Florida State University. The team finished with a 3–13 record, tied with the 1984 Vikings for the second worst record in franchise history.
During the 2012 NFL Draft, the team selected USC lineman Matt Kalil with the 4th overall pick after a trade with the Cleveland Browns, and Notre Dame safety Harrison Smith in the first round. Both players were instrumental in helping the Vikings reach the playoffs for the 27th time in franchise history, as was fellow draftee, sixth-round kicker Blair Walsh. After beating the Packers in the final game of 2012 to reach the playoffs as the NFC's sixth seed, the Vikings lost 24–10 to the Packers in the rematch at Lambeau Field in the Wild Card round. The team was forced to play backup Joe Webb during the game after Ponder was sidelined due to an arm injury sustained from the previous week. Peterson was later named the league's MVP, after rushing for 2,097 yards, the second most rushing yards in a season in NFL history.
In the 2013 season, the Vikings finished with five wins, ten losses, and one tie, with no road wins. Notable moments include acquired free agent Matt Cassel outplaying Christian Ponder at the quarterback position and the defense allowing a league-worst 480 points, coming within four points of matching the franchise's worst set in 1984. This was also the last season played at the Metrodome as a new stadium deal was reached. Leslie Frazier was fired after the regular season ended.
The team hired former Cincinnati Bengals defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer to replace Leslie Frazier as head coach on January 16, 2014. Former Cleveland Browns offensive coordinator Norv Turner replaced Bill Musgrave, and George Edwards replaced Alan Williams as defensive coordinator. In the 2014 NFL Draft, the Vikings selected Anthony Barr, a linebacker out of UCLA, and Teddy Bridgewater, a quarterback out of the University of Louisville. Bridgewater would later lose the starting job to Matt Cassel only to become the starter for the Vikings when Cassel was lost to a season-ending foot injury in week 3. Star running back Adrian Peterson only played in one regular season game due to his ongoing child abuse trial, with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell placing Peterson on the Commissioner's Exempt List indefinitely. On April 16, 2015, the league released a statement issuing Peterson's reinstatement to occur on April 17, 2015. The Vikings concluded their season with seven wins and nine losses, winning only one game against a divisional opponent, although Bridgewater set a franchise record for wins by a rookie starting quarterback. On January 3, 2016, the Vikings beat divisional rival Green Bay 20–13 to win the NFC North for the first time since 2009. The Vikings, led by their top 5 defense, ended the 2015 season with an 11–5 record, and a #3 seed in the playoffs. However, they lost to the Seattle Seahawks 10–9 after Blair Walsh missed a 27-yard field goal in the third coldest game in NFL playoff history.
The Vikings were responsible for a historic milestone in the late rounds of the 2016 NFL draft. Their sixth-round selection, German wide receiver Moritz Böhringer, was the first European player ever to be drafted by an NFL team without having previously played at any level in North America. After Teddy Bridgewater went down with a knee injury in the preseason of 2016, the Vikings traded their 2017 first round pick and a conditional fourth round pick to the Philadelphia Eagles for quarterback Sam Bradford, who threw for 20 touchdowns, 5 interceptions, 3,877 yards, and while starting the season a league best 5-0, completed the season 3-8 for a season total of 8-8. Following the knee injury, the Vikings declined to pick up the fifth-year option on Bridgewater. Running back Adrian Peterson went down to injury in Week 2 against the Green Bay Packers with a torn meniscus and was placed on the Injured Reserve until Week 15. On February 28, 2017, the Vikings announced they would not exercise Peterson's 2017 contract option which made him a free agent. Had they exercised the option, Peterson would be owed $18 million for the 2017 season. On April 25, 2017, the New Orleans Saints signed Peterson to a 2-year, $7 million contract, ending his tenure with the Vikings since his debut in 2007 as a rookie. He holds several Vikings records including most career rushing touchdowns, career rushing yards, and most rushing yards in a season.
In the summer of 2017, the Vikings ownership announced they would end the 52-year annual tradition of summer training camp in Mankato at Minnesota State University, Mankato as they built a large new headquarters building, training facility and area property development in Eagan on the site of the former Northwest Airlines offices completed in the spring of 2018 in time for the 2018 summer training camp that July.
The Vikings won the NFC North for the second time in three years in 2017, finishing with a 13–3 record that saw them go into the playoffs as the number 2 seed in the NFC. In the divisional round, they came up against the New Orleans Saints. With less than 10 seconds remaining in the game and trailing by a single point, the Vikings lined up on 3rd-and-10 on their own 39-yard line. Quarterback Case Keenum threw the ball to wide receiver Stefon Diggs inside field goal range near the right sideline, giving the receiver a chance to get out of bounds with just enough time for a game-winning field goal attempt; however, safety Marcus Williams missed his attempted tackle, allowing Diggs to run down the sideline unopposed for the first walk-off game-winning touchdown in NFL playoff history. On KFAN 100.3, radio announcer Paul Allen called the play the 'Minneapolis Miracle'. The Vikings went on to the NFC Championship for the opportunity to play in Super Bowl LII in their own stadium, only to lose 38–7 to the eventual Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles.
On September 22, 2019, the Vikings defeated the Oakland Raiders for their 500th win as a franchise, with an overall record of 500-427-11 at that point.
The Vikings' trademark horned helmet and purple-and-gold uniforms were designed by Los Angeles Examiner cartoonist Karl Hubenthal. Bert Rose and Norm Van Brocklin both knew Hubenthal from their days with the Los Angeles Rams organization. Hubenthal also designed the original Norseman logo.
From the team's debut in 1961 to 1995, the Vikings' logos and uniforms essentially remained the same. Reflecting Minnesota's Scandinavian cultural heritage, one of the team's two primary logos consists of a profile of a blond Norseman, while the other consists of a white Viking horn.
The team's helmet is purple with a Viking horn logo on each side. Each horn is outlined in gold. The horn logo was slightly revised in 2006. The original uniform design consisted of white pants, gold trim, and either purple or white jerseys. On the jersey’s sleeves was the Northwestern stripe pattern in white with gold trim. For the white uniform the stripes were purple with gold trim as well. From 1962 to 1964, the Vikings wore purple pants with their white jerseys (The Vikings, with their current uniform, still wear, purple pants with yellow and white trim). In 1969, the design for the white uniforms had changed to a completely different stripe pattern, which was over the shoulders, than the purple ones, which was around the sleeve cuff. These unique shoulder stripes, were first worn in 1969, the year they went to their first Super Bowl. There have also been minor changes to the uniform design throughout the years, such as changing the color of the face mask from gray to white in 1980, and then to purple in 1985. In addition, the Norseman logo was added to the sleeves in 1996, and the purple jersey stripes were toned down with that change; the "TV numbers", previously located on the jersey sleeves, moved up to the shoulders as well that year. The Vikings continued to wear black shoes until Les Steckel became head coach in 1984; they were the last NFL team to make the change from black to white shoes. In 2006, the team returned to black shoes for first time since the 1983 season.
The Vikings tweaked their Norseman logo, which involved updating the shading, altering the shape and base of the horns, thickening the mustache and face, making the gold tones brighter, and shortening the braid. The new logo was unveiled on February 14, 2013. On March 28, the team reported that new uniforms will be unveiled on April 25.
On April 25, 2013, the Minnesota Vikings unveiled the club's new uniforms during its annual NFL Draft party.
From 1969 through 1973, the Vikings had an alternate purple jersey without stripes for warm-weather games.
The team's uniforms were redesigned in 2006, the first significant change in the franchise's 46-year history. Although the team colors remained the same, trim lines were added to the outside shoulders and sleeves, and the sides of the jerseys and pants. In addition the horn on the helmet was slightly more defined. Included in the new design are both white and purple pants, the purple pants have not been regularly used since 2007, but resurfaced twice in 2010.
The team wore black armbands for the last four games in 1978 in memory of Jack "Jocko" Nelson, an assistant coach who died during the season. In 1985 the team wore a 25 years patch on their jerseys. In 1989, they wore a "40 for 60" patch honoring the 1969 NFL championship team. They wore a 35 years patch in 1995, 40 years in 2000 and 45 years in 2005. They also wore patches in 1999 for assistant coach Chip Myers who died in the offseason and in 2001 for Korey Stringer. The Vikings, like other teams, wore NFL 50th and 75th anniversary patches in 1969 and 1994.
They also wore "TS" decals on their helmets in memory of Tony Sparano in the NFL 2018-2019 season, their offensive-line coach who died before the season started.
On October 11, 1964, for a home game against the Detroit Lions, the Vikings decided to wear their road uniform of white jerseys and purple pants; however, the Lions mistakenly only brought their white jerseys to Minnesota. The game began with both teams wearing white, but it proved too confusing, and ahead of the second quarter, the Vikings changed into their purple jerseys; however, they did not change their pants, resulting in the first time the Vikings wore all-purple for a game. It was not until 43 years later, on December 17, 2007 (a Monday Night Football game against the Chicago Bears) that the Vikings again donned both purple jerseys and purple pants—the first time they wore all-purple intentionally. They repeated this three years later, the wearing all-purple for the November 7, 2010 home game against the Arizona Cardinals.
The NFL introduced "Color Rush" uniforms for all 32 teams in the 2016 season, specifically for "Thursday Night Football" games. The Vikings had an all-purple uniform with gold numbers and stripes on the pants, which made its only appearance in Week 13 at home to the Dallas Cowboys. In the 2019 season, the Vikings wore their old Color Rush uniforms against the Washington Redskins. For this game, they called them “Primetime Purple.” In the playoffs of the 2019 season, the Vikings had worn all purple again against the New Orleans Saints, however instead of the regular alternates, they wore the regular home uniforms with the away purple pants.
After several failed attempts at developing an official team-owned mascot, the Vikings finally introduced Viktor the Viking during the 2007 Vikings' season. Team officials had long indicated that they were after a mascot concept that would primarily appeal to the team's younger fan base. Viktor the Viking, a muscle-bound, blond-haired and mustachioed character, wears a Vikings' #1 jersey and an oversized Vikings helmet with protruding horns and a small yellow nose guard.
From 1970 to 1992, truck driver Hub Meeds dressed as a Viking and served as the team mascot. Meeds asked to become the mascot after being accidentally let onto the field by security during Super Bowl IV in New Orleans.
From 1994 to 2015, the team mascot was Ragnar (played by Joseph Juranitch) and was based on the legendary Viking Ragnar Lodbrok. Juranitch admits to being somewhat of an eccentric—he holds the current world record for fastest time shaving a beard with an axe, but hasn't shaved his beard since he won the Ragnar job among 3,000 applicants. Ragnar drove onto the field at the beginning of a game dressed in Viking garb, on a motorcycle, while a cheerleader used to ride a snowmobile. Although never one to shy away from confrontations with opposing players, notably Chad "Ochocinco" Johnson, he had a soft spot for Brett Favre while the quarterback started for the rival Green Bay Packers. In 2015, the Vikings announced that they were not able to reach a new contract agreement with Juranitch which he wanted $20,000 per game, and released him.
Another mascot associated with the Vikings was "Vikadontis Rex", a purple foam dinosaur. Vikadontis was the official mascot of the Minnesota Vikings Children's Fund and took part in the 1995 Celebrity Mascot Olympics. Vikadontis was retired starting with the 2000 season. The team also had an NFL Huddles mascot in the mid-1980s, (somewhat similar to Viktor the Viking). Krazy George was also employed as a cheerleader from 1982 to 1985.
"Skol, Vikings" is the fight song of the Minnesota Vikings. It was introduced around the time the team was founded in 1961. It is always played whenever the team scores a touchdown, field goal or safety, at the end of each half, and upon victory.
The song "Purple and Gold" was recorded in 2010 by Minneapolis native Prince to be used as a fight song for the Minnesota Vikings.
The Vikings have rivalries with all three of the other NFC North teams, but due to geographic and cultural proximity, their foremost rival is the Green Bay Packers. Some sources cite this rivalry as the biggest overall in the NFC North apart from the Packers–Bears rivalry (which dates back several more decades to 1920).
Vikings fans are known to dress up in "Helga hats", purple hats with white horns and blonde braids, mimicking the helmets popularly believed to have been worn by Viking warriors. The original Helga Hats are still hand assembled in the Twin Cities area.
During home games, the Vikings' Gjallarhorn is loudly played and sounds often after the team has made a big play, gets a first down, or scores a touchdown. The team often also uses the horn during its pre-game ceremonies.
The "Skol Chant" is a cheer that is used in U.S. Bank Stadium for Minnesota Viking games. It involves fans clapping their hands above their heads and yelling "Skol", in response to the beat of a drum. The chant is a slightly modified take on the Viking War Cry used at the Iceland national football team's games and popularized by the Iceland supporters at UEFA Euro 2016.
"italics" = played only a minor portion of their career with the Vikings, and are recognized primarily based upon achievements with other teams
In connection with the team's 50th anniversary, the Vikings announced a group of 50 top players on December 19, 2010.
In 2013, in recognition of their final season at the Metrodome, the Vikings organized a fan vote to determine the best players at each position to play for the team in their time at the stadium. They named 12 players on offense, 11 on defense, four special teams players and a head coach.
Offense
Defense
Special teams
Head Coach
The Vikings' flagship radio station is KFXN-FM (100.3), which uses the branding "KFAN" based on its former calls on 1130 AM before a format flip between the AM and FM stations before the 2011 season; 1130 AM also continues to broadcast game play-by-play as KTLK.
The games are also heard on the "KFAN Radio Network" in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, South Dakota, and North Dakota, as well as many other outlets. Paul Allen has been the play-by-play announcer since the 2002 NFL season with Pete Bercich filling in as analyst, who began his first season in 2007.
Telecasts of preseason games not shown on national networks are aired on KMSP (Channel 9) in the Twin Cities with a simulcast of KFAN's radio broadcast while Fox Sports North shows a tape delay later.
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Mixmaster Morris
Mixmaster Morris (born Morris Gould, 30 December 1965) is an English ambient DJ and underground musician. Famous for his, "It's time to lie down and be counted" quote, relating specifically to ambient music, Morris stated "It's exactly what you need if you have a busy and stressful life".
Morris Gould was born in Brighton, Sussex, England, but grew up in Lincolnshire and was educated at Millfield in Somerset, and King's College London. At 15 he founded a punk rock band, The Ripchords, whose sole release, an eponymous EP with four tracks, was championed by the BBC Radio One DJ John Peel. After leaving university, he began working as a DJ in 1985 with his "Mongolian Hip Hop Show" on pirate radio station Network 21 in London – the handle Mixmaster Morris was suggested by the station director. After a year of managing a club called "The Gift" in New Cross, which had been founded by Keith Gallagher and named after a Velvet Underground song, Morris began releasing material as The Irresistible Force in 1987 in collaboration with singer-songwriter Des de Moor. He became involved with the emerging UK acid house scene, after organising Madhouse at The Fridge, Brixton in 1988 – which was the subject of a piece by Peel in "The Observer".
A show with the band Psychic TV led to him becoming full-time DJ with The Shamen, and touring with them on their 'Synergy' tours for nearly two years.
The first release as The Irresistible Force was the single, "I Want To" (1988), but success came with the first album, "Flying High", released in 1992 on Rising High Records. In 1994, Morris released the second album "Global Chillage" which featured a holographic sleeve, and was released in the US on Astralwerks. After a period of legal problems the third album "It's Tomorrow Already" came out on Ninja Tune.
In 1990, he made one of the first chillout compilations, "Give Peace a Dance 2: The Ambient Collection" for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, followed by the series "Chillout or Die" for Rising High Records. A mix tape for "Mixmag" shared with Alex Patterson was also released as a CD. "The Morning After" became his first major-label mix album, followed by "Abstract Funk Theory" for Obsessive.
Through the 1990s he was a regular DJ in the chill out room at Return to the Source parties in London, around the UK and abroad. In 2003 he released the mix CD "God Bless the Chilled" for the Return to the Source Ambient Meditations series.
He has produced many remixes since 1985, including Coldcut's "Autumn Leaves". This remix was nominated by Norman Cook as his favourite chillout track on BBC Television. His mix for INXS was a Top 20 hit in the UK. Other early remixes were of Lloyd Cole, Dave Howard Singers, Bang Bang Machine, Stump, Higher Intelligence Agency, Sven Väth and Rising High Collective.
In the early 1990s his key residencies were alongside the Detroit masters at Lost, Megatripolis at London's Heaven, and also the Tribal Gathering parties. He became known for wearing holographic suits, produced by the company Spacetime, which he modelled for "Vogue" magazine. Throughout the decade, Morris wrote about electronic music for the "NME", "Mixmag", and "i-D". He was resident on Kiss FM for several years, and then a regular on Solid Steel, the Ninja Tune syndicated radio show. He made his film debut in "Modulations" (Caipirinha Films), and his music was used in a number of other films including "Groove" and "Hey Happy".
Morris has played in over fifty countries at nightclubs and parties, and particularly music festivals such as the Full Moon parties in the Mojave Desert, Glastonbury Festival, Rainbow 2000 and Mother SOS in Japan, Chillits in Northern California, and Berlin's Love Parade. He also ran the downtempo night Nubient in Brixton. In 1995, he played at the first The Big Chill festival, and then became a resident for the next 16 years.
He also collaborated with the German musician Pete Namlook under the name Dreamfish, recording two albums. Also with SF-based musician Jonah Sharp and Haruomi Hosono of Yellow Magic Orchestra he made the album "Quiet Logic" for the Japanese label Daisyworld.
In 1998 he joined the UK's Ninja Tune record label, with whom he toured as a DJ and made three releases. 1999 saw him win 'Best Chillout DJ' at the Ibiza DJ Awards at Pacha, Ibiza, and in 2001 he won the title for a second time, becoming the first DJ to achieve this. He has appeared in many lists of the world's top DJ's including the Ministry of Sound book "The Annual" and 2003's "DJs by Lopez", and "URB Magazine"'s Top 100 DJ list. Morris records regular radio shows for the Japanese internet radio station Samurai FM. In 2006 he started a new club at the Big Chill House in Kings Cross, London, and did a guest mix for BBC Radio 1's "The Blue Room" show. His essay about jazz was published in the book, "Crossfade", and he made a one-off appearance reading it aloud.
In March 2007, together with Coldcut, he organised a tribute show to the writer and philosopher Robert Anton Wilson, which they performed at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. He also played in Goa for the first time with The Big Chill, and started a new residency at The Prince in Brixton. In May 2008 Morris undertook an ambient mix on BBC Radio 1, and put a The Irresistible Force band together to play at The Big Chill festival. In 2009, he compiled a podcast for Tate Britain to accompany their Altermodern exhibition, and opened a new AV night called MMMTV in Camden. The mix CD, "Calm Down My Selector" was released in January by Wakyo Records, and he made a tour of Japan to promote it.
In 2010, he won another Ibiza DJ Award, for the third time. In October that year, he was announced as Head of A+R for Apollo Records. 2011 saw him rejoin Bestival as part of their "Ambient Forest" team.
2017 saw Morris continue to stay at the top of the psybient/downtempo movement and charts, especially mixcloud where he held top positions in most categories relating to ambient music for the full year. 2017 also saw the triumphant return of Mixmaster Morris with his acclaimed release "Kira Kira", a lush soundscape that was received well by many publications and listeners and earned a spot in "Extreme Chill's" top twenty of 2017 along such luminaries as Brian Eno and Steve Roach.
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Manx language
Manx ( or , pronounced or or ), also known as Manx Gaelic, and also historically spelled Manks, is a member of the Goidelic language branch of the Celtic languages of the Indo-European language family; it was spoken as a first language by some of the Manx people on the Isle of Man until the death of the last native speaker, Ned Maddrell, in 1974. Despite this, the language has never fallen completely out of use, with a minority having some knowledge of it; in addition, Manx still has a role as an important part of the island's culture and heritage. Manx has been the subject of language revival efforts; in 2015, around 1,800 people had varying levels of second language conversational ability. Since the late 20th century, Manx has become more visible on the island, with increased signage, radio broadcasts and a Manx-medium primary school. The revival of Manx has been made easier because the language was well recorded: for example, the Bible had been translated into Manx, and audio recordings had been made of native speakers.
In Manx, the language is called "Gaelg" or "Gailck", a word which shares the same etymology as the word "Gaelic". The sister languages of Irish and Scottish Gaelic use "Gaeilge" (dialect variants Gaoluinn, Gaedhlag, Gaelge and Gaelic) and "Gàidhlig", respectively, for their languages. As with Irish and Scottish, the form with the definite article is frequently used in Manx, e.g. "y Ghaelg" or "y Ghailck" (Irish "an Ghaeilge", Scottish "a' Ghàidhlig").
To distinguish it from the two other forms of Gaelic, the phrases "Gaelg"/"Gailck Vannin" (Gaelic of Mann) and "Gaelg"/"Gailck Vanninnagh" (Manx Gaelic) also are used. In addition, the nickname "Çhengey ny Mayrey" (the mother tongue/tongue of the mother, lit. the mother's tongue) is occasionally used.
The language is usually referred to in English as "Manx". The term "Manx Gaelic" is often used, for example when discussing the relationship between the three Goidelic languages (Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx) or to avoid confusion with Anglo-Manx, the form of English spoken on the island. Scottish Gaelic is often referred to in English as simply "Gaelic", but this is less common with Manx and Irish.
A feature of Anglo-Manx deriving from Gaelic is the use of the definite article, e.g. "the Manx", "the Gaelic", in ways not generally seen in standard English.
The word "Manx" is frequently spelled "Manks" in historical sources, particularly those written by natives of the island; the word means "Mannish", and originates from the Old Norse "Mannisk". The name of the island, Man, is frequently spelled "Mann". It is sometimes accompanied by a footnote explaining that it is a two-syllable word, with the stress on the first syllable, "MAN-en". The island is named after the Irish god Manannán mac Lir, thus "Ellan Vannin" (Irish "Oileán Mhannanáin") 'Mannanán's Island'.
Manx is a Goidelic language, closely related to Irish and Scottish Gaelic. On the whole it is partially mutually intelligible with these, and native speakers of one find it easy to gain passive, and even spoken, competency in the other two.
The earliest known language of the Isle of Man was a form of Brythonic (like modern Welsh, Cornish and Breton). However, the basis of the modern Manx language is Primitive Irish (like modern Irish and Scottish Gaelic). The island lends its name to "Manannán", the Brythonic and Gaelic sea god who is said in myth to have once ruled the island. Primitive Irish is first attested in Ogham inscriptions from the 4th century AD. These writings have been found throughout Ireland and the west coast of Great Britain. Primitive Irish transitioned into Old Irish through the 5th century. Old Irish, dating from the 6th century, used the Latin script and is attested primarily in marginalia to Latin manuscripts, but there are no extant examples from the Isle of Man.
On the Isle of Man, the transition from Manx Brythonic to Old Irish (or Manx Gaelic) may have been gradual and appears to have occurred after speakers of Primitive Irish settled on the Isle of Man, in large numbers, from about the 5th century AD. Their influence is evident in a change of language in Ogham inscriptions on Man.
It is possible that Old Irish did not survive the conquest and domination of the island by Norse-speaking Vikings, so that modern Manx language may represent a later, revived form (derived from Middle Irish). During the 8th century AD, the Isle of Man, like the people in coastal areas of Scotland and Ireland, was significantly influenced by Norse speakers. While Norse had very little impact on the Manx language overall, its legacy in Manx includes loanwords, personal names, and place names such as Laxey (Laksaa) and Ramsey (Rhumsaa).
By the 10th century, Middle Irish had emerged and was spoken throughout Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man.
During the later Middle Ages, the Isle of Man fell increasingly under the influence of England, and from then on the English language has been the chief external factor in the development of Manx. Beginning in 1405, Manx experienced even more English influence under the rule of Sir John Stanley. As contact between Manx speakers and Gaelic speakers from Scotland and Ireland declined, the language diverged further from its related neighbours.
In the 17th century, some university students left the Isle of Man to attend school in England. At the same time, teaching in English was required in schools founded by governor Isaac Barrow. Barrow also promoted the use of English in churches; he considered that it was a superior language for reading the Bible; however, because the majority of ministers were monolingual Manx speakers, his views had little practical impact.
Thomas Wilson began his tenure as Bishop of Mann in 1698 and was succeeded by Mark Hildesley. Both men held positive views of Manx; Wilson was the first person to publish a book in Manx, a translation of "The Principles and Duties of Christianity" ("Coyrie Sodjey"), and Hildesley successfully promoted the use of Manx as the language of instruction in schools. The New Testament was first published in Manx in 1767. In the late 18th century, nearly every school was teaching in English. This decline continued into the 19th century, as English gradually became the primary language spoken on the Isle of Man.
In 1848, J. G. Cumming wrote, "there are ... few persons (perhaps none of the young) who speak no English." Henry Jenner estimated in 1874 that about 30% of the population habitually spoke Manx (12,340 out of a population of 41,084). According to official census figures, 9.1% of the population claimed to speak Manx in 1901; in 1921 the percentage was only 1.1%. Since the language was used by so few people, it had low linguistic "prestige", and parents tended to not teach Manx to their children, thinking it would be useless to them compared with English.
Following the decline in the use of Manx during the nineteenth century, (The Manx Language Society) was founded in 1899. By the middle of the twentieth century, only a few elderly native speakers remained (the last of them, Ned Maddrell, died on 27 December 1974), but by then a scholarly revival had begun and a few people had started teaching it in schools. The Manx Language Unit was formed in 1992, consisting of three members and headed by Manx Language Officer Brian Stowell, a language enthusiast and fluent speaker, "which was put in charge of all aspects of Manx language teaching and accreditation in schools." This led to an increased interest in studying the Manx language and encouraged a renewed sense of ethnic identity. The revival of Manx has been aided by the recording work done in the twentieth century by researchers. Most notably, the Irish Folklore Commission was sent in with recording equipment in 1948 by Éamon de Valera. Also important in preserving the Manx language was work conducted by the late Brian Stowell, who is considered personally responsible for the current revival of the Manx language. The Manx Language Strategy was released in 2017, outlining a five-year plan for the language's continued revitalisation. Culture Vannin employs a Manx Language Development Officer (Manx: "Yn Greinneyder") to encourage and facilitate the use of the language.
In 2009, UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger declared Manx an extinct language, despite the presence of hundreds of speakers on the Isle of Man. Since then, UNESCO's classification of the language has changed to "critically endangered".
In the 2011 census, 1,823 out of 80,398 Isle of Man residents, or 2.27% of the population, claimed to have knowledge of Manx, an increase of 134 people from the 2001 census. These were spread roughly uniformly over the island: in Douglas 566 people professed an ability to speak, read or write Manx; 179 in Peel, 146 in Onchan, and 149 in Ramsey.
Traditional Manx given names are once again becoming common on the island, especially "Moirrey" and "Voirrey" (Mary, properly pronounced similarly to the Scottish "Moira", but often mispronounced as "Moiree/Voiree" when used as a given name by non-Manx speakers), "Illiam" (William), "Orry" (from the Manx king Godred Crovan of Norse origin), "Breeshey" (also "Breesha") (Bridget), "Aalish" (also "Ealish") (Alice), "Juan" (Jack), "Ean" (Ian), "Joney" (John), "Fenella" (Fionnuala), "Pherick" (Patrick) and "Freya" (from the Norse goddess) remain popular.
Because Manx has never had a large number of speakers, it has never been practical to produce large amounts of written literature. However, a body of oral literature did exist. The "Fianna" tales and others like them are known, including the Manx ballad "Fin as Oshin", commemorating Finn MacCool and Ossian. With the coming of Protestantism, Manx spoken tales slowly disappeared, while a tradition of "carvals" - religious songs or carols - developed with religious sanction.
As far as is known, there was no distinctively Manx written literature before the Reformation. By that time, any presumed literary link with Ireland and Scotland, such as through Irish-trained priests, had been lost. The first published literature in Manx was "The Principles and Duties of Christianity (Coyrie Sodjey)", translated by Bishop of Man Thomas Wilson.
The Book of Common Prayer was translated by John Phillips, the Welsh-born Bishop of Sodor and Man (1605–33). The early Manx script has some similarities with orthographical systems found occasionally in Scotland and in Ireland for the transliteration of Gaelic, such as the Book of the Dean of Lismore, as well as some extensive texts based on English and Scottish English orthographical practices of the time. Little secular Manx literature has been preserved.
The New Testament was first published in 1767. When the Anglican church authorities started to produce written literature in the Manx language in the 18th century, the system developed by John Philips was further "anglicised"; the one feature retained from Welsh orthography was the use of to represent schwa (e.g. "horse" and "help" as well as (e.g. "knowledge"), though it is also used to represent , as in English (e.g. "John" (vocative), "fish").
Other works produced in the 18th and 19th century include catechisms, hymn books and religious tracts. A translation of "Paradise Lost" was made in 1796.
A considerable amount of secular literature has been produced in the 20th and 21st centuries as part of the language revival. In 2006, the first full-length novel in Manx, "Dunveryssyn yn Tooder-Folley" ("The Vampire Murders") was published by Brian Stowell, after being serialised in the press. There is an increasing amount of literature available in the language, and recent publications include Manx versions of the "Gruffalo" and "Gruffalo's Child".
In 2019 Rob Teare translated Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's "The Little Prince" into Manx.
Manx is not officially recognised by any national or regional government, although its contribution to Manx culture and tradition is acknowledged by some governmental and non-governmental bodies. For example:
The Standing Orders of the House of Keys provide that: "The proceedings of the House shall be in English; but if a Member at any point pronounces a customary term or sentence in Manx Gaelic or any other language, the Speaker may call upon the Member for a translation." An example was at the sitting on 12 February 2019, when an MHK used the expression "boghtnid", stated to mean "nonsense".
Manx is used in the annual Tynwald ceremony and Manx words are used in official Tynwald publications.
For the purpose of strengthening its contribution to local culture and community, Manx is recognised under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and in the framework of the British-Irish Council.
Manx is taught as a second language at all of the island's primary and secondary schools. The lessons are optional and instruction is provided by the Department of Education's Manx Language Team which teach up to A Level standard.
The Bunscoill Ghaelgagh, a primary school at St John's, has 67 children, as of September 2016, who receive nearly all of their education through the medium of the language. Children who have attended the school have the opportunity to receive some of their secondary education through the language at Queen Elizabeth II High School in Peel.
The playgroup organisation Mooinjer Veggey, which operates the , runs a series of preschool groups that introduce the language.
There are an increasing number of resources available for those wanting to learn the language. The Manx Language Development Officer for Culture Vannin manages the Learnmanx.com website which has a wide variety of resources. These include mobile apps a new podcast in Manx, the 1000 words-in-Manx challenge and the Video-a-day in Manx series.
The most recent development on the adult language front is the creation of a new on-line course, Say Something in Manx which has been created in conjunction with the Say Something in Welsh
It is hoped that this will be the main way on-line learners will access the language from now on.
2016 also saw the launch of a new dictionary for learners published by Culture Vannin.
Two weekly programmes in Manx are available on medium wave on Manx Radio: "Traa dy liooar" on Monday and "Jamys Jeheiney" on Friday. The news in Manx is available on-line from Manx Radio, who have three other weekly programmes that use the language: "Clare ny Gael"; "Shiaght Laa" and "Moghrey Jedoonee". Several news readers on Manx Radio also use a good deal of incidental Manx.
The "Isle of Man Examiner" has a monthly bilingual column in Manx.
The first film to be made in Manx – the 22-minute-long "Ny Kirree fo Niaghtey" (The Sheep [plural] Under the Snow) – premiered in 1983 and was entered for the 5th Celtic Film and Television Festival in Cardiff in 1984. It was directed by Shorys Y Creayrie (George Broderick) for Foillan Films of Laxey, and is about the background to an early 18th-century folk song. In 2013, a short film, Solace in Wicca, was produced with financial assistance from Culture Vannin, CinemaNX and Isle of Man Film. A series of short cartoons about the life of Cuchulain which were produced by BBC Northern Ireland are available as are a series of cartoons on Manx mythology. Most significant is a 13-part DVD series Manx translation of the award-winning series "Friends and Heroes".
Bilingual road, street, village and town boundary signs are common throughout the Isle of Man. All other road signs are in English only.
Business signage in Manx is gradually being introduced but is not mandated by law; however, the 1985 Tynwald Report on the use of Manx states that signage should be bilingual except where a Manx phrase is the norm.
The Bible was first produced in Manx by a group of Anglican clergymen on the island. The Gospel of Matthew was printed in 1748. The four Gospels were produced in 1763 and "Conaant Noa nyn Jiarn as Saualtagh Yeesey Creest" (the New Testament of our Lord & Saviour Jesus Christ) in 1767 by the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge (SPCK). In 1772 the Old Testament was translated from Hebrew and printed, together with the Books of Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) from the Apocrypha. "Yn Vible Casherick" (The Holy Bible) of the Old and New Testaments was published as one book by the SPCK in 1775. The bicentenary was celebrated on the Isle of Man in 1975 and included a set of stamps from the Isle of Man Post Office.
This 1775 edition effectively fixed the modern orthography of Manx Gaelic, which has changed little since. Jenner claims that some bowdlerisation had occurred in the translation, e.g. the occupation of Rahab the prostitute is rendered as "ben-oast", a hostess or female inn-keeper.
There was a translation of the "Psalmyn Ghavid" (Psalms of David) in metre in Manx by the Rev John Clague, vicar of Rushen, which was printed with the Book of Common Prayer of 1768. Bishop Hildesley required that these Metrical Psalms were to be sung in churches. These were reprinted by the Manx Language Society in 1905.
The British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS) published the Conaant Noa (New Testament) in 1810 and reprinted it in 1824. "Yn Vible Casherick" (the Holy Bible) of the Old Testament and New Testament (without the two books of the Apocrypha) was first printed as a whole in 1819. BFBS last printed anything on paper in Manx in 1936 when it reprinted "Noo Ean" (the Gospel of St John); this was reprinted by Yn Çheshaght Ghailckagh (The Manx Gaelic Society) in 1968. The Manx Bible was republished by Shearwater Press in July 1979 as "Bible Chasherick yn Lught Thie" (Manx Family Bible), which was a reproduction of the BFBS 1819 Bible.
Since 2014 the BFBS 1936 Manx Gospel of John has been available online on YouVersion and Bibles.org.
Manx was used in some churches into the late 19th century. Although church services in Manx were once fairly common, they occur infrequently now. Yn Çheshaght Ghailckagh, the Manx Language Society, hold an annual Christmas service at locations around the island.
Manx is one of the three descendants of Old Irish (via Middle Irish and early Modern Gaelic), and is closely related to Irish and Scottish Gaelic. It shares a number of developments in phonology, vocabulary and grammar with Irish and Scottish Gaelic (in some cases only with dialects of these) and shows a number of unique changes. There are two attested historical dialects of Manx, Northern Manx and Southern Manx. A third dialect may have existed in-between, around Douglas.
Manx shares with Scottish Gaelic the partial loss of contrastive palatalisation of labial consonants; thus while in Irish the velarised consonants contrast phonemically with palatalised , in Scottish Gaelic and Manx, the phonemic contrast has been lost to some extent. A consequence of this phonemic merger is that Middle Irish unstressed word-final (spelled "-(a)ibh", "-(a)imh" in Irish and Gaelic) has merged with ("-(e)abh", "-(e)amh") in Manx; both have become , spelled "-oo" or "-u(e)". Examples include ("to stand"; Irish ), ("religion"; Irish ), ("fainting"; Early Modern Irish , lit. "in clouds"), and ("on you (plural)"; Irish ).
Medial and final *bh and *mh have become and in general in Manx, thus "shiu" 'you PL', Scottish and Irish Gaelic "sibh" ("siph" in Northern Irish, "sib" in South Connacht Irish; Lewis Gàidhlig has the variant "siù", besides the more general "sibh"), -bh in final consonant clusters, e.g. Manx "sharroo" 'bitter', Scottish "searbh" , Northern and Western Irish "searbh" , Southern Irish "searbh" , between vowels, e.g. Manx "awin" 'river' , Scottish "abhainn" , Irish "abhainn" , word-finally in monosyllables, e.g. Manx "laaue" 'hand', Scottish "làmh" , Northern Irish , Western Irish "lámh" , Southern Irish , at the end of stressed syllables (see further below), as in "sourey" 'summer', Scotland and Ireland "samhradh", Scottish , Northern Irish , Western and Southern Irish . In all this Manx is most like Northern Irish. Rare retentions of the older pronunciation of "bh" include "Divlyn", "Divlin" 'Dublin', Middle Irish "Duibhlinn" , also written "Duibhlinn" in Modern Irish and Scots Gaelic.
Moreover, similarly to Munster Irish, historical "bh" and "mh" (nasalised ) tend to be lost in the middle or at the end of a word in Manx, either with compensatory lengthening or vocalisation as u resulting in diphthongisation with the preceding vowel. For example, Manx ("winter") and ("mountains") correspond to Irish and (Southern Irish dialect spelling and pronunciation "gíre" () and "sléte" ()). Another similarity to Munster Irish is the development of the Old Irish diphthongs before velarised consonants (spelled "ao" in Irish and Scottish Gaelic) to in many words, as in ("carpenter") and ("narrow") (spelled and in Irish and Scottish, and pronounced virtually the same in Munster).
Like western and northern dialects of Irish (cf. Irish phonology) and most dialects of Scottish Gaelic, Manx has changed the historical consonant clusters to . For example, Middle Irish ("mockery") and ("women") have become and respectively in Manx. The affrication of to is also common to Manx, northern Irish, and Scottish Gaelic.
Also like northern and western dialects of Irish, as well as like southern dialects of Scottish Gaelic (e.g. Arran, Kintyre), the unstressed word-final syllable of Middle Irish (spelled "-(a)idh" and "-(a)igh") has developed to in Manx, where it is spelled "-ee", as in ("buy"; cf. Irish ) and ("apparatus"; cf. Gaelic ).
Another property Manx shares with Ulster Irish and some dialects of Scottish Gaelic is that rather than appears in unstressed syllables before (in Manx spelling, "agh"), for example ("straight") (Irish ), ("to remember") (Gaelic ).
Like southern and western varieties of Irish and northern varieties of Scottish Gaelic, but unlike the geographically closer varieties of Ulster Irish and Arran and Kintyre Gaelic, Manx shows vowel lengthening or diphthongisation before the Old Irish fortis and lenis sonorants. For example, ("children") , ("brown") , ("butter") correspond to Irish/Scottish Gaelic , , and respectively, which have long vowels or diphthongs in western and southern Irish and in the Scottish Gaelic dialects of the Outer Hebrides and Skye, thus western Irish , Southern Irish/Northern Scottish , , ), but short vowels and 'long' consonants in northern Irish, Arran, and Kintyre, , and .
Another similarity with southern Irish is the treatment of Middle Irish word-final unstressed , spelled "-(e)adh" in Irish and Scottish Gaelic. In nouns (including verbal nouns), this became in Manx, as it did in southern Irish, e.g. ("war") , ("to praise") ; cf. Irish and , pronounced and in southern Irish. In finite verb forms before full nouns (as opposed to pronouns) became in Manx, as in southern Irish, e.g. ("would praise"), cf. Irish , pronounced in southern Irish.
Linguistic analysis of the last few dozen native speakers reveals a number of dialectal differences between the northern and the southern parts of the island. Northern Manx was reflected by speakers from towns and villages from Maughold in the northeast of the island to Peel on the west coast. Southern Manx was used by speakers from the sheading of Rushen. It is possible that written Manx represents a 'midlands' dialect of Douglas and surrounding areas.
In Southern Manx, older "á" and in some cases "ó" became . In Northern Manx the same happened, but "á" sometimes remained as well. For example, ("day", cf. Irish ) was in the south but or in the north. Old "ó" is always in both dialects, e.g. ("young", cf. Irish ) is in both dialects. In many words before "rt", "rd" and "rg", and in one or two other words "á", lengthened "a" and "ó" have become /œ:/, as in "paayrt" 'part' /pœ:rt/, "ard" 'high' /œ:rd/, "jiarg" 'red' /dʒœ:rg/, "argid" 'money, silver' /œ:rgid/ and "aarey" 'gold GEN' /œ:rə/.
In Northern Manx, older "(e)a" before "nn" in the same syllable is diphthongised, while in Southern Manx it is lengthened but remains a monophthong. For example, ("head", cf. Irish ) is in the north but in the south.
Words with "ua" and in some cases "ao" in Irish and Scottish are spelled with "eay" in Manx. In Northern Manx, this sound was , while in Southern Manx it was , , or . For example, ("wind", cf. Irish ) is in the north and in the south, while ("coal", cf. Irish ) is in the north and , , or in the south.
In both the north and the south, there is a tendency to insert a short sound before a word-final in monosyllabic words, as in for ("whole") and for ("woman"). This phenomenon is known as pre-occlusion. In Southern Manx, however, there is pre-occlusion of before and of before , as in for ("walking") and for ("ship"). These forms are generally pronounced without pre-occlusion in the north. Preocclusion of before , on the other hand, is more common in the north, as in ("heavy"), which is in the north but or in the south. This feature is also found in Cornish.
Southern Manx tended to lose word-initial before , while Northern Manx usually preserved it, e.g. ("glen") is in the north and in the south, and ("knee") is in the north and in the south.
Some simple conversational words and phrases:
The Manx orthography is unlike that of Irish and Scottish Gaelic, both of which use similar spelling systems derived from written Early Modern Irish, alt. Classical Irish, which was the language of the educated Gaelic elite of both Ireland and Scotland (where it is called Classical Gaelic) until the mid-19th century. In general, these orthographies retain spelling and derivation from older Gaelic, which means that there is not in a one-to-one system. Both systems use only 18 letters to represent around 50 phonemes. While Manx in effect uses the English spelling system, except for and , the 24 letters used in its orthography likewise covers a similar range of phonemes, and therefore many digraphs and trigraphs are used.
The Manx orthography was developed by people who were unaware of traditional Gaelic orthography, as they had learned literacy in Welsh and English (the initial development in the 16th century), then only English (later developments). Therefore, the orthography is based on early Modern English pronunciation, and to a small extent Welsh, rather than from a pan-Gaelic point of view. The result is an inconsistent and only partially phonemic spelling system, in a similar way as spelling in English. T. F. O'Rahilly expressed the opinion that Gaelic in the Isle of Man was saddled with an inadequate spelling which is neither traditional nor phonetic; if the traditional Gaelic orthography had been preserved, the close kinship that exists between Manx Gaelic and Scottish Gaelic would be obvious to all at first sight.
There is no evidence of Gaelic script having been used on the island.
Manx uses relatively few diacritics, but a cedilla is often (but not exclusively) used to differentiate between the two pronunciations of "ch":
The following examples are taken from Broderick 1984–86, 1:178–79 and 1:350–53. The first example is from a speaker of Northern Manx, the second from Ned Maddrell, a speaker of Southern Manx.
The Lord's Prayer has been translated into all the Goidelic tongues. Although the wordings are not completely cognate, they demonstrate the different orthographies.
The consonant phonemes of Manx are as follows:
The voiceless plosives are pronounced with aspiration. The dental, postalveolar and palato-velar plosives are affricated to in many contexts.
Manx has an optional process of lenition of plosives between vowels, whereby voiced plosives and voiceless fricatives become voiced fricatives and voiceless plosives become either voiced plosives or voiced fricatives. This process introduces the allophones to the series of voiced fricatives in Manx. The voiced fricative may be further lenited to , and may disappear altogether. Examples include:
Another optional process of Manx phonology is pre-occlusion, the insertion of a very short plosive consonant before a sonorant consonant. In Manx, this applies to stressed monosyllabic words (i.e. words one syllable long). The inserted consonant is homorganic with the following sonorant, which means it has the same place of articulation. Long vowels are often shortened before pre-occluded sounds. Examples include:
The trill is realised as a one- or two-contact flap at the beginning of syllable, and as a stronger trill when preceded by another consonant in the same syllable. At the end of a syllable, can be pronounced either as a strong trill or, more frequently, as a weak fricative , which may vocalise to a nonsyllabic or disappear altogether. This vocalisation may be due to the influence of Manx English, which is itself a non-rhotic accent. Examples of the pronunciation of include:
The vowel phonemes of Manx are as follows:
The status of and as separate phonemes is debatable, but is suggested by the allophony of certain words such as "is", "women", and so on. An alternative analysis is that Manx has the following system, where the vowels and have allophones ranging from through to . As with Irish and Scottish Gaelic, there is a large amount of vowel allophony, such as that of . This depends mainly on the 'broad' and 'slender' status of the neighbouring consonants:
When stressed, is realised as .
Manx has a relatively large number of diphthongs, all of them falling:
Stress generally falls on the first syllable of a word in Manx, but in many cases, stress is attracted to a long vowel in the second syllable. Examples include:
Like all modern Celtic languages, Manx shows initial consonant mutations, which are processes by which the initial consonant of a word is altered according to its morphological and/or syntactic environment. Manx has two mutations: lenition and eclipsis, found on nouns and verbs in a variety of environments; adjectives can undergo lenition but not eclipsis. In the late spoken language of the 20th century the system was breaking down, with speakers frequently failing to use mutation in environments where it was called for, and occasionally using it in environments where it was not called for.
In the corpus of the late spoken language, there is also one example of the eclipsis (nasalisation) of : the sentence ("I have found the lamb"), where "ng" is pronounced . However, probably this was a mis-transcription; the verbal noun in this case is not "get, fetch", but rather "find".
Manx nouns fall into one of two genders, masculine or feminine. Nouns are inflected for number. The plural is formed in a variety of ways, most commonly by addition of the suffix , but also by vowel change, changing to or or by adding other endings. There is usually no inflection for case, except in a minority of nouns that have a distinct genitive singular form, which is formed in various ways. (Most common is the addition of the suffix "-ey" to feminine nouns.) Historical genitive singulars are often encountered in compounds even when they are no longer productive forms; for example "cowhouse" uses the old genitive of "cattle". There are also traces of a dative singular in set phrases such as "on foot", contrasting with nominative and genitive (cf. "footwear", "football, soccer, rugby").
Certain adjectives have plural as well as singular forms (through the addition "-ey" ), although the use of the singular adjective with a plural noun is usual. Most adjectives end in "-agh" and form their comparative/superlative form by replacing this with "-ee" , e.g. "atçhimagh" "terrible" becomes "atçhimee", giving "ny s'atçhimee" "more terrible" and "s'atçhimee" "most terrible". As in Irish and Scottish Gaelic, the comparative-superlative is commonly marked by the copula verb "s" ("is") in the present, and "by" in the past; the superlative is often shown by the word "nys" /nis/, from Middle Irish "ní as" "thing that is" (cf. Irish "níos", past "ní ba"). A number of adjectives form their comparative/superlative irregularly:
The comparative/superlative can also be formed using "more" with the positive form e.g. = .
In common with Irish and Scottish Gaelic, in addition to its regular personal pronouns, Manx has also a series used for emphasis. Under certain phonological circumstances, these can be used as unemphatic pronouns, e.g. "you were not" is as sounds too similar to "they/he/she was not".
Notice the only difference between the masculine and feminine third person singular possessive pronouns is the initial sound change, namely lenition and h-prefixing, they cause, e.g. "her laptop", "his laptop", "e ooh" "his egg", "e hooh" "her egg".
An alternative to using the possessive pronouns is to precede a noun with the definite article and follow it with the inflected form of "at" to show the person, e.g. "my house" (literally "the house at me") instead of "my house". This is especially useful in the plural, where all persons share one possessive pronoun, e.g. "their house", as opposed to "our/your/their house".
1. Causes lenition.
2. Causes eclipsis.
Manx verbs generally form their finite forms by means of periphrasis: inflected forms of the auxiliary verbs "to be" or "to do" are combined with the verbal noun of the main verb. Only the future, conditional, preterite, and imperative can be formed directly by inflecting the main verb, but even in these tenses, the periphrastic formation is more common in Late Spoken Manx. Examples:
The future and conditional tenses (and in some irregular verbs, the preterite) make a distinction between "independent" and "dependent" forms. Independent forms are used when the verb is not preceded by any particle; dependent forms are used when a particle (e.g. "not") does precede the verb. For example, "you will lose" is with the independent form ("will lose"), while "you will not lose" is with the dependent form (which has undergone eclipsis to after ). Similarly "they went" is with the independent form ("went"), while "they did not go" is with the dependent form . This contrast is inherited from Old Irish, which shows such pairs as ("(s)he carries") vs. ("(s)he does not carry"), and is found in Scottish Gaelic as well, e.g. ("will take") vs. ("will not take"). In Modern Irish, the distinction is found only in irregular verbs (e.g. ("saw") vs. ("did not see").
The fully inflected forms of the regular verb "to throw" are as follows. In addition to the forms below, a past participle may be formed using : "thrown".
1. First person singular, making the use of a following subject pronoun redundant
2. First person plural, making the use of a following subject pronoun redundant
3. Used with all other persons, meaning an accompanying subject must be stated, e.g. "he will throw", "they will throw"
There are a few peculiarities when a verb begins with a vowel, i.e. the addition of in the preterite and in the future and conditional dependent. Below is the conjugation of "to grow".
1. may also be spelt when pronounced i.e. before a slender vowel, e.g. "ate" can be either or .
These peculiarities extend to verbs begins with f, e.g. "to leave".
1. Again, may also be spelt where appropriate.
A number of verbs are irregular in their inflection.
1. Future relative:
2. Future relative:
The most common and most irregular verb in Manx is "to be", often used as an auxiliary verb. In addition to the usual inflected tenses, also has a present tense. The full conjugation of "to be" is as follows.
Manx adverbs can be formed from adjectives by means of the word (< Middle Irish "go" "with, until"), e.g. "good", "well" (CF. Irish "maith", "go maith", Gaelic "math", "gu maith"); "cheerful", "cheerfully". This is not used when preceded by such words as "too" and "very" or followed by "enough", e.g. "very good, very well", "cheerful(ly) enough". The prepositional phrase for "home(wards)" is formed with "to" and the noun "place, town, homestead" to give , Cf. Irish "abhaile", older "do bhaile", whereas the noun "house, home" can be used unchanged to convey the same meaning.
The language has a number of adverbs corresponding to English "up" and "down", the meaning of which depend upon such things as motion or lack thereof and starting point in relation to the speaker.
Examples of practical usage are "There's a man down the street" and "I'm going down the street", "Climb up (towards me)" and "Climb up (away from me)".
Like the other Insular Celtic languages, Manx has so-called inflected prepositions, contractions of a preposition with a pronominal direct object, as the following common prepositions show. Note the sometimes identical form of the uninflected preposition and its third person singular masculine inflected form.
In addition to the above "simple" prepositions, Manx has a number of prepositional phrases based on a noun; being based on nouns, the possessive personal pronouns are used to refer to what would in English be pronominal prepositional objects. This also happens in English phrases such as "for my sake".
Alternative conjugation patterns are sometimes found with these more complex prepositions using inflected prepositions, e.g. for "concerning me", "for our sake" instead of "for our/your/their sake".
Like most Insular Celtic languages, Manx uses verb–subject–object word order: the inflected verb of a sentence precedes the subject, which itself precedes the direct object. However, as noted above, most finite verbs are formed periphrastically, using an auxiliary verb in conjunction with the verbal noun. In this case, only the auxiliary verb precedes the subject, while the verbal noun comes after the subject. The auxiliary verb may be a modal verb rather than a form of ("be") or ("do"). Particles like the negative ("not") precede the inflected verb. Examples:
When the auxiliary verb is a form of ("do"), the direct object precedes the verbal noun and is connected to it with the particle :
As in Irish (cf. Irish syntax#The forms meaning "to be"), there are two ways of expressing "to be" in Manx: with the substantive verb , and with the copula. The substantive verb is used when the predicate is an adjective, adverb, or prepositional phrase. Examples:
Where the predicate is a noun, it must be converted to a prepositional phrase headed by the preposition ("in") + possessive pronoun (agreeing with the subject) in order for the substantive verb to be grammatical:
Otherwise, the copula is used when the predicate is a noun. The copula itself takes the form or in the present tense, but it is often omitted in affirmative statements:
In questions and negative sentences, the present tense of the copula is :
Manx vocabulary is predominantly of Goidelic origin, derived from Old Irish and closely related to words in Irish and Scottish Gaelic. However, Manx itself, as well as the languages from which it is derived, borrowed words from other languages as well, especially Latin, Old Norse, French (particularly Anglo-Norman), and English (both Middle English and Modern English).
The following table shows a selection of nouns from the Swadesh list and indicates their pronunciations and etymologies.
See Celtic Swadesh lists for the complete list in all the Celtic languages.
Foreign loanwords are primarily Norse and English, with a smaller number coming from French. Some examples of Norse loanwords are "garey" ("garden", from "garðr", "enclosure") and "sker" meaning a sea rock (from "sker", compare with "skjær" and "sker"). Examples of French loanwords are "danjeyr" ("danger", from "danger") and "vondeish" ("advantage", from "avantage").
English loanwords were common in late (pre-revival) Manx, e.g. "boy" ("boy"), "badjer" ("badger"), rather than the more usual Gaelic "guilley" and "brock". Henry Jenner, on asking someone what he was doing, was told "Ta mee smokal pipe" ("I am smoking a pipe"), and that "[he] certainly considered that he was talking Manx, and not English, in saying it." In more recent years, there has been a reaction against such borrowing, resulting in coinages for technical vocabulary. Despite this, calques exist in Manx, not necessarily obvious to its speakers.
Some religious terms come ultimately from Latin, Greek and Hebrew, e.g. "casherick" (holy), from the Latin "consecrātus"; "mooinjer" (people) from the Latin "monasterium" (originally a monastery; "agglish" (church) from the Greek "ἐκκλησία" ("ekklesia", literally meaning assembly) and "abb" (abbot) from the Hebrew "אבא" ("abba", meaning "father"). These did not necessarily come directly into Manx, but via Old Irish. In more recent times, "ulpan" has been borrowed from modern Hebrew. Many Irish and English loanwords also have a classical origin, e.g. "çhellveeish" (Irish "teilefís") and "çhellvane" meaning television and telephone respectively. Foreign language words (usually known via English) are used occasionally especially for ethnic food, e.g. chorizo, spaghetti.
To fill gaps in recorded Manx vocabulary, revivalists have referred to modern Irish and Scottish Gaelic for words and inspiration.
Going in the other direction, Manx Gaelic has influenced Manx English (Anglo-Manx). Common words and phrases in Anglo-Manx originating in the language include "tholtan" (the "th" is pronounced as a "t") meaning a ruined farmhouse, "quaaltagh" meaning a first-foot, "keeill" meaning a church (especially an old one), "cammag", "traa-dy-liooar" meaning "time enough", and Tynwald ("tinvaal"), which is ultimately of Norse origin, but comes via Manx. It is suggested that the House of Keys takes its name from "Kiare as Feed" (four and twenty), which is the number of its sitting members.
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Muon
The muon (; from the Greek letter mu (μ) used to represent it) is an elementary particle similar to the electron, with an electric charge of −1 "e" and a spin of , but with a much greater mass. It is classified as a lepton. As with other leptons, the muon is not known to have any sub-structure – that is, it is not thought to be composed of any simpler particles.
The muon is an unstable subatomic particle with a mean lifetime of , much longer than many other subatomic particles. As with the decay of the non-elementary neutron (with a lifetime around 15 minutes), muon decay is slow (by subatomic standards) because the decay is mediated only by the weak interaction (rather than the more powerful strong interaction or electromagnetic interaction), and because the mass difference between the muon and the set of its decay products is small, providing few kinetic degrees of freedom for decay. Muon decay almost always produces at least three particles, which must include an electron of the same charge as the muon and two types of neutrinos.
Like all elementary particles, the muon has a corresponding antiparticle of opposite charge (+1 "e") but equal mass and spin: the antimuon (also called a "positive muon"). Muons are denoted by and antimuons by . Muons were formerly called ""mu mesons", but are not classified as mesons by modern particle physicists (see ), and that name is no longer used by the physics community.
Muons have a mass of , which is about 207 times that of the electron, formula_1. More precisely, it is 206.768 2830(46) formula_1.
Due to their greater mass, muons accelerate more slowly than electrons in electromagnetic fields, and emit less bremsstrahlung (deceleration radiation). This allows muons of a given energy to penetrate far deeper into matter because the deceleration of electrons and muons is primarily due to energy loss by the bremsstrahlung mechanism. For example, so-called "secondary muons", created by cosmic rays hitting the atmosphere, can penetrate the atmosphere and reach Earth's land surface and even into deep mines.
Because muons have a greater mass and energy than the decay energy of radioactivity, they are not produced by radioactive decay. However they are produced in great amounts in high-energy interactions in normal matter, in certain particle accelerator experiments with hadrons, and in cosmic ray interactions with matter. These interactions usually produce pi mesons initially, which almost always decay to muons.
As with the other charged leptons, the muon has an associated muon neutrino, denoted by , which differs from the electron neutrino and participates in different nuclear reactions.
Muons were discovered by Carl D. Anderson and Seth Neddermeyer at Caltech in 1936, while studying cosmic radiation. Anderson noticed particles that curved differently from electrons and other known particles when passed through a magnetic field. They were negatively charged but curved less sharply than electrons, but more sharply than protons, for particles of the same velocity. It was assumed that the magnitude of their negative electric charge was equal to that of the electron, and so to account for the difference in curvature, it was supposed that their mass was greater than an electron but smaller than a proton. Thus Anderson initially called the new particle a "mesotron", adopting the prefix "meso-" from the Greek word for "mid-". The existence of the muon was confirmed in 1937 by J.C. Street and E.C. Stevenson's cloud chamber experiment.
A particle with a mass in the meson range had been predicted before the discovery of any mesons, by theorist Hideki Yukawa:
It seems natural to modify the theory of Heisenberg and Fermi in the following way. The transition of a heavy particle from neutron state to proton state is not always accompanied by the emission of light particles. The transition is sometimes taken up by another heavy particle.
Because of its mass, the mu meson was initially thought to be Yukawa's particle, but it later proved to have the wrong properties. Yukawa's predicted particle, the pi meson, was finally identified in 1947 (again from cosmic ray interactions), and shown to differ from the earlier-discovered mu meson by having the correct properties to be a particle which mediated the nuclear force.
With two particles now known with the intermediate mass, the more general term "meson" was adopted to refer to any such particle within the correct mass range between electrons and nucleons. Further, in order to differentiate between the two different types of mesons after the second meson was discovered, the initial mesotron particle was renamed the "mu meson" (the Greek letter "μ" ["mu"] corresponds to "m"), and the new 1947 meson (Yukawa's particle) was named the pi meson.
As more types of mesons were discovered in accelerator experiments later, it was eventually found that the mu meson significantly differed not only from the pi meson (of about the same mass), but also from all other types of mesons. The difference, in part, was that mu mesons did not interact with the nuclear force, as pi mesons did (and were required to do, in Yukawa's theory). Newer mesons also showed evidence of behaving like the pi meson in nuclear interactions, but not like the mu meson. Also, the mu meson's decay products included both a neutrino and an antineutrino, rather than just one or the other, as was observed in the decay of other charged mesons.
In the eventual Standard Model of particle physics codified in the 1970s, all mesons other than the mu meson were understood to be hadrons – that is, particles made of quarks – and thus subject to the nuclear force. In the quark model, a "meson" was no longer defined by mass (for some had been discovered that were very massive – more than nucleons), but instead were particles composed of exactly two quarks (a quark and antiquark), unlike the baryons, which are defined as particles composed of three quarks (protons and neutrons were the lightest baryons). Mu mesons, however, had shown themselves to be fundamental particles (leptons) like electrons, with no quark structure. Thus, mu "mesons" were not mesons at all, in the new sense and use of the term "meson" used with the quark model of particle structure.
With this change in definition, the term "mu meson" was abandoned, and replaced whenever possible with the modern term "muon", making the term “mu meson” only a historical footnote. In the new quark model, other types of mesons sometimes continued to be referred to in shorter terminology (e.g., "pion" for pi meson), but in the case of the muon, it retained the shorter name and was never again properly referred to by older "mu meson" terminology.
The eventual recognition of the muon as a simple "heavy electron", with no role at all in the nuclear interaction, seemed so incongruous and surprising at the time, that Nobel laureate I. I. Rabi famously quipped, "Who ordered that?"
In the Rossi–Hall experiment (1941), muons were used to observe the time dilation (or, alternatively, length contraction) predicted by special relativity, for the first time.
Muons arriving on the Earth's surface are created indirectly as decay products of collisions of cosmic rays with particles of the Earth's atmosphere.
When a cosmic ray proton impacts atomic nuclei in the upper atmosphere, pions are created. These decay within a relatively short distance (meters) into muons (their preferred decay product), and muon neutrinos. The muons from these high-energy cosmic rays generally continue in about the same direction as the original proton, at a velocity near the speed of light. Although their lifetime "without" relativistic effects would allow a half-survival distance of only about 456 meters at most (as seen from Earth) the time dilation effect of special relativity (from the viewpoint of the Earth) allows cosmic ray secondary muons to survive the flight to the Earth's surface, since in the Earth frame the muons have a longer half-life due to their velocity. From the viewpoint (inertial frame) of the muon, on the other hand, it is the length contraction effect of special relativity which allows this penetration, since in the muon frame its lifetime is unaffected, but the length contraction causes distances through the atmosphere and Earth to be far shorter than these distances in the Earth rest-frame. Both effects are equally valid ways of explaining the fast muon's unusual survival over distances.
Since muons are unusually penetrative of ordinary matter, like neutrinos, they are also detectable deep underground (700 meters at the Soudan 2 detector) and underwater, where they form a major part of the natural background ionizing radiation. Like cosmic rays, as noted, this secondary muon radiation is also directional.
The same nuclear reaction described above (i.e. hadron-hadron impacts to produce pion beams, which then quickly decay to muon beams over short distances) is used by particle physicists to produce muon beams, such as the beam used for the muon "g"−2 experiment.
Muons are unstable elementary particles and are heavier than electrons and neutrinos but lighter than all other matter particles. They decay via the weak interaction. Because leptonic family numbers are conserved in the absence of an extremely unlikely immediate neutrino oscillation, one of the product neutrinos of muon decay must be a muon-type neutrino and the other an electron-type antineutrino (antimuon decay produces the corresponding antiparticles, as detailed below). Because charge must be conserved, one of the products of muon decay is always an electron of the same charge as the muon (a positron if it is a positive muon). Thus all muons decay to at least an electron, and two neutrinos. Sometimes, besides these necessary products, additional other particles that have no net charge and spin of zero (e.g., a pair of photons, or an electron-positron pair), are produced.
The dominant muon decay mode (sometimes called the Michel decay after Louis Michel) is the simplest possible: the muon decays to an electron, an electron antineutrino, and a muon neutrino. Antimuons, in mirror fashion, most often decay to the corresponding antiparticles: a positron, an electron neutrino, and a muon antineutrino. In formulaic terms, these two decays are:
The mean lifetime, = /, of the (positive) muon is . The equality of the muon and antimuon lifetimes has been established to better than one part in 104.
Certain neutrino-less decay modes are kinematically allowed but are, for all practical purposes, forbidden in the Standard Model, even given that neutrinos have mass and oscillate. Examples forbidden by lepton flavour conservation are:
and
To be precise: in the Standard Model with neutrino mass, a decay like → + is technically possible, for example by neutrino oscillation of a virtual muon neutrino into an electron neutrino, but such a decay is astronomically unlikely and therefore should be experimentally unobservable: Less than one in 1050 muon decays should produce such a decay.
Observation of such decay modes would constitute clear evidence for theories beyond the Standard Model. Upper limits for the branching fractions of such decay modes were measured in many experiments starting more than years ago. The current upper limit for the → + branching fraction was measured 2009–2013 in the MEG experiment and is 4.2 × 10−13.
The muon decay width which follows from Fermi's golden rule has dimension of energy, and must be proportional to the square of the amplitude, and thus the square of Fermi's coupling constant (formula_3), with over-all dimension of inverse fourth power of energy. By dimensional analysis, this leads to Sargent's rule of fifth-power dependence on ,
where formula_5, and
The decay distributions of the electron in muon decays have been parameterised using the so-called Michel parameters. The values of these four parameters are predicted unambiguously in the Standard Model of particle physics, thus muon decays represent a good test of the space-time structure of the weak interaction. No deviation from the Standard Model predictions has yet been found.
For the decay of the muon, the expected decay distribution for the Standard Model values of Michel parameters is
where formula_8 is the angle between the muon's polarization vector formula_9 and the decay-electron momentum vector, and formula_10 is the fraction of muons that are forward-polarized. Integrating this expression over electron energy gives the angular distribution of the daughter electrons:
The electron energy distribution integrated over the polar angle (valid for formula_12) is
Due to the muons decaying by the weak interaction, parity conservation is violated. Replacing the formula_14 term in the expected decay values of the Michel Parameters with a formula_15 term, where is the Larmor frequency from Larmor precession of the muon in a uniform magnetic field, given by:
where is mass of the muon, is charge, is the muon g-factor and is applied field.
A change in the electron distribution computed using the standard, unprecessional, Michel Parameters can be seen displaying a periodicity of radians. This can be shown to physically correspond to a phase change of , introduced in the electron distribution as the angular momentum is changed by the action of the charge conjugation operator, which is conserved by the weak interaction.
The observation of parity violation in muon decay can be compared to the concept of violation of parity in weak interactions in general as an extension of the Wu experiment, as well as the change of angular momentum introduced by a phase change of π corresponding to the charge-parity operator being invariant in this interaction. This fact is true for all lepton interactions in The Standard Model.
The muon was the first elementary particle discovered that does not appear in ordinary atoms.
"Negative" muons can, however, form muonic atoms (previously called mu-mesic atoms), by replacing an electron in ordinary atoms. Muonic hydrogen atoms are much smaller than typical hydrogen atoms because the much larger mass of the muon gives it a much more localized ground-state wavefunction than is observed for the electron. In multi-electron atoms, when only one of the electrons is replaced by a muon, the size of the atom continues to be determined by the other electrons, and the atomic size is nearly unchanged. However, in such cases the orbital of the muon continues to be smaller and far closer to the nucleus than the atomic orbitals of the electrons.
Muonic helium is created by substituting a muon for one of the electrons in helium-4. The muon orbits much closer to the nucleus, so muonic helium can therefore be regarded like an isotope of helium whose nucleus consists of two neutrons, two protons and a muon, with a single electron outside. Colloquially, it could be called "helium 4.1", since the mass of the muon is slightly greater than 0.1 amu. Chemically, muonic helium, possessing an unpaired valence electron, can bond with other atoms, and behaves more like a hydrogen atom than an inert helium atom.
Muonic heavy hydrogen atoms with a negative muon may undergo nuclear fusion in the process of muon-catalyzed fusion, after the muon may leave the new atom to induce fusion in another hydrogen molecule. This process continues until the negative muon is captured by a helium nucleus, and cannot escape until it decays.
Finally, a possible fate of negative muons bound to conventional atoms is that they are captured by the weak-force by protons in nuclei in a sort of electron-capture-like process. When this happens, the proton becomes a neutron and a muon neutrino is emitted.
A "positive" muon, when stopped in ordinary matter, cannot be captured by a proton since the two positive charges can only repel. The positive muon is also not attracted to the nucleus of atoms. Instead, it binds a random electron and with this electron forms an exotic atom known as muonium (mu) atom. In this atom, the muon acts as the nucleus. The positive muon, in this context, can be considered a pseudo-isotope of hydrogen with one ninth of the mass of the proton. Because the reduced mass of muonium, and hence its Bohr radius, is very close to that of hydrogen, this short-lived "atom" (or bound muon-electron pair) behaves chemically – to a first approximation – like the isotopes of hydrogen (protium, deuterium and tritium).
Both positive and negative muons can be part of a short-lived pi-mu atom consisting of a muon and an oppositely charged pion. These atoms were observed in the 1970s in experiments at Brookhaven and Fermilab.
The experimental technique that is expected to provide the most precise determination of the root-mean-square charge radius of the proton is the measurement of the frequency of photons (precise "color" of light) emitted or absorbed by atomic transitions in muonic hydrogen. This form of hydrogen atom is composed of a negatively charged muon bound to a proton. The muon is particularly well suited for this purpose because its much larger mass results in a much more compact bound state and hence a larger probability for it to be found inside the proton in muonic hydrogen compared to the electron in atomic hydrogen. The Lamb shift in muonic hydrogen was measured by driving the muon from a 2s state up to an excited 2p state using a laser. The frequency of the photons required to induce two such (slightly different) transitions were reported in 2014 to be 50 and 55 THz which, according to present theories of quantum electrodynamics, yield an appropriately averaged value of for the charge radius of the proton.
The internationally accepted value of the proton's charge radius is based on a suitable average of results from older measurements of effects caused by the nonzero size of the proton on scattering of electrons by nuclei and the light spectrum (photon energies) from excited atomic hydrogen. The official value updated in 2014 is (see orders of magnitude for comparison to other sizes).
The expected precision of this result is inferior to that from muonic hydrogen by about a factor of fifteen, yet they disagree by about 5.6 times the nominal uncertainty in the difference (a discrepancy called 5.6 in scientific notation). A conference of the world experts on this topic led to the decision to exclude the muon result from influencing the official 2014 value, in order to avoid hiding the mysterious discrepancy.
This "proton radius puzzle" remained unresolved as of late 2015, and has attracted much attention, in part because of the possibility that both measurements are valid, which would imply the influence of some "new physics".
The anomalous magnetic dipole moment is the difference between the experimentally observed value of the magnetic dipole moment and the theoretical value predicted by the Dirac equation. The measurement and prediction of this value is very important in the precision tests of QED (quantum electrodynamics). The E821 experiment at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) studied the precession of muon and anti-muon in a constant external magnetic field as they circulated in a confining storage ring. E821 reported the following average value in 2006:
where the first errors are statistical and the second systematic.
The prediction for the value of the muon anomalous magnetic moment includes three parts:
The difference between the "g"-factors of the muon and the electron is due to their difference in mass. Because of the muon's larger mass, contributions to the theoretical calculation of its anomalous magnetic dipole moment from Standard Model weak interactions and from contributions involving hadrons are important at the current level of precision, whereas these effects are not important for the electron. The muon's anomalous magnetic dipole moment is also sensitive to contributions from new physics beyond the Standard Model, such as supersymmetry. For this reason, the muon's anomalous magnetic moment is normally used as a probe for new physics beyond the Standard Model rather than as a test of QED. Muon "g"−2, a new experiment at Fermilab using the E821 magnet will improve the precision of this measurement.
Since muons are much more deeply penetrating than X-rays or gamma rays, muon imaging can be used with much thicker material or, with cosmic ray sources, larger objects. One example is commercial muon tomography used to image entire cargo containers to detect shielded nuclear material, as well as explosives or other contraband.
The technique of muon transmission radiography based on cosmic ray sources was first used in the 1950s to measure the depth of the overburden of a tunnel in Australia and in the 1960s to search for possible hidden chambers in the Pyramid of Chephren in Giza. In 2017, the discovery of a large void (with a length of 30 m minimum) by observation of cosmic-ray muons was reported.
In 2003, the scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory developed a new imaging technique: "muon scattering tomography". With muon scattering tomography, both incoming and outgoing trajectories for each particle are reconstructed, such as with sealed aluminum drift tubes. Since the development of this technique, several companies have started to use it.
In August 2014, Decision Sciences International Corporation announced it had been awarded a contract by Toshiba for use of its muon tracking detectors in reclaiming the Fukushima nuclear complex. The Fukushima Daiichi Tracker (FDT) was proposed to make a few months of muon measurements to show the distribution of the reactor cores.
In December 2014, Tepco reported that they would be using two different muon imaging techniques at Fukushima, "Muon scanning method" on Unit 1 (the most badly damaged, where the fuel may have left the reactor vessel) and "Muon scattering method" on Unit 2.
The International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning IRID in Japan and the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization KEK call the method they developed for Unit 1 the muon permeation method; 1,200 optical fibers for wavelength conversion light up when muons come into contact with them. After a month of data collection, it is hoped to reveal the location and amount of fuel debris still inside the reactor. The measurements began in February 2015.
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Mike Muuss
Michael John Muuss (October 16, 1958 – November 20, 2000) was the American author of the freeware network tool ping.
A graduate of Johns Hopkins University, Muuss was a senior scientist specializing in geometric solid modeling, ray-tracing, MIMD architectures and digital computer networks at the United States Army Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland when he died. He wrote a number of software packages (including BRL-CAD) and network tools (including ttcp and the concept of the default route or "default gateway") and contributed to many others (including BIND).
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Maus (disambiguation)
Maus is a series of Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novels by Art Spiegelman.
Maus may also refer to:
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Milwaukee Brewers
The Milwaukee Brewers are an American professional baseball team based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. The team is named for the city's association with the brewing industry. Since 2001, the Brewers have played their home games at Miller Park, which has a seating capacity of 41,900.
The team was founded in 1969 as the Seattle Pilots, an expansion team of the American League (AL), in Seattle, Washington. The Pilots played their home games at Sick's Stadium. After only one season, the team relocated to Milwaukee, becoming known as the Brewers and playing their home games at Milwaukee County Stadium. In , the Brewers joined the National League. They are the only franchise to play in four different divisions since the advent of divisional play in Major League Baseball in 1969. They are also one of two current MLB franchises to switch leagues in their history, the other one being the Houston Astros.
The team's only World Series appearance came in , and they are one of only six current MLB teams that have never won the World Series. After winning the ALCS against the California Angels, the Brewers faced off against the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series, losing 4–3. In 2011, the Brewers defeated the Arizona Diamondbacks to win the NLDS 3–2, but lost in the NLCS to the eventual World Series champion Cardinals 4–2. In 2018, the Brewers swept the Colorado Rockies in the NLDS 3–0, but lost in the NLCS to the Los Angeles Dodgers 4–3.
From 1969-2019, the Brewers overall win-loss record is 3913-4217 (a 0.481 winning "percentage").
Originating as an expansion team in 1969, in Seattle, Washington, as the Seattle Pilots, the club played for one season in the American League West Division before being acquired in bankruptcy court by Bud Selig, who then moved the team to Milwaukee. They would continue to play in the West Division for two more years. Before the beginning of the 1972 season the Brewers agreed to switch over to the American League East to make room for the Texas Rangers who had relocated from Washington, DC. Beginning in 1994, due to divisional re-alignment, the Brewers moved to the newly created American League Central division. In all, the Brewers were part of the American League from their creation in 1969 through the 1997 season, after which they moved to the National League Central Division. Milwaukee had previously been a National League city when its team was the Milwaukee Braves (1953–1965). It had also been an American League city, albeit briefly, when the original Milwaukee Brewers became an AL charter team in 1901 before moving to St. Louis to become the Browns the following season.
In 1981, Milwaukee won the American League East Division in the second half of the strike-shortened season. In the playoffs, they lost the divisional series to the New York Yankees, three games to two.
In 1982, Milwaukee won the American League East Division and the American League Pennant, earning their only World Series appearance to date as the Brewers. In the Series, they lost to the St. Louis Cardinals four games to three.
In 2008, for the first time in the 26 years since their World Series appearance, the Brewers advanced to postseason play by winning the National League wild card. They were eliminated in the National League Division Series by the eventual World Series champion Philadelphia Phillies.
On September 23, 2011, the Milwaukee Brewers clinched their first division title in 29 years. They won the National League Division Series in five games over the Arizona Diamondbacks, but lost the National League Championship Series to the eventual World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals in six games.
In 2018, the Brewers clinched a spot in the post-season for the first time since 2011 with a 2–1 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals on September 26, 2018.
On September 29, they tied with the Cubs for first place in the National League Central, with a record of 95–67; at the end of the day on September 30, the Cubs and Brewers were still tied. This tie was broken on October 1, when the Brewers defeated the Cubs 3–1 in the NL Central tiebreaker to improve to 96–67 and win the division by one game. They went on to defeat the Colorado Rockies 3–0 to win the NLDS, but in the following NLCS, they lost out to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 7 games.
In 2019, the Brewers returned to the postseason and made an appearance in the National League Wild Card Game, where they were defeated by the eventual World Series champion Washington Nationals 4-3.
The first Brewers uniforms were "hand-me-downs" from the Seattle Pilots. Because the move to Milwaukee received final approval less than a week before the start of the season, there was no time to order new uniforms. Selig had originally planned to change the Brewers' colors to navy blue and red in honor of the minor league American Association's Milwaukee Brewers (and are the colors of the Braves), but was forced to simply remove the Seattle markings from the Pilots' blue-and-gold uniforms and sew "BREWERS" on the front. However, the outline of the Pilots' logo remained visible. The uniforms had unique striping on the sleeves left over from the Pilots days. The cap was an updated version of the Milwaukee Braves cap in blue and yellow. Ultimately, it was decided to keep blue and gold as the team colors, and they have remained so ever since (even though the team darkened the shades of both colors in 1994).
The Brewers finally got their own flannel design in 1971, but only for their home jerseys. This design was essentially the same as the one used in 1970, but with blue and yellow piping on the sleeves and collar. Meanwhile, the road jerseys did not add the trim around the collar and kept the wide-banded striping on the sleeves from the Pilots era. Additionally, player numbers were added to the front of both jerseys for 1971.
In 1972, the Brewers entered the double-knit era with uniforms based upon their flannels: all white with "BREWERS" on the front and blue and yellow trim on the sleeves, neck, waistband and down the side of the pants; the uniform took on the form of a pullover jerseys and an elastic waistband. The road uniforms remained blue, although a darker shade than those of 1970 and '71. In 1974, a yellow-paneled cap was added for road games. This is the uniform that Hank Aaron wore with the club in his final seasons and that Robin Yount wore in his first. During this period, the logo of the club was the Beer Barrel Man, which had been used by the previous minor league Brewers since at least the 1940s. The Brewers mascot, Bernie Brewer (a man with a large yellow mustache wearing a Brewers hat) was introduced in 1973.
The Brewers unveiled new uniforms for the 1978 season. The uniforms continued to use the pullover jersey/beltless pants combo, and featured pinstripes with a solid blue collar and waistband. The road uniforms continued to be powder blue, but for the first time the city name, "Milwaukee", graced the chest in an upward slant in script form (It was the first time "Milwaukee" appeared on any MLB jersey; the Braves never displayed the city name on their road jerseys during their 13 seasons in the city). In addition, this season saw the introduction of the logo that was to define the club: "M" and "B" in the shape of a baseball glove. The logo was designed by Tom Meindel, an art history student at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. The home cap was solid blue, and the road cap was blue with a yellow front panel. Additionally, their batting helmets had a white front panel. The club wore these uniforms in their pennant-winning season of 1982. Only minor changes were made until 1990; the color of the road uniforms changed to gray in 1985 while the blue-yellow-blue road cap and white-paneled batting helmets were abandoned at the same time.
In 1990, the Brewers made significant modifications to their uniforms, switching from pullover to button-down jerseys (the last American League team to do so; four National League teams still wore pullovers in 1990). Their individual uniforms showed other changes as well; at home, the blue piping was removed and the block lettered "BREWERS" was changed to a script version with a tail similar to the script used on road uniforms, while those outfits had their piping changed from blue-yellow-blue to blue-yellow. The road jerseys were the first uniforms in franchise history to feature player names on the back, introduced in the first year of this uniform set; names were added to the home jerseys beginning in 1993, the last year of this set.
In 1994, in collaboration with the Brewers celebrating their 25th year in Milwaukee, the team did a radical makeover of their uniforms. The ball-in-glove logo was removed and replaced with a stylized interlocking "M" and "B" set on a pair of crossed bats and a diamond background. The royal blue changed to navy blue, while the yellow changed to a metallic gold. Forest green was added as a third color. The jerseys swapped pinstripes for retro-themed piping around the collar, buttons, and sleeves, following a trend that was popular in the 1990s. The uniforms' lettering had the same style of letters as the new cap logo with heavily stylized "BREWERS" lettering on the home jerseys and "MILWAUKEE" on the road grays. For the first time, an alternative jersey was introduced. It was navy blue with the home "BREWERS" lettering on the front and featured the Brewers' logo on the lower left side. The caps featured the interlocking "MB" logo (without the bats or diamond) on both the home and away versions. The home cap was completely navy blue, while the away cap featured a navy blue crown and a forest green bill.
In 1997, the uniforms were slightly modified, with the main logo being removed from the caps and replaced with an "M". All navy caps were worn with both the home and away uniforms; the home hats featured a white "M" and the road caps had a gold "M." The green socks that had previously been worn on the road were changed to navy blue. The blue alternate jersey placed the player's number on the lower left side instead of the logo.
Before the 2000 season, to coincide with the anticipated opening of Miller Park, the Brewers changed their uniforms again. The block letters on the front were replaced with "Brewers" in a flowing script, and green was removed as the third color. The cap logo was a script "M", similar in style to the Miller logo, with a head of barley underlining it, symbolizing Milwaukee's beer-making industry. The home uniforms also featured a patch on the left sleeve consisting of the cap logo with a gold outline of the state of Wisconsin behind it, showing the Brewers statewide appeal. The road uniforms were grey and featured the same script "Brewers" on the front, with a simple patch on the left sleeve bearing a script "Milwaukee". There was also an alternate navy blue jersey that had the same features as the home jersey.
Although the uniforms were supposed to debut with the opening of Miller Park, the Big Blue crane collapse in July 1999, which took the lives of three workers and caused damage to the first base side of the stadium, delayed the opening of Miller Park for one year, so the uniforms actually debuted at Milwaukee County Stadium in the ballpark's final year.
In 2006, the Brewers introduced Retro Sundays, when the Brewers would wear uniforms featuring the "ball-in-glove" logo. The uniforms are similar to the uniforms worn from 1978 to 1989, but with some modern modifications, such as the uniforms having a button-down front instead of being a pullover jersey, displaying players' last names on the backs of the jerseys, and a "ball-in-glove" logo patch on the left sleeve. In 2007, the Retro day was changed from Sunday to Friday, though they may also be worn outside of those days if a starting pitcher chooses the retro uniforms to wear during his start. In 2010, the Brewers debuted a new alternate road jersey which, like the other alternate jersey, is navy blue, but bears a script "Milwaukee" on the front. In 2013, a gold alternate jersey with "Brewers" on the front was introduced, as well.
During the off-season before the 2013 season, the Brewers allowed fans to design their own Milwaukee Brewers uniforms. Three finalists were chosen, which fans were given the opportunity to vote for their favorite through the Brewers website. The winning uniform was designed by Ben Peters of Richfield, Minnesota, and was worn by the Brewers for two spring training games.
In 2016, the Brewers replaced their road navy and home gold alternates with a new navy alternate jersey. The uniform is similar to the previous road navy alternate but with yellow replacing gold as the trim color, and is paired with a navy cap featuring the "ball-and-glove" logo. From 2017 to 2019, both alternate navy uniforms were used for both home and away games, and each were worn more often the traditional white and gray tops.
On November 18, 2019, the Brewers published "Glove Story", a series of videos and written work showcasing the new branding of the team, with a uniform unveiling event at Miller Park occurring the same evening. The look throws back to past iterations of designs used for the team, with a modernized version of the classic "ball-in-glove" logo being the centerpiece of the new identity. The navy blue from the previous logo and uniform set was retained, but the metallic gold was replaced with the mustard gold, and royal blue was returned to the team's color scheme for the first time since 1993.
Four Brewers have won MVP awards during their career with the team. While in the American League, Rollie Fingers won the award in 1981, and Robin Yount received the honor in 1982 and 1989. Since the team's move to the National League, Ryan Braun was named the NL MVP in 2011, and Christian Yelich received the honor in 2018. Two pitchers have won the Cy Young Award in the American League. Rollie Fingers won in 1981, and Pete Vuckovich won in 1982. Two players have been named Rookie of the Year. Pat Listach won the American League's award in 1992, and Ryan Braun won the National League award in 2007.
Christian Yelich won the National League Batting title in 2018. The batting title was the first in Milwaukee Brewers history.
The following inducted members of the Baseball Hall of Fame spent some or all of their careers with the Brewers.
In addition to the six numbers retired by the Brewers, the number 50 has been placed in the Brewers' Ring of Honor for Bob Uecker and his half-century in baseball.
"Note: Pos = Position; GP = Games played; R = Runs; H = Hits; RBI = Runs batted in; HR = Home runs; * = current Brewers player"
All records updated on November 8, 2019.
Through seasons of play, the Brewers franchise has employed 18 managers. The records and accomplishments of the last five Brewers' managers are shown below.
The Milwaukee Brewers farm system consists of nine minor league affiliates.
The Brewers' flagship radio station is WTMJ (620 AM/103.3 FM). Bob Uecker, a winner of the Ford C. Frick Award from the Baseball Hall of Fame, joined the Brewers in 1970, when the team moved from Seattle, and has been with the team ever since. Alongside Uecker are Jeff Levering and Lane Grindle. Levering joined the team's radio broadcast in 2015 as a fill-in for Uecker on select road games and Grindle joined the team in 2016, replacing Joe Block, who had left to join the Pittsburgh Pirates after the 2015 season. Block replaced Cory Provus who had left to become the Minnesota Twins lead broadcaster on radio after the 2011 season. Provus, formerly of WGN radio in Chicago, replaced Jim Powell, who left Milwaukee for the Atlanta Braves radio network. Powell in turn replaced Pat Hughes, who departed to do play-by-play for the Cubs on WGN in 1996. The Brewers radio broadcasts usually feature a 2-2-2-1-2 format where Uecker does solo play-by-play for the first, middle and last 2 innings, while Levering does innings 3-4 and 7, and both doing analysis throughout and varied presentation for extra innings games. Starting with the 2014 season Uecker cut back on the number of road games he works due to health concerns, mainly involving West Coast trips and distant road games in Colorado and Atlanta; Block handled the play-by-play, with former Brewer and Met Darryl Hamilton on color for the first series at Atlanta.
Select daytime home games were formerly broadcast in Spanish over Waukesha-licensed ESPN Deportes Radio affiliate WRRD (1510), with Jaime Cano serving as play-by-play announcer. In 2017 the station was purchased by another party which instituted an English-language talk format, effectively ending that arrangement.
Most of the team's television broadcasts are aired on Fox Sports Wisconsin. Brian Anderson, who has worked on The Golf Channel, took over as the Brewers' play-by-play announcer for the 2007 season. He replaced Daron Sutton, who joined the Arizona Diamondbacks. The color commentator is Bill Schroeder, a former major league catcher who played six of his eight seasons for the Brewers. As of 2014 Schroeder is in his 20th season as the Brewers' color commentator. The 2010 season was the first year where all of Fox Sports Wisconsin's games were broadcast in high definition. Anderson (who also is a part of TBS playoff coverage) also provided play-by-play for the 2011 NLCS due to Ernie Johnson stepping aside for the year due to a medical situation with his son. Since 2014, as Anderson's Turner Sports duties have increased along with the addition of NCAA college basketball and NBA on TNT play-by-play duties, Wisconsin Badgers football and men's college basketball radio announcer Matt Lepay has served as play-by-play man on days when Anderson has other assignments for Turner Sports.
From 2007–2011, the Brewers and FSN Wisconsin subcontracted to Weigel Broadcasting a package of 15 games and one spring training game over-the-air on WMLW-CA (then-Channel 41/58.2) in Milwaukee each season with FSN Wisconsin producing the telecasts and Weigel selling air time for each of those games and additional games added depending on weather postponements and pennant race standings (WMLW-CA games would air on the outstate FSN Wisconsin network for the remainder of the state). The deal was ended before the 2012 season in order to facilitate full-season HD coverage on FSN Wisconsin and distribution complications, along with the addition of a "Plus" channel for Milwaukee Bucks play-by-play conflict situations. Weigel continues to air a few Sunday home broadcasts per year with Spanish language play-by-play on Telemundo affiliate WYTU-LD (Channels 63/58.4), which produces their own broadcasts using FSN's camera positions with Hector Molina on play-by-play and bilingual WDJT sports anchor Kevin Holden on color.
Five of the six major network television stations in Milwaukee, along with WMLW-CA, have carried game broadcasts over the years, with WTMJ-TV being the original broadcaster in the 1970s. WVTV carried the team for the bulk of the 1980s and early 1990s, with WCGV-TV following from 1994 until 2004, and WISN-TV carrying select Sunday games at the beginning of the 2000s. WITI is the only station not to have carried local coverage of the team through its history (though former WITI sports anchor and current Bucks play-by-play man Jim Paschke was the team's TV announcer during its time with WVTV and portions of WCGV's coverage contract), although it has aired national games from CBS and Fox involving the Brewers through the years.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20152
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Montreal Expos
The Montreal Expos () were a Canadian professional baseball team based in Montreal, Quebec. The Expos were the first Major League Baseball (MLB) franchise located outside the United States. They played in the National League (NL) East division from 1969 until 2004. Following the 2004 season, the franchise relocated to Washington, D.C., and became the Washington Nationals.
Immediately after the minor league Triple-A Montreal Royals folded in 1960, political leaders in Montreal sought an MLB franchise, and when the National League evaluated expansion candidates for the 1969 season, it awarded a team to Montreal. Named after the Expo 67 World's Fair, the Expos originally played at Jarry Park Stadium before moving to Olympic Stadium in 1977. The Expos failed to post a winning record in any of their first ten seasons. The team won its only division title in the strike-shortened season, but lost the 1981 National League Championship Series (NLCS) to the Los Angeles Dodgers. The team was sold in 1991 by its majority, founding owner, Charles Bronfman, to a consortium headed by Claude Brochu. Felipe Alou was promoted to the team's field manager in 1992, becoming MLB's first Dominican-born manager. He led the team to four winning seasons, including , where the Expos had the best record in baseball before a players' strike ended the season. Alou became the Expos leader in games managed (1,409).
The aftermath of the 1994 strike initiated a downward spiral as the Expos chose to sell off their best players, and attendance and interest in the team declined. Following a failed attempt to disband the Expos, Major League Baseball purchased the team prior to the 2002 season after the club failed to secure funding for a new ballpark. In their final two seasons, the team played 22 home games each year at Hiram Bithorn Stadium in San Juan, Puerto Rico. On September 29, 2004, MLB announced the franchise would relocate to Washington, D.C. for the season, and the Expos played their final home game in Montreal.
The Expos posted an all-time record of 2,753 wins, 2,943 losses and 4 ties during their 36 years in Montreal. Vladimir Guerrero led the franchise in both home runs and batting average, and Steve Rogers in wins and strikeouts. Three pitchers threw four no-hitters: Bill Stoneman (twice), Charlie Lea, and Dennis Martínez, who pitched the 13th official perfect game in Major League Baseball history. The Expos retired four numbers in Montreal, and nine former members have been elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, with Gary Carter, Andre Dawson and Tim Raines' plaques depicting them with Expos caps.
Professional baseball in Montreal dates back to 1890 when teams briefly played in the International Association. A second attempt at hosting a pro team failed in 1895. The Montreal Royals of the Eastern League were subsequently founded in 1897 and played 20 seasons. The Royals were revived in 1928 and were purchased by the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1939 to serve as one of their Triple-A affiliates. Under Dodgers' management, the Royals won seven International League championships and three Junior World Series titles between 1941 and 1958. In 1946, Jackie Robinson joined the Royals and led the team to a Junior World Series title in advance of his breaking baseball's colour barrier one year later. By the late 1950s, the Royals' championship years were past, and faced with declining attendance, the team was sold and relocated following the 1960 season as the Dodgers reduced the number of teams they maintained at the AAA level.
Almost immediately upon the Royals' demise, Montreal mayor Jean Drapeau and city executive committee chairman Gerry Snyder began their campaign for a Major League Baseball (MLB) team. The city, which had previously been considered a leading candidate to acquire the St. Louis Browns if the team had relocated in 1933, was too late to submit its candidacy for a team as part of the National League's (NL) 1962 expansion but presented its bid to the league's owners at the winter meetings in 1967. Aiding Montreal's bid was the fact that Walter O'Malley, who owned the Dodgers and formerly oversaw the Montreal Royals, was the chairman of the NL's expansion committee. On May 27, 1968, National League president Warren Giles announced the league would add expansion teams in San Diego and Montreal at a cost of US$10 million each.
With the franchise secured, Snyder built an ownership group of six partners led by financier Jean-Louis Lévesque and Seagram heir Charles Bronfman. Lévesque was originally tapped as chairman and the public face of the ownership group since he was a francophone. However, he bowed out, and Bronfman took over as chairman. The new group was faced with the immediate problem of finding a suitable facility in which to play for at least two years. Drapeau had promised the NL that a domed stadium–thought to be a must due to Montreal's cold weather in April, October and sometimes September–would be built by 1971. However, Snyder's successor as executive committee chairman, Lucien Saulnier, told Bronfman that Drapeau could not make such a guarantee on his own authority. As 1968 dragged on without movement from the city on a facility, Bronfman and his group threatened to walk away. While they had more than enough money between them to pay the first installment of the expansion fee, they wanted assurances that a park would be built before proceeding any further with the effort. Delorimier Stadium, which hosted the Royals, was rejected even as a temporary facility; it could not be expanded beyond its 20,000-seat capacity because it was in a residential area. The Autostade, home of the Canadian Football League's Montreal Alouettes, was ruled out due to the prohibitive cost of expanding it and adding a dome, as well as doubts that the city even had the right to make the needed renovations to the federally-owned facility.
By August 1968, the NL owners had grown increasingly concerned about the unresolved stadium question, putting the franchise's future in doubt. There were rumours of awarding the franchise to Buffalo, New York instead, whose War Memorial Stadium was ready to host a team. League president Warren Giles was reassured of Montreal's viability when shown a 3,000-seat community field in the centrally located Jarry Park that Drapeau proposed expanding to 30,000 seats as a temporary home for the Expos, at a cost of over C$1 million.
Several options for a team name were considered: "Royals" was a popular option with fans in honour of the minor-league Royals, but the name had already been taken by the Kansas City Royals. Other names considered included "Voyageurs" and "Nationals". The team settled on "Expos", a name with the same spelling in French and English, in recognition of the recently concluded Expo 67 World's Fair. Less than a year after the city was awarded a team, the Expos took to the field to begin the season.
With Gene Mauch as their inaugural manager, the Expos made their debut on April 8, 1969: an 11–10 victory over the New York Mets at Shea Stadium. The team played its first home game—and the first Major League game outside the United States—on April 14; it was an 8–7 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals before 29,184 fans at Jarry Park Stadium. Three days later, on April 17, in just the team's ninth game played in their history up to that point, Bill Stoneman pitched the first no-hitter in Expos history with a 7–0 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies. The excitement of the early-season heroics quickly gave way to the realities of being an expansion team as the Expos struggled for much of their inaugural season. Montreal tied their expansion cousins, the San Diego Padres for the worst record in the NL with a record of 52–110. The team fared little better in the following seasons; the Expos went 73–89 in and 71–90 in .
The team's best player, and first star, in its early seasons was Rusty Staub. Acquired from the Houston Astros in a trade prior to the Expos' inaugural season, he led the Expos with 30 home runs in 1970 and, owing to his red hair, was nicknamed "Le Grand Orange". Staub was Montreal's lone representative at the Major League Baseball All-Star Game in the team's first three seasons, and endeared himself to the local fans by learning French. Also popular was pitcher Claude Raymond, who completed his Major League career with Montreal in 1972 and was the team's first French-Canadian star. Pitcher Carl Morton, who posted an 18–11 record in 1970, was the first player in franchise history to be named National League Rookie of the Year. Bill Stoneman threw his second no-hitter, and the first pitched outside the United States, in a 7–0 win over the Mets in Montreal on October 2, 1972.
The team failed to post a winning season in its first ten years and finished fifth or sixth in the six-team NL East eight times. Attendance declined as the initial excitement of having a team wore off. It recovered briefly in as the Expos mounted an unsuccessful charge at the NL East pennant, before declining sharply in and beyond. By , attendance had dropped to just over 600,000 fans over the course of the season, less than half of what the Expos drew in their inaugural season.
The on-field product was not the only concern for the Expos. Jarry Park was only intended to serve as a temporary home until 1971 at the latest. Even allowing for this, it left much to be desired as a baseball venue. The grandstands were completely exposed to the elements, forcing the Expos to postpone a number of early-season games. Additionally, the sun set directly in the face of first basemen, forcing delays. Due to numerous delays and cost overruns with its intended replacement, Olympic Stadium, the Expos were forced to stay in Jarry until 1976.
The team's future was also placed in doubt following an angry speech by Bronfman in which he threatened to relocate his family and the Seagram company outside Quebec if the separatist Parti Québécois (PQ) won a majority government in the 1976 Quebec election. The Parti Québécois did win the election; however, Bronfman and the Expos remained in Quebec.
For the season, the Expos moved into their new ballpark, Olympic Stadium, six years later than originally scheduled. For a time in the 1976–77 offseason, however, it appeared that the Expos would have to play at least the early part of the season at Jarry Park due to delays in securing a lease for Olympic Stadium. The team broke off negotiations not long after the PQ's landslide victory in the 1976 provincial election. Negotiations dragged out through the winter, leading the Expos to begin selling 1977 season tickets under the assumption they would have to play at Jarry. However, an agreement was finally reached in early 1977. A total of 57,592 fans attended Montreal's opening day 7–2 loss to Philadelphia.
The new facility was a significant upgrade, although weather-related issues created by Montreal's harsh climate persisted until the stadium's roof was installed in 1987. Over the years, the stadium became notorious for its poor playing conditions. Players were frequently at risk for injury due to thin padding on the outfield fences, as well as the original artificial turf that remained in place for over two decades. Ultimately, the park became viewed as a white elephant. On the field, the Expos continued to fare poorly; the team won 75 games in 1977, and 76 in .
Though the losing seasons mounted, the Expos built a solid core of players, led by Gary Carter, who went on to become one of baseball's best hitting catchers, pitcher Steve Rogers and outfielders Andre Dawson and Tim Raines. They supplemented their young roster with veteran acquisitions such as future Hall of Famer Tony Pérez, and in 1977, the Expos also hired Dick Williams as the team's manager. Williams had developed a reputation for nurturing young talent; he had managed a young Boston Red Sox team to the American League pennant in and the Oakland Athletics to back-to-back World Series titles in 1972 and 1973. In , Montreal had its first winning season in franchise history; in mid-July, the Expos led the NL East by 6.5 games, before finishing second to the Pittsburgh Pirates by two games with a 95–65 record. The fans responded: Montreal drew two million fans for the first time in franchise history and it was the first of five consecutive seasons that the team was in the top-four of National League attendance. Though they won five fewer games in , the Expos finished merely one game behind the Philadelphia Phillies for the division lead. In both seasons, the Expos were in the hunt for the division title into the last weekend of the season before losing to the ultimate World Series champion.
In , Charlie Lea pitched the third no-hitter in franchise history. He defeated the San Francisco Giants by a 4–0 score on May 10, 1981. The Expos were in third place in the NL East with a 30–25 record when the season was halted for two months by a players' strike. By the time the strike ended, 713 games had been lost and could not possibly be made up. Major League Baseball chose to adopt a split-season schedule, which gave the Expos a fresh start in the second half of the season. With the team languishing near the .500 mark in post-strike play, the club fired Williams and replaced him with scouting director Jim Fanning. The team continued to struggle, though, and had a 19–19 record with 15 games left to play. Montreal won 11 of the remaining games and finished in first place, a 1/2 game ahead of the Pittsburgh Pirates, thereby qualifying for the franchise's first post-season berth. Terry Francona caught the final out – a fly ball hit by Dave Kingman – to seal a 5–4 victory over the New York Mets in the clinching game.
In the 1981 National League Division Series, the Expos faced the first-half winners, the defending world champion Phillies. Montreal won the first two games, at Olympic Stadium, by identical 3–1 scores before dropping the following two games in Philadelphia. In the deciding fifth game, Montreal's Steve Rogers faced Steve Carlton in a pitchers' duel. Rogers pitched a complete-game shutout as Montreal advanced to the 1981 National League Championship Series with a 3–0 win. Facing the Los Angeles Dodgers, Montreal split the first two games of the best-of-five series in Los Angeles before returning home for the final three games. Montreal won game three, but failed in their first attempt to close out the series by losing game four and set up a deciding fifth game. The deciding game, postponed by a day due to rain, was played October 19, 1981, in near-freezing temperatures. The game was tied at 1 entering the ninth inning when Fanning opted to have his top starter, Steve Rogers, come out of the bullpen to pitch. Rogers retired the first two batters before facing Rick Monday. What followed was the defining moment in Expos history: on a 3–1 count, Rogers hung a sinking fastball that Monday hit over the centrefield fence for the game-winning and series-clinching home run. The moment, and game, became known to Expos fans as "Blue Monday". The dramatic loss was a bitter defeat for a franchise who by that time had been adopted as Canada's most popular baseball team.
By the end of the 1979 season, the Expos had earned a reputation for having one of the strongest player development systems in baseball; the team had stockpiled young talent throughout its roster including four starting pitchers below the age of 23, and was hailed as "the team of the '80s". When Montreal hosted the 1982 Major League Baseball All-Star Game on July 13, 1982, Expos fans voted four of their own into the starting lineup: Carter, Dawson, Raines and Rogers, while Al Oliver was named as a reserve. It was only the second time since 1969 that the host team had four starters. The National League claimed a 4–1 victory in front of 59,057 fans in the first All-Star Game held outside of the United States; Rogers was the winning pitcher. Baseball historian and author Jonah Keri argued in his book "Up, Up and Away" that "no one at the stadium could know it then, but baseball in Montreal peaked that night at the Big O."
The Expos were widely predicted to win the NL East in ; "Sports Illustrated", "Baseball Digest" and "The Sporting News" were among the publications that favoured Montreal. However, the team disappointed. Montreal finished third in the division with 86 wins. The Expos replaced Fanning with Bill Virdon in , and under their new manager, led the division in mid-July. However, the team faded down the stretch and finished with an 82–80 record. The Expos won more games between 1979 and 1983 than any other team in the NL East, but had only one postseason appearance to show for it.
Hoping to turn the team's fortunes around, the Expos signed 42-year-old veteran Pete Rose, who was second all-time in base hits to Ty Cobb, to a one-year contract in . Rose reached a career milestone in Montreal's home opener by recording the 4,000th hit of his career in a 5–1 victory over Philadelphia on April 13. Though players and management had praised the acquisition of Rose and predicted he would help the team win the division, he was ineffective for Montreal. Rose batted only .259 and failed to hit a home run in 95 games before he was traded back to his original team, Cincinnati, and Montreal finished with a losing record on the season.
Montreal's failed 1984 season resulted in a 31 percent decrease in attendance at the same time salaries were escalating throughout baseball. As a consequence, the Expos completed a major trade following the season, sending Gary Carter to the New York Mets on December 10, 1984, in exchange for four players. In trading Carter, the Expos gave up a team icon who, like Rusty Staub before him, endeared himself to the fans by learning French and being one of the most accessible players on the team. The trade came one year after Bronfman had called the seven-year, US$12.6 million contract Carter signed in 1981 "the biggest mistake he had made in his life".
The economics of Major League Baseball also resulted in the departure of Andre Dawson following the season. Throughout that off-season, MLB owners colluded at the behest of Commissioner Peter Ueberroth to drive salaries for free agents down. Dawson, who should have been one of the most valuable free agents on the market that year, discovered that not only was there little interest in signing him, but that the Expos were publicly commenting about his knee problems in an effort to further drive interest down. Angered by these actions, Dawson walked into the Chicago Cubs' training camp with a signed, blank contract. The Cubs agreed to sign Dawson to a one-year, $500,000 contract, less than half of his previous salary.
Dawson hit 49 home runs and drove in 137 runs in , attaining the honour of NL Most Valuable Player.
Tim Raines was also affected by collusion: after receiving no offer worth more than the $1.5 million he earned in 1986, Raines returned to the Expos on a three-year, $5 million contract. He had one of the best seasons of his career in 1987, leading the NL with 123 runs (in 139 games), stealing 50 bases, batting .330 and hitting 18 home runs. He was also named the most valuable player of the 1987 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, as he drove in the game's only two runs with a triple in the 13th inning. Raines was ultimately traded to the Chicago White Sox in 1990.
On the field, the Expos won just four games more than they lost between 1986 and 1991 as the organization set about rebuilding its development system and acquiring a new generation of players. The team struggled to attract free agents to Montreal, and Bronfman had grown disillusioned with both the business of baseball and the challenge of drawing fans to Olympic Stadium for a middling ball club. He hoped to take one more chance at winning a title, however, and in , the Expos made a push for a division title by acquiring starting pitcher and pending free agent Mark Langston from the Seattle Mariners. The price would ultimately prove to be a high one as the Expos gave up future Hall of Famer Randy Johnson and two other pitchers. The trade helped propel the Expos to first place in the NL East by the All-Star break. They held the top spot into August before Langston and the team collapsed. The Expos finished fourth in the division with an 81–81 record, and Langston left Montreal as a free agent.
Bronfman grew increasingly uneasy about the reckless spending of his fellow team owners, increased strife with the players, and overall direction of MLB. According to then-team president Claude Brochu, the team's late-season decline in 1989 proved too much for Bronfman, who asked him to seek a buyer for the team.
Bronfman hoped to sell the team for around $50 million, but both he and Brochu found it impossible to find a local businessman willing to take primary ownership of the team. Groups from American cities were interested, however. One group offered to buy the club for $135 million and relocate it to Miami; however, Bronfman viewed a relocation as a last resort. Instead, Brochu opted to lead a group himself. The city and the province agreed to fund $33 million of the $100 million sales price Bronfman had settled on, after which he and partner Jacques Ménard convinced 11 other Canadian businesses and businessmen—such as Bell Canada, Desjardins Group, the Jean Coutu Group and Loblaw Companies—to buy minority stakes. The sale was completed on November 29, 1990. However, many of the investors Brochu cajoled into joining the partnership made it clear that they considered their investments to be the equivalent of charitable donations, and were not interested in providing additional funding.
With a new ownership group in place, the Expos traded Tim Raines to the Chicago White Sox in a five-player deal.
General manager David Dombrowski fired manager Buck Rodgers, who had managed the team since 1985, after the team started the 1991 season with a 20–29 record, replacing him with Tom Runnells.
Mark Gardner pitched nine no-hit innings in a July 26, game before losing 1–0 in the 10th inning to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Two days later, also in Los Angeles, Dennis Martínez achieved a rare feat, throwing the 13th official perfect game in Major League Baseball history (based on MLB's 1991 redefinition of a perfect game), winning 2–0. Dave Van Horne's iconic call of "El Presidente, El Perfecto!" following the final out became a hallmark of Expos lore. Martinez's catcher, Ron Hassey, also caught Len Barker's perfect game ten years earlier and remains the only player to catch two perfect games in MLB history. The euphoria of the pitching feats did not last, as the Expos were rendered homeless for the final month of the season after a 50-ton beam collapsed from Olympic Stadium's structure and fell nine metres onto a public concourse hours before a motocross event on September 13. The Expos hinted that they would have to open the 1992 season elsewhere unless Olympic Stadium was certified safe. While the stadium itself was given a clean bill of health by engineers in November, it took longer to get one for the roof since it had been badly ripped in a June windstorm. Ultimately, it was decided to keep the roof closed at all times; it had only been opened 88 times in a little more than four years.
The Expos finished 1991 with a 71–90 record, sixth in the NL East, and drew fewer than one million fans for the first time since 1976. However, the foundation of the Expos' future was establishing their places in MLB: Larry Walker, Marquis Grissom and Delino DeShields had made their debuts the season prior, and the team acquired Moisés Alou in a trade with Pittsburgh. Moises' father Felipe, who had been a long time employee of the Expos, was promoted to manager during the season and became the first native of the Dominican Republic to manage a Major League Baseball team. In , DeShields was sent to Los Angeles in exchange for Pedro Martínez; the deal was initially pilloried by the "Montreal Gazette" and other local publications as a move designed to save money rather than improve the ball club. Nonetheless, the Expos improved on the field; they won 87 games in 1992, 94 in 1993 and finished second in the NL East both seasons.
The Expos were recognized as having a strong team entering the season, but their hopes of winning the division were significantly impacted by realignment, as the three-time defending West Division champion Atlanta Braves were shifted to the East. Atlanta opened the season with 13 wins in 14 games, and quickly opened up an -game lead on Montreal. By late June, the Expos had moved to games back when they hosted the Braves. Montreal won two out of three games in the series, including a late-game victory in the opener over future-Hall-of-Fame pitcher Greg Maddux that the players viewed as the turning point of their season. Montreal then embarked on a west coast road trip in which they won the final five games and entered the All-Star break in first place. The Expos pulled away from the Braves after the break; between July 18 and August 11, Montreal won 20 games and lost only three. For the second time in team history, five players were named all-stars: Moisés Alou, Wil Cordero, Darrin Fletcher, Marquis Grissom and Ken Hill.
An offense led by Marquis Grissom, Moises Alou, Larry Walker and Wil Cordero scored more than 5 runs per game. With a record of 74–40, on pace for a 106-win season as the pitching staff with Butch Henry, Ken Hill, Jeff Fassero and a young Pedro Martinez put up the National League's best ERA. the Expos had the best record in baseball on the morning of August 12, when MLB's players went on strike. The season began without a collective bargaining agreement as MLB's owners could not agree on how to share revenue between teams. Many teams were unwilling to agree to revenue sharing unless a salary cap was put in place, something which the Major League Baseball Players' Association (MLBPA) adamantly opposed. Unable to come to an agreement, the owners attempted to unilaterally force their system into effect, prompting the players to walk out. Most of the players believed they would be back on the field by Labour Day (celebrated on the same date in the U.S. as Labor Day) at the latest. On September 14, following a month of fruitless negotiations, the remainder of the season was cancelled. The franchise would never reach the playoffs as the Expos again.
From Brochu's perspective, a salary cap was not a major concern for the Expos as they could not afford to spend the maximum value of any negotiated cap. But when the strike ended eight months later, by the order of United States federal judge Sonia Sotomayor, the failure to implement strong revenue sharing was a major blow to the Expos. The team had already built a reputation as a penny-pinching organization (Larry Walker once complained in the media that the team asked the players to buy their own vitamins), with the second-lowest payroll in MLB in 1994. Following the strike, the team initiated a fire sale of players: Ken Hill, John Wetteland and Marquis Grissom were traded while Larry Walker was allowed to leave as a free agent. Moisés Alou, Pedro Martínez and Mel Rojas would eventually follow. In his book, "My Turn At Bat", Brochu argued that the fire sale was the only viable option, since his partners in the ownership group were not interested in financing the team's losses. Brochu estimated that had he tried to keep the 1994 team together, the Expos would have lost $25 million in 1995, which would have pushed the franchise to the edge of bankruptcy. He claimed that he would have certainly kept Hill, Wetteland, Grissom and Walker had the partners been willing to put up the money necessary to keep them in Montreal. When Brochu told general manager Kevin Malone that Hill, Wetteland, Grissom and Walker all had to go, Malone tried to persuade Brochu to keep at least one of them. It was to no avail; Brochu told Malone that they all had to be off the roster by the deadline for salary arbitration—even though this made it all but impossible to get any leverage in possible deals. As a result, the Expos got almost nothing in return.
The strike and ensuing fire sale left fans in Montreal livid. The Expos finished last in the NL East in , and average game attendance fell by nearly 26%, from 24,543 to 18,189. Interest in the Expos continued to decline in the years that followed; they would never average more than 20,000 fans per game in a season again during their tenure in Montreal. While noting the Atlanta Braves went on to win 11 consecutive NL East titles following the strike, Jonah Keri expressed the viewpoint of the fans as it related to Brochu and the team's owners: "Expos fans couldn't help but wonder if that could have been "them" celebrating every year ... had Brochu convinced the team's cheapskate owners to spend a few damn dollars, or taken a leap of faith that short-term financial pain would lead to long-term success." The media, meanwhile, had taken to calling the Expos a "Triple-A team" as the team seemed to enter a period where they would develop players only to move them on to other organizations.
In spite of a sharp decline in attendance, Brochu claimed the Expos turned a small profit in 1995. While ticket sales increased in other markets in the seasons following the strike, though, Montreal's fan base continued to erode. Even with the loss of most of their best players, the Expos were competitive in , achieving second place in the NL East with an 88–74 record. The team fared poorly in the following five seasons, however, finishing with a losing record in each year and no higher than fourth in the division. Individually, Pedro Martínez became the first native of the Dominican Republic—and only Expo—to win the National League Cy Young Award. He won the award in after recording an 18–7 record with an earned run average (ERA) of 1.90. One week after he was announced as the NL Cy Young winner, Martínez was traded to the Boston Red Sox as part of another salary purge.
As the 1990s wore on, interest in the Expos dwindled to the point that they were barely part of Montreal's sports landscape. Alou recalled in the latter part of the decade, an old friend of his who owned a team in the Dominican Republic came to Montreal for a visit and couldn't find any downtown store that sold Expos caps, nor did he see anyone wearing an Expos cap during his weeklong stay in the city. When he took a taxi to a game at Olympic Stadium, the driver couldn't find the entrance, and there were no signs anywhere touting games. According to Alou's friend, with such lackluster marketing, it was no surprise that the Expos couldn't attract any fans. Keri later wrote that the Expos would not have been in this position had a better-financed "champion" with the resources and the patience to shepherd the team through the 1990s bought the team.
Brochu attempted to convince his partners that the only long-term solution to keep the Expos in Montreal was to replace Olympic Stadium. In addition to being poorly located—far from population centres, restaurants, and bars—fans perceived it as cavernous and unsafe. Additionally, free agents were letting it be known they were not willing to play for the Expos because of Olympic Stadium's poor playing conditions. A proposed 35,000-seat downtown facility, to be called Labatt Park, was announced in 1997 with a budgeted cost of $250 million and an anticipated opening date of 2001. It would have been a retro-classic park with a facade reminiscent of historic Bonaventure Station. According to a Montreal Gazette editorial supporting the new park, Brochu's threat to move the team unless Olympic Stadium was replaced was "simple logic." Brochu sought $150 million in funding from the provincial government, but Premier Lucien Bouchard refused, saying he could not authorize public funding for a stadium when the province was being forced to close hospitals and had still not paid the Olympic Stadium debt. Many members of the consortium instead favoured selling the team. Hoping to pressure a sale, some members began to feed anonymous tips to the French press to make internal discord between Brochu and his partners public. Attendance continued to fall, decreasing by 39 percent in to an average of 11,295 spectators per game. It was the first of five consecutive seasons in which Montreal drew fewer than one million fans. One of the few bright spots of this time was the blossoming of Vladimir Guerrero into a star; he made four consecutive All-Star Games from 1999 to 2002, each time as the Expos' sole representative. Guerrero would eventually be elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2018.
By 1999, the partners publicly began to question Brochu's fitness to lead the organization and he was criticized by the media. Brochu was also accused of having a secret deal with MLB commissioner Bud Selig to relocate the Expos to Washington, D. C., charges he denied in a spring press conference held to answer the accusations of his partners. Brochu's rebuttals fell on deaf ears as fans sided with the consortium's smear campaign against Brochu. He was ultimately replaced as managing general partner by American art dealer Jeffrey Loria, who was initially hailed as the franchise's saviour. Loria had originally bid for the team in 1991, but Brochu and Ménard had balked at his demand for controlling interest.
When Loria took control, he let it be known that Brochu's low-budget approach—or as he called it, "business as usual"—was over. He promised to rebuild the Expos with "a winning attitude and winning players" in an effort to bring the team back to where it had been only six years earlier. To that end, he drafted a new partnership agreement that gave him the right to call for cash investments in exchange for team equity—an option that had been unavailable to Brochu. Most of the minority partners, though, continued to treat their participation as a public-relations gesture and remained uninterested in investing additional money. When Loria issued a cash call in May 2000, the only other partners to increase their contributions were Coutu, Loblaw, and Stephen Bronfman. Rather than contribute more money, the minority partners proposed trading Guererro. Loria instantly vetoed this suggestion.
As Loria increased his own financial contribution over the next two years, most of the other partners failed to do likewise, which resulted in Loria raising his share in the franchise to 92 percent. Speaking in retrospect, one of the minority partners, Mark Routtenberg, said that he was both "fooled" and "used" by Loria, and called him a carpetbagger.
The team payroll for 2000 increased to $33 million, nearly double the $17.9 million from the previous season. However, Loria's options for rebuilding the team were somewhat limited. He discovered that he needed to improve the team immediately in order to win back the fans' trust, rather than relying on long-term improvements via the draft. Even with the team's renewed willingness to spend more on talent, most elite players were reluctant to play in Montreal, given the franchise's uncertain future and Olympic Stadium's poor playing conditions. As a result, most of the increased payroll came from the signings of free agent pitchers Graeme Lloyd and Hideki Irabu, as well as a three-way trade with the Rangers and Blue Jays that brought Rangers first baseman Lee Stevens to Montreal. These moves failed to translate into on-field success: Lloyd missed the entire season due to arthroscopic surgery, Irabu posted a 7.24 ERA, and Stevens only batted .265. The Expos lost 95 games. Interest in the team continued to decline, as both fans and businesses were unwilling to lend their support to a noncompetitive team.
Loria continued to pursue the construction of a new ballpark. He sought support from Major League Baseball, the Quebec government, and architectural firm HOK Sport for a cheaper and re-designed version of Labatt Park that eschewed the retro-classic concept in favour of a more modern design with curved contours and glass. HOK and MLB both thought Loria's proposed design was structurally unsound. More seriously, although Loria had been led to believe that Ménard had convinced the provincial government to contribute funding, in reality no agreement had been reached.
To bolster the team's finances, Loria tried to renegotiate the Expos' broadcasting deals, which were far less valuable than that of any other team. He broke off negotiations with The Sports Network, the largest English-language cable sports network in Canada, when it only offered the Expos $5,000 per game. Even allowing for the Expos' greatly reduced home territory compared to that of the Blue Jays (see below), TSN's offer was still a pittance compared to the $200,000 it paid the Blue Jays at the time. Loria had similar issues with prospective radio partners; the only interested parties would only air Expos games as part of a brokerage agreement in which the team paid for the airtime. The Alouettes and Canadiens had similar arrangements, which was considered highly unusual for the time.
Although the team continued its French radio coverage on the Telemedia network—whose flagship, CKAC, had carried the Expos since 1973—the Expos were unable to reach an agreement for English radio broadcasts. This resulted in the end of the Expos' longtime run on CIQC (formerly CFCF), which had been the Expos' English radio outlet for all but four years of their existence. No television coverage was available in either language. This left English-speaking fans relying on Internet audiocasts. Local fans accused Loria and his stepson, David Samson, of sabotage. In truth, though, according to longtime Montreal sportscaster Mitch Melnick, there was no anglophone radio for the 2000 season "because nobody wanted to pay for it." Years later, Samson said that he had initially hoped that if the Expos got off to a hot start, local broadcasters would initiate new negotiations, but further discussions never materialized. Dave Van Horne, the team's English-language play-by-play announcer since the team's inception, left at the season's end to work for the Florida Marlins.
In , the Expos drew only 642,748 fans, one of the smallest totals in MLB in decades. The minority partners, whose interest was now reduced to a combined seven percent, became convinced that Loria had planned his moves to force them out. When pleas to Selig and MLB officials fell on deaf ears, the group became convinced that Selig and Loria had conspired to force the Expos out of Montreal. At the same time, MLB took steps to vote on contraction, with the Expos and the Minnesota Twins slated for elimination. On November 6, 2001, MLB's owners voted 28–2 on contraction; only the Expos and Twins opposed. Initial plans called for the Expos and Twins to play a lame-duck season in before their franchises were revoked. Both teams were saved following a legal challenge filed in Minnesota that forced MLB to honour the Twins' lease with the Metrodome, as well as challenges by the MLBPA. As MLB was unable to find another candidate for contraction, the immediate threat for the Expos diminished, as MLB needed to keep an even number of teams to maintain its schedule.
Shortly afterward, Loria sold the Expos to MLB and used the money he received from the sale to purchase the Florida Marlins from John Henry, who had recently purchased the Boston Red Sox. As a result of the transaction, Loria turned a significant profit on his initial $16 million investment – MLB bought the Expos from him for $120 million and gave him a $38.5 million interest free loan to complete the purchase of the Marlins. Following the sale, Loria took virtually everything of value with him to Miami, including the Expos' computers and scouting reports. His departure also marked the final end of the proposed Labatt Park, though any realistic chance of the park being built ended when the Bouchard government repeated its previous refusal to commit any public money to the project.
MLB formed Expos Baseball L.P., a partnership of the other 29 clubs, to operate the team. It appointed former Anaheim Angels president Tony Tavares as team president to oversee business operations and oversee a future move of the team, and Mets assistant general manager Omar Minaya as vice-president, general manager and operating head of the franchise. MLB's chief disciplinarian Frank Robinson was appointed as the team's manager.
Minaya, the first Latino general manager in baseball history, inherited a difficult situation. He was hired only 72 hours before the start of spring training, and there were only six other employees in baseball operations; most of the others had either followed Loria to the Marlins or taken jobs with other clubs. As the Expos began what many assumed at the time to be their final season in 2002, the mood in the Olympic Stadium for the home opener – a victory over the Marlins – was ugly. Montreal's home opener drew 34,000 fans, many of which came not only to say "goodbye" to the franchise, but also to express their disgust and anger at Loria.
Loria's minority partners, who had gone from collectively owning 76 percent of the Expos to less than seven percent of the Marlins, filed a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) lawsuit against Major League Baseball, Selig and Loria. The partners contended that Loria and the commissioner's office had conspired to deprive them of their shares by issuing cash calls, and thus deliberately undermined the franchise's future in Montreal. The partners were ultimately unsuccessful in their suit, as it was dismissed in 2005 after an arbitration panel rejected their claims.
On the field, the 2002 Expos exceeded expectations and were in playoff contention for much of the season. As they were owned by the other teams, including their direct competitors, the Expos did not have any flexibility to increase their payroll for a last-ditch post season drive. Operating under the belief that the Expos were playing their last season in Montreal, Minaya completed a blockbuster trade with the Cleveland Indians in late June to make a final run at bringing post-season success to the city, acquiring Bartolo Colón, one of baseball's top pitchers, in exchange for several star prospects and without increasing payroll. Remembering how the Seattle Mariners had revived a stalled bid for what became Safeco Field with a playoff run in 1995, Minaya believed that if the Expos made the playoffs, the renewed public and private sector support would lead to a viable owner stepping forward who would keep the team in Montreal. Minaya made several smaller moves, but the team lost its early-season momentum; they went seven games under .500 in July and August. The Expos finished with an 83–79 record – their first winning season since 1996 – but finished second in the NL East, 19 games out of both the division lead and the wild card.
The Expos franchise was saved by a new collective bargaining agreement between the owners and players that forbade contraction until at least 2006. Speculation of contraction was replaced by rumours of relocation, as it was obvious MLB did not intend to keep the team in Montreal. While MLB was not ready to relocate the Expos right away, in it sought to increase revenues by having the team play 22 of its 81 home games in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The Expos again found themselves in contention for the playoffs: on August 29, the team was tied with four other clubs for the National League Wild Card spot. When MLB's rosters expanded on September 1, Selig announced that the Expos would not be recalling any additional players from the minor leagues: the other owners had decided against spending a few extra thousand dollars, a small fraction of the team's $35 million payroll, to bolster the team. Several players, including relief pitcher Eric Knott, were sent back to the minors due to budget constraints. The team faded again, finishing 18 games out of first in the East and eight games out of the wild card spot. Later, Minaya said that the denial of the September call-ups was "a message to the players" and "a momentum killer." Keri later wrote that MLB's refusal to authorize the September call-ups eroded what goodwill the Expos still had among the Montreal fanbase. After the season, Guererro was lost to free agency, while staff ace Javier Vázquez was traded to the Yankees.
The final season of the Montreal Expos came in , and was again split between Montreal and San Juan. The team never recovered from an April win-loss record of 5–19, and finished the season with a 67–95 record. On September 29, 2004, Major League Baseball announced that the franchise would relocate to Washington, D.C. for the season. That same night, the team played its final game in Montreal: a 9–1 loss before 31,395 fans. The team then played its final games as the Expos on the road, ending on October 3 against the New York Mets, the team they had faced in the franchise's inaugural game in 1969. In the Expos last-ever game, the New York Mets defeated Montreal 8–1 at Shea Stadium. Jamey Carroll scored the last Expos run and Endy Chávez became the final Expos batter in history when he grounded out in the top of the ninth to end the game. The team ended their 36-year run with an all-time record of 2,753 wins, 2,943 losses and 4 ties.
The last active former Montreal Expos player in the major leagues was Bartolo Colón, who played what is likely his last game with the Texas Rangers in 2018. Colón played half a season with the Expos in 2002.
The Washington Nationals occasionally wear Expos throwback uniforms. The Nationals won the 2019 World Series, the franchise's first title in its 51 seasons, under manager Dave Martinez, who had played with the Expos from 1988 to 1991.
The Expos logo consists of the stylized letters "eb", which stands for "Expos Baseball". When taken as a whole, the logo forms a large "M", representing "Montreal".
In 1972, the Telemedia radio network brought in Jacques Doucet and Claude Raymond to serve as the Expos' French language broadcast team. They were asked by the Carling O'Keefe brewery, the title sponsor for the French-language broadcasts, to create a French language glossary of baseball terminology. Previously, particularly in the Montreal Royals days, French broadcasters would use English for baseball concepts that didn't have a French equivalent. Through their efforts, a French language baseball lexicon was created: words like "home run" became "" and "hit" became "". A knuckleball became "", literally "butterfly ball".
The Expos introduced their first mascot during the 1978 season. Called "Souki", the mascot resembled Mr. Met with a futuristic looking uniform but was met with such a negative reaction that the team immediately retired it after one season; Souki was once attacked by a father of children frightened by it. Seeking a replacement, the Expos found a design for a mascot similar to the Phillie Phanatic in the inventory of an American mascot company that had gone bankrupt. The mascot was designed by Bonnie Erickson, who created the Phanatic as well as several Muppets characters, including Miss Piggy. The team named the new mascot "Youppi!", which is French for "Yippee!" Unlike Souki, Youppi! was immediately popular with fans upon its introduction in 1979, particularly children, and the mascot became a fixture at children's hospitals during its 25 years as the Expos mascot.
Youppi! made history in 1989 when he became the first mascot in Major League history to be ejected from a ballgame. The incident occurred during the 11th inning of a game against Los Angeles when Youppi was dancing and parading on top of the Dodgers' dugout. LA's manager, Tommy Lasorda complained to the umpires who ordered the mascot out of the game. Youppi! was eventually allowed to return on the provision he remained away from the Dodgers' dugout. The game, coincidentally, was the longest in Expos history as Los Angeles won 1–0 in 22 innings.
The relocation of the Expos to Washington left Youppi! in limbo. Several organizations expressed interest in taking over the character, including other Montreal sports teams. After a year in storage, the mascot was sold to the National Hockey League's Montreal Canadiens. The Canadiens claim Youppi! is the first mascot in professional sports to change leagues; he made his re-debut with the Canadiens on October 18, 2005.
The Toronto Blue Jays joined the American League as an expansion franchise in 1977, and one year later, met the Expos for the first time in an exhibition contest, the first of an annual series that became known as the Pearson Cup. The Expos won that first game, 5–4, in front of 20,221 fans on June 29. Eight annual exhibitions (except for 1981 due to the strike) were played between 1978 and 1986 as each team won three games with two contests ending as ties. The teams did not meet again until 1997 with the advent of interleague play, and the first regular season meetings between the two. The games boosted attendance in both Montreal and Toronto, but the two teams failed to develop a serious rivalry.
John McHale, then president of the Expos, was a strong proponent of adding a second Major League team in Toronto. The Expos remained Canada's most popular team until their mid-1980s downturn coincided with the Blue Jays' rise, culminating in the Jays' first American League East pennant in 1985. At the same time, the Blue Jays grew perturbed that the Expos were able to air their games in several markets in southern Ontario—such as Windsor, Belleville, and Toronto itself. The Jays lobbied MLB to designate southern Ontario as their exclusive home television territory. Bronfman opposed the request, as he feared that shutting the Expos out of Canada's largest and most lucrative television market would limit the team's fan base. As a part of the territorial changes, MLB allowed the Expos to air 15 games in the Jays' television market for free, and purchase the rights to air additional games. For the remainder of their existence, the Expos only had full broadcast rights in Quebec and Atlantic Canada. The loss of viewership in southern Ontario diminished the Expos' ability to attract sponsors and corporate partners. Indeed, Keri later wrote that the Expos miscalculated when they considered the Blue Jays an ally rather than a potential threat, and missed a chance to cement their right to air their games across Canada. Keri added that the loss of this revenue stream, along with "many other poor business decisions" over the years, made it difficult for the Expos to be viable in Montreal. Longtime Expos play-by-play broadcaster Dave Van Horne later argued that the loss of badly-needed corporate support "really started a long, downward spiral" for the team.
Regardless of their disagreements over television rights, when the Blue Jays reached the 1992 World Series, the team honoured Bronfman's contributions in bringing Major League Baseball to the country by having him throw the ceremonial first pitch for the first World Series game played in Canada. However, and while Blue Jays president Paul Godfrey again acknowledged the Expos' role in his own team's existence, Godfrey nonetheless voted with the other teams to support contracting the Expos in 2001 and relocating them in 2004: "I know if it wasn't for the success of the Expos in those early years there would not be major-league baseball in Toronto. That wasn't an emotional or a baseball vote. It was a business decision." The Blue Jays' failure to stand with their fellow Canadian team offended many Expos fans.
Ten years after the Expos relocated to Washington, a two-game exhibition series between the Toronto Blue Jays and New York Mets was held at the Olympic Stadium to conclude the spring training schedule prior to the season. For the Blue Jays, the series was intended, in part, to increase the team's following in Quebec. For others, the goal was to demonstrate that Montreal had an interest in returning to Major League Baseball. Former Expos player Warren Cromartie, who leads the Montreal Baseball Project, was among the organizers. The series was a success: 96,350 fans, frequently chanting "Lets go Expos!" and "We want baseball!" attended the two games. The Blue Jays returned for a two-game series in , against the Cincinnati Reds, which was attended by 96,545 fans. The success of the series' bolstered the Montreal Baseball Project's efforts: retiring commissioner Bud Selig was impressed by the fans in 2014 and said the city would be an "excellent candidate" for a new team. His replacement, Rob Manfred, echoed those comments in 2015. Olympic Stadium again hosted two spring training games prior to the beginning of the 2016 season between the Toronto Blue Jays and the Boston Red Sox, with a combined attendance of over 106,000 fans; since 2014, the Blue Jays have made it an annual tradition to host two spring training games in Montreal before the start of each season. In 2018, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. of the Blue Jays hit a game-winning home run against the St. Louis Cardinals in an exhibition game to the delight of the Montreal crowd.
Nine people who represented the Expos organization have subsequently gone on to gain election to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Gary Carter was inducted in 2003 and was the first player whose Hall of Fame plaque depicted him with an Expos cap. The Hall's choice for his plaque logo followed initial statements by Carter that he preferred to be enshrined as a New York Met, with whom he won the 1986 World Series. He accepted the Hall's decision with grace, stating: "The fact I played 11 years in Montreal and the fact that the majority of my statistics and accomplishments were achieved there, it would be wrong, probably, to do it any other way."
Andre Dawson became the second depicted as an Expos player when he was elected in 2010. Although he had played the majority of his 21-year career with Montreal, Dawson also preferred his plaque to display a different logo: when the decision was made, he publicly expressed his disappointment, saying it was "a little gut-wrenching" to find out he would not go in as a Chicago Cub. Dawson's reluctance to be enshrined as an Expos player stemmed, in part, from the breakdown of his relationship with the team during MLB's collusion scandal of 1986–87, when he claims the team not only "threw him out" of Montreal, but tried to prevent other teams from signing him as a free agent.
The third player with an Expos logo on his Hall of Fame plaque is Tim Raines, who was inducted in 2017, his final year of eligibility.
On January 24, 2018, the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum announced Vladimir Guerrero as an inductee into the Hall of Fame. Guerrero played eight of his 16 seasons with the Expos, being named to the MLB All-Star Game three times and winning the Silver Slugger Award three times while with the team. Nearly half of his career 2,590 hits were with Montreal (1,215), while having 234 of his 449 home runs and 702 of his 1,496 RBIs with the Expos in 1,004 games. Guerrero announced his Hall of Fame plaque will display him wearing an Angels cap.
For the five other inductees, their time in Montreal played lesser roles in their careers. Manager Dick Williams was a member of the Expos between 1977 and 1981 as part of a 21-year managerial career in which he took three different teams to the World Series. Tony Pérez played three years with the Expos but was primarily known for being a member of Cincinnati's "Big Red Machine" teams of the 1970s. Pitchers Pedro Martínez (1994–97) and Randy Johnson (1988–89), who both played in Montreal early in their careers but spent the majority of their playing days elsewhere, were both elected to the Hall in 2015. Frank Robinson managed the team from 2002 to 2006 (spanning the franchise's move to Washington), but was elected based on his accomplishments as a player, including being the first player to win Most Valuable Player honours in both the AL and NL, a triple crown in 1966, and a rookie-record of 38 home runs while winning the NL Rookie of the Year award.
Longtime broadcaster Dave Van Horne was named the recipient of the Ford C. Frick Award in 2011. The award is presented by the National Baseball Hall of Fame to honour broadcasters who make "major contributions to baseball".
When the Washington Nationals unveiled their "Ring of Honor" at Nationals Park in 2010, the franchise recognized its roots in Montreal. The ring was created to honour Hall-of-Fame players associated with Washington, D.C., baseball or the Montreal-Washington franchise, later expanded to include anyone who has made a significant contribution to the game of baseball in Washington, D.C. Two Expos players – Gary Carter and Andre Dawson – were named among the inaugural members. Frank Robinson was added to the Ring of Honor in 2015, as was Tim Raines in 2017.
The team created the Montreal Expos Hall of Fame to celebrate the franchise's 25th season in 1993. Charles Bronfman was inducted as its inaugural member. In a pre-game ceremony on August 14, 1993, a circular patch on the right field wall was unveiled with Bronfman's name, the number 83 (which he used to wear during spring training), and the words "FONDATEUR / FOUNDER". A total of 23 people were honoured by the club.
The players listed here represent the statistical leaders for the franchise's time in Montreal only. For the record holders of the franchise overall, see List of Washington Nationals team records.
Three pitchers in Expos history threw no-hitters. Bill Stoneman threw the first during the team's inaugural 1969 season. He threw a second no-hitter in 1972. Charlie Lea threw the third, nine years later in 1981. A decade after that, on July 28, 1991, Dennis Martínez threw the 13th official perfect game in Major League Baseball history. Two other pitchers threw no-hitters in shortened games which, after a 1992 rule change, were no longer recognized by MLB as official no-hitters. David Palmer pitched a perfect five innings in a rain-shortened game against the St. Louis Cardinals on April 22, 1984. Pascual Pérez threw a five-inning no-hitter on September 24, 1988, against the Philadelphia Phillies.
Six batters hit for the cycle in Montreal's history. Tim Foli was the first to do it in 1976, and Vladimir Guerrero was the last to do so, in 2003.
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Metallocene
A metallocene is a compound typically consisting of two cyclopentadienyl anions (, abbreviated Cp) bound to a metal center (M) in the oxidation state II, with the resulting general formula Closely related to the metallocenes are the metallocene derivatives, e.g. titanocene dichloride, vanadocene dichloride. Certain metallocenes and their derivatives exhibit catalytic properties, although metallocenes are rarely used industrially. Cationic group 4 metallocene derivatives related to [Cp2ZrCH3]+ catalyze olefin polymerization.
Some metallocenes consist of metal plus two cyclooctatetraenide anions (, abbreviated cot2−), namely the lanthanocenes and the actinocenes (uranocene and others).
Metallocenes are a subset of a broader class of compounds called sandwich compounds .
In the structure shown at right, the two pentagons are the cyclopentadienyl anions with circles inside them indicating they are aromatically stabilized. Here they are shown in a staggered conformation.
The first metallocene to be classified was ferrocene, and was discovered simultaneously in 1951 by Kealy and Pauson, and Miller et al. Kealy and Pauson were attempting to synthesize fulvalene through the oxidation of a cyclopentadienyl salt with anhydrous FeCl3 but obtained instead the substance C10H10Fe At the same time, Miller "et al" reported the same iron product from a reaction of cyclopentadiene with iron in the presence of aluminum, potassium, or molybdenum oxides. The structure of "C10H10Fe" was determined by Wilkinson et al. and by Fischer et al. These two were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1973 for their work on sandwich compounds, including the structural determination of ferrocene. They determined that the carbon atoms of the cyclopentadienyl (Cp) ligand contributed equally to the bonding and that bonding occurred due to the metal and the in the of the Cp ligands. This complex is now known as ferrocene, and the group of transition metal dicyclopentadienyl compounds is known as metallocenes. Metallocenes have the general formula Fischer et al. first prepared the ferrocene derivatives involving Co and Ni. Often derived from substituted derivatives of cyclopentadienide, metallocenes of many elements have been prepared.
One of the very earliest commercial manufacturers of metallocenes was Arapahoe Chemicals in Boulder, Colorado
The general name metallocene is derived from ferrocene, (C5H5)2Fe or Cp2Fe, systematically named According to the IUPAC definition, a metallocene contains a transition metal and two cyclopentadienyl ligands coordinated in a sandwich structure, i.e., the two cyclopentadienyl anions are on parallel planes with equal bond lengths and strengths. Using the nomenclature of "hapticity", the equivalent bonding of all 5 carbon atoms of a cyclopentadienyl ring is denoted as "η"5, pronounced "pentahapto". There are exceptions, such as uranocene, which has two cyclooctatetraene rings sandwiching a uranium atom.
In metallocene names, the prefix before the "-ocene" ending indicates what metallic element is between the Cp groups. For example, in ferrocene, iron(II), ferrous iron is present.
In contrast to the more strict definition proposed by IUPAC, which requires a d-block metal and a sandwich structure, the term metallocene and thus the denotation "-ocene", is applied in the chemical literature also to non-transition metal compounds, such as barocene (Cp2Ba), or structures where the aromatic rings are not parallel, such as found in manganocene or titanocene dichloride (Cp2TiCl2).
Some metallocene complexes of actinides have been reported where there are three cyclopendadienyl ligands for a monometallic complex, all three of them bound η5.
There are many ("η"5-C5H5)–metal complexes and they can be classified by the following formulas:
Metallocene complexes can also be classified by type:
Three main routes are normally employed in the formation of these types of compounds:
Sodium cyclopentadienide (NaCp) is the preferred reagent for these types of reactions. It is most easily obtained by the reaction of molten sodium and dicyclopentadiene. Traditionally, the starting point is the cracking of dicyclopentadienyl, the dimer of cyclopentadiene. Cyclopentadiene is deprotonated by strong bases or alkali metals.
NaCp acts as a reducing agent and a ligand in this reaction.
This technique provides using metal atoms in the gas phase rather than the solid metal. The highly reactive atoms or molecules are generated at a high temperature under vacuum and brought together with chosen reactants on a cold surface.
A variety of reagents have been developed that transfer Cp to metals. Once popular was thallium cyclopentadienide. It reacts with metal halides to give thallium chloride, which is poorly soluble, and the cyclopentadienyl complex. Trialkyltin derivatives of Cp− have also been used.
Many other methods have been developed. Chromocene can be prepared from chromium hexacarbonyl by direct reaction with cyclopentadiene in the presence of diethylamine; in this case, the formal deprotonation of the cyclopentadiene is followed by reduction of the resulting protons to hydrogen gas, facilitating the oxidation of the metal centre.
Metallocenes generally have high thermal stability. Ferrocene can be sublimed in air at over 100 °C with no decomposition; metallocenes are generally purified in the laboratory by vacuum sublimation. Industrially, sublimation is not practical so metallocenes are isolated by crystallization or produced as part of a hydrocarbon solution. For Group IV metallocenes, donor solvents like ether or THF are distinctly undesirable for polyolefin catalysis. Charge-neutral metallocenes are soluble in common organic solvents. Alkyl substitution on the metallocene increases the solubility in hydrocarbon solvents.
A structural trend for the series MCp2 involves the variation of the M-C bonds, which elongate as the valence electron count deviates from 18.
In metallocenes of the type (C5R5)2M, the cyclopentadienyl rings rotate with very low barriers. Single crystal X-ray diffraction studies reveal both eclipsed or staggered rotamers. For non-substituted metallocenes the energy difference between the staggered and eclipsed conformations is only a few kJ/mol. Crystals of ferrocene and osmocene exhibit eclipsed conformations at low temperatures, whereas in the related bis(pentamethylcyclopentadienyl) complexes the rings usually crystallize in a staggered conformation, apparently to minimize steric hindrance between the methyl groups.
Infrared and Raman spectroscopies have proved to be important in the analysis of cyclic polyenyl metal sandwich species, with particular use in elucidating covalent or ionic M–ring bonds and distinguishing between central and coordinated rings. Some typical spectral bands and assignments of iron group metallocenes are shown in the following table:
Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is the most applied tool in the study of metal sandwich compounds and organometallic species, giving information on nuclear structures in solution, as liquids, gases, and in the solid state. 1H NMR chemical shifts for paramagnetic organotransition-metal compounds is usually observed between 25 and 40 ppm, but this range is much more narrow for diamagnetic metallocene complexes, with chemical shifts usually observed between 3 and 7 ppm.
Mass spectrometry of metallocene complexes has been very well studied and the effect of the metal on the fragmentation of the organic moiety has received considerable attention and the identification of metal-containing fragments is often facilitated by the isotope distribution of the metal. The three major fragments observed in mass spectrometry are the molecular ion peak, [C10H10M]+, and fragment ions, [C5H5M]+ and M+.
After the discovery of ferrocene, the synthesis and characterization of derivatives of metallocene and other sandwich compounds attracted researchers’ interests.
Metallocenophanes feature linking of the cyclopentadienyl or polyarenyl rings by the introduction of one or more heteroannular bridges. Some of these compounds undergo thermal ring-opening polymerizations (ROP) to give soluble high molecular weight polymers with transition metals in the polymer backbone. Ansa-metallocenes are derivatives of metallocenes with an intramolecular bridge between the two cyclopentadienyl rings.
Triple-decker complexes are composed of three Cp anions and two metal cations in alternating order. The first triple-decker sandwich complex, [Ni2Cp3]+, was reported in 1972. Many examples have been reported subsequently, often with boron-containing rings.
The most famous example is ferrocenium, [Fe(C5H5)2]+, the blue iron(III) complex derived from oxidation of orange iron(II) ferrocene (few metallocene anions are known).
Many derivatives of early metal metallocenes are active catalysts for olefin polymerization. Unlike traditional and still dominant heterogeneous Ziegler–Natta catalysts, metallocene catalysts are homogeneous. Early metal metallocene derivatives, e.g. Tebbe's reagent, Petasis reagent, and Schwartz's reagent are useful in specialized organic synthetic operations.
The ferrocene/ferrocenium biosensor has been discussed for determining the levels of glucose in a sample electrochemically through a series of connected redox cycles.
Metallocene dihalides [Cp2MX2] (M = Ti, Mo, Nb) exhibit anti-tumor properties, although none have proceeded far in clinical trials.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20154
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Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius (; Marcus Aurelius Antoninus; 26 April 121 – 17 March 180) was a Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and a Stoic philosopher. He was the last of the rulers known as the Five Good Emperors (a term coined some 13 centuries later by Niccolò Machiavelli), and the last emperor of the Pax Romana, an age of relative peace and stability for the Roman Empire. He served as Roman consul in 140, 145, and 161.
Marcus was born during the reign of Hadrian to the emperor's nephew, the praetor Marcus Annius Verus and the heiress Domitia Lucilla. His father died when he was three, and Marcus was raised by his mother and grandfather. After Hadrian's adoptive son, Aelius Caesar, died in 138, the emperor adopted Marcus' uncle Antoninus Pius as his new heir. In turn, Antoninus adopted Marcus and the son of Aelius, Lucius (later to rule as Emperor Lucius Verus alongside Marcus). Hadrian died that year and Antoninus became emperor. Now heir to the throne, Marcus studied Greek and Latin under tutors such as Herodes Atticus and Marcus Cornelius Fronto. He kept in close correspondence with Fronto for many years afterwards. Marcus married Antoninus' daughter Faustina in 145. Antoninus died following an illness in 161.
The reign of Marcus Aurelius was marked by military conflict. In the East, the Roman Empire fought successfully with a revitalized Parthian Empire and the rebel Kingdom of Armenia. Marcus defeated the Marcomanni, Quadi, and Sarmatian Iazyges in the Marcomannic Wars; however, these and other Germanic peoples began to represent a troubling reality for the Empire. He modified the silver purity of the Roman currency, the denarius. The persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire is believed to have increased during his reign. The Antonine Plague broke out in 165 or 166 and devastated the population of the Roman Empire, causing the deaths of five million people. Lucius Verus may have died from the plague in 169.
Unlike some of his predecessors, Marcus chose not to adopt an heir. His children included Lucilla, who married Lucius, and Commodus, whose succession after Marcus has become a subject of debate among both contemporary and modern historians. The Column and Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius still stand in Rome, where they were erected in celebration of his military victories. "Meditations", the writings of "the philosopher" – as contemporary biographers called Marcus, are a significant source of the modern understanding of ancient Stoic philosophy. They have been praised by fellow writers, philosophers, monarchs, and politicians centuries after his death.
The major sources depicting the life and rule of Marcus are patchy and frequently unreliable. The most important group of sources, the biographies contained in the "Historia Augusta", claim to be written by a group of authors at the turn of the 4th century AD, but it is believed they were in fact written by a single author (referred to here as 'the biographer') from about 395 AD. The later biographies and the biographies of subordinate emperors and usurpers are unreliable, but the earlier biographies, derived primarily from now-lost earlier sources (Marius Maximus or Ignotus), are much more accurate. For Marcus' life and rule, the biographies of Hadrian, Antoninus, Marcus, and Lucius are largely reliable, but those of Aelius Verus and Avidius Cassius are not.
A body of correspondence between Marcus's tutor Fronto and various Antonine officials survives in a series of patchy manuscripts, covering the period from c. 138 to 166. Marcus' own "Meditations" offer a window on his inner life, but are largely undateable and make few specific references to worldly affairs. The main narrative source for the period is Cassius Dio, a Greek senator from Bithynian Nicaea who wrote a history of Rome from its founding to 229 in eighty books. Dio is vital for the military history of the period, but his senatorial prejudices and strong opposition to imperial expansion obscure his perspective. Some other literary sources provide specific details: the writings of the physician Galen on the habits of the Antonine elite, the orations of Aelius Aristides on the temper of the times, and the constitutions preserved in the "Digest" and "Codex Justinianeus" on Marcus's legal work. Inscriptions and coin finds supplement the literary sources.
Marcus was born in Rome on 26 April 121. His name at birth was supposedly Marcus Annius Verus, but some sources assign this name to him upon his father's death and unofficial adoption by his grandfather, upon his coming of age, or at the time of his marriage. He may have been known as Marcus Annius Catilius Severus, at birth or at some point in his youth, or Marcus Catilius Severus Annius Verus. Upon his adoption by Antoninus as heir to the throne, he was known as Marcus Aelius Aurelius Verus Caesar and, upon his ascension, he was Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus until his death; Epiphanius of Salamis, in his chronology of the Roman emperors "On Weights and Measures", calls him "Marcus Aurelius Verus".
Marcus' paternal family was of Roman Italo-Hispanic origins. His father was Marcus Annius Verus (III). The gens Annia was of Italian origins (with legendary claims of descendance from Numa Pompilius) and a branch of it moved to Ucubi, a small town south east of Córdoba in Iberian Baetica. This branch of the Aurelii based in Roman Spain, the "Annii Veri", rose to prominence in Rome in the late 1st century AD. Marcus' great-grandfather Marcus Annius Verus (I) was a senator and (according to the "Historia Augusta") ex-praetor; his grandfather Marcus Annius Verus (II) was made a patrician in 73–74. Through his grandmother Rupilia, Marcus was a member of the Nerva-Antonine dynasty; the emperor Trajan's sororal niece Salonia Matidia was the mother of Rupilia and her half-sister, Hadrian's wife Sabina.
Marcus' mother, Domitia Lucilla Minor (also known as Domitia Calvilla), was the daughter of the Roman patrician P. Calvisius Tullus and inherited a great fortune (described at length in one of Pliny's letters) from her parents and grandparents. Her inheritance included large brickworks on the outskirts of Rome – a profitable enterprise in an era when the city was experiencing a construction boom – and the "Horti Domitia Calvillae" (or "Lucillae"), a villa on the Caelian hill of Rome. Marcus himself was born and raised in the "Horti" and referred to the Caelian hill as 'My Caelian'.
The adoptive family of Marcus was of Roman Italo-Gallic origins: the gens Aurelia, into which Marcus was adopted at the age of 17, was a Sabine gens; Antoninus Pius, his adoptive father, came from the Aurelii Fulvi, a branch of the Aurelii based in Roman Gaul.
Marcus' sister, Annia Cornificia Faustina, was probably born in 122 or 123. His father probably died in 124, during his praetorship, when Marcus was three years old. Though he can hardly have known his father, Marcus wrote in his "Meditations" that he had learnt 'modesty and manliness' from his memories of his father and from the man's posthumous reputation. His mother Lucilla did not remarry and, following prevailing aristocratic customs, probably did not spend much time with her son. Instead, Marcus was in the care of 'nurses', and was raised after his father's death by his grandfather Marcus Annius Verus (II), who had always retained the legal authority of "patria potestas" over his son and grandson. Technically this was not an adoption, the creation of a new and different "patria potestas". Lucius Catilius Severus, described as Marcus' maternal great-grandfather, also participated in his upbringing; he was probably the elder Domitia Lucilla's stepfather. Marcus was raised in his parents' home on the Caelian Hill, an upscale area with few public buildings but many aristocratic villas. Marcus' grandfather owned a palace beside the Lateran, where he would spend much of his childhood. Marcus thanks his grandfather for teaching him 'good character and avoidance of bad temper'. He was less fond of the mistress his grandfather took and lived with after the death of his wife Rupilia. Marcus was grateful that he did not have to live with her longer than he did.
Marcus was educated at home, in line with contemporary aristocratic trends; he thanks Catilius Severus for encouraging him to avoid public schools. One of his teachers, Diognetus, a painting master, proved particularly influential; he seems to have introduced Marcus Aurelius to the philosophic way of life. In April 132, at the behest of Diognetus, Marcus took up the dress and habits of the philosopher: he studied while wearing a rough Greek cloak, and would sleep on the ground until his mother convinced him to sleep on a bed. A new set of tutors – the Homeric scholar Alexander of Cotiaeum along with Trosius Aper and Tuticius Proculus, teachers of Latin – took over Marcus' education in about 132 or 133. Marcus thanks Alexander for his training in literary styling. Alexander's influence – an emphasis on matter over style and careful wording, with the occasional Homeric quotation – has been detected in Marcus' "Meditations".
In late 136, Hadrian almost died from a hemorrhage. Convalescent in his villa at Tivoli, he selected Lucius Ceionius Commodus, Marcus' intended father-in-law, as his successor and adopted son, according to the biographer 'against the wishes of everyone'. While his motives are not certain, it would appear that his goal was to eventually place the then-too-young Marcus on the throne. As part of his adoption, Commodus took the name Lucius Aelius Caesar. His health was so poor that, during a ceremony to mark his becoming heir to the throne, he was too weak to lift a large shield on his own. After a brief stationing on the Danube frontier, Aelius returned to Rome to make an address to the senate on the first day of 138. The night before the speech, however, he grew ill, and died of a hemorrhage later in the day.
On 24 January 138, Hadrian selected Aurelius Antoninus, the husband of Marcus' aunt Faustina the Elder, as his new successor. As part of Hadrian's terms, Antoninus in turn adopted Marcus and Lucius Commodus, the son of Lucius Aelius. Marcus became M. Aelius Aurelius Verus, and Lucius became L. Aelius Aurelius Commodus. At Hadrian's request, Antoninus' daughter Faustina was betrothed to Lucius. Marcus reportedly greeted the news that Hadrian had become his adoptive grandfather with sadness, instead of joy. Only with reluctance did he move from his mother's house on the Caelian to Hadrian's private home.
At some time in 138, Hadrian requested in the senate that Marcus be exempt from the law barring him from becoming "quaestor" before his twenty-fourth birthday. The senate complied, and Marcus served under Antoninus, the consul for 139. Marcus' adoption diverted him from the typical career path of his class. If not for his adoption, he probably would have become "triumvir monetalis", a highly regarded post involving token administration of the state mint; after that, he could have served as tribune with a legion, becoming the legion's nominal second-in-command. Marcus probably would have opted for travel and further education instead. As it was, Marcus was set apart from his fellow citizens. Nonetheless, his biographer attests that his character remained unaffected: 'He still showed the same respect to his relations as he had when he was an ordinary citizen, and he was as thrifty and careful of his possessions as he had been when he lived in a private household'.
After a series of suicide attempts, all thwarted by Antoninus, Hadrian left for Baiae, a seaside resort on the Campanian coast. His condition did not improve, and he abandoned the diet prescribed by his doctors, indulging himself in food and drink. He sent for Antoninus, who was at his side when he died on 10 July 138. His remains were buried quietly at Puteoli. The succession to Antoninus was peaceful and stable: Antoninus kept Hadrian's nominees in office and appeased the senate, respecting its privileges and commuting the death sentences of men charged in Hadrian's last days. For his dutiful behaviour, Antoninus was asked to accept the name 'Pius'.
Immediately after Hadrian's death, Antoninus approached Marcus and requested that his marriage arrangements be amended: Marcus' betrothal to Ceionia Fabia would be annulled, and he would be betrothed to Faustina, Antoninus' daughter, instead. Faustina's betrothal to Ceionia's brother Lucius Commodus would also have to be annulled. Marcus consented to Antoninus' proposal. He was made consul for 140 with Antoninus as his colleague, and was appointed as a "seviri", one of the knights' six commanders, at the order's annual parade on 15 July 139. As the heir apparent, Marcus became "princeps iuventutis", head of the equestrian order. He now took the name Marcus Aelius Aurelius Verus Caesar. Marcus would later caution himself against taking the name too seriously: 'See that you do not turn into a Caesar; do not be dipped into the purple dye – for that can happen'. At the senate's request, Marcus joined all the priestly colleges ("pontifices", "augures", "quindecimviri sacris faciundis", "septemviri epulonum", etc.); direct evidence for membership, however, is available only for the Arval Brethren.
Antoninus demanded that Marcus reside in the House of Tiberius, the imperial palace on the Palatine, and take up the habits of his new station, the "aulicum fastigium" or 'pomp of the court', against Marcus' objections. Marcus would struggle to reconcile the life of the court with his philosophic yearnings. He told himself it was an attainable goal – 'Where life is possible, then it is possible to live the right life; life is possible in a palace, so it is possible to live the right life in a palace' – but he found it difficult nonetheless. He would criticize himself in the "Meditations" for 'abusing court life' in front of company.
As quaestor, Marcus would have had little real administrative work to do. He would read imperial letters to the senate when Antoninus was absent, and would do secretarial work for the senators. But he felt drowned in paperwork, and complained to his tutor, Marcus Cornelius Fronto: 'I am so out of breath from dictating nearly thirty letters'. He was being 'fitted for ruling the state', in the words of his biographer. He was required to make a speech to the assembled senators as well, making oratorical training essential for the job.
On 1 January 145, Marcus was made consul a second time. Fronto urged him in a letter to have plenty of sleep 'so that you may come into the Senate with a good colour and read your speech with a strong voice'. Marcus had complained of an illness in an earlier letter: 'As far as my strength is concerned, I am beginning to get it back; and there is no trace of the pain in my chest. But that ulcer [...] I am having treatment and taking care not to do anything that interferes with it'. Never particularly healthy or strong, Marcus was praised by Cassius Dio, writing of his later years, for behaving dutifully in spite of his various illnesses. In April 145, Marcus married Faustina, legally his sister, as had been planned since 138. Little is specifically known of the ceremony, but the biographer calls it 'noteworthy'. Coins were issued with the heads of the couple, and Antoninus, as "Pontifex Maximus", would have officiated. Marcus makes no apparent reference to the marriage in his surviving letters, and only sparing references to Faustina.
After taking the "toga virilis" in 136, Marcus probably began his training in oratory. He had three tutors in Greek – Aninus Macer, Caninius Celer, and Herodes Atticus – and one in Latin – Fronto. The latter two were the most esteemed orators of their time, but probably did not become his tutors until his adoption by Antoninus in 138. The preponderance of Greek tutors indicates the importance of the Greek language to the aristocracy of Rome. This was the age of the Second Sophistic, a renaissance in Greek letters. Although educated in Rome, in his "Meditations", Marcus would write his inmost thoughts in Greek.
Atticus was controversial: an enormously rich Athenian (probably the richest man in the eastern half of the empire), he was quick to anger, and resented by his fellow Athenians for his patronizing manner. Atticus was an inveterate opponent of Stoicism and philosophic pretensions. He thought the Stoics' desire for a 'lack of feeling' foolish: they would live a 'sluggish, enervated life', he said. In spite of the influence of Atticus, Marcus would later become a Stoic. He would not mention Herodes at all in his "Meditations", in spite of the fact that they would come into contact many times over the following decades.
Fronto was highly esteemed: in the self-consciously antiquarian world of Latin letters, he was thought of as second only to Cicero, perhaps even an alternative to him. He did not care much for Atticus, though Marcus was eventually to put the pair on speaking terms. Fronto exercised a complete mastery of Latin, capable of tracing expressions through the literature, producing obscure synonyms, and challenging minor improprieties in word choice.
A significant amount of the correspondence between Fronto and Marcus has survived. The pair were very close, using intimate language such as 'Farewell my Fronto, wherever you are, my most sweet love and delight. How is it between you and me? I love you and you are not here' in their correspondence. Marcus spent time with Fronto's wife and daughter, both named Cratia, and they enjoyed light conversation.
He wrote Fronto a letter on his birthday, claiming to love him as he loved himself, and calling on the gods to ensure that every word he learnt of literature, he would learn 'from the lips of Fronto'. His prayers for Fronto's health were more than conventional, because Fronto was frequently ill; at times, he seems to be an almost constant invalid, always suffering – about one-quarter of the surviving letters deal with the man's sicknesses. Marcus asks that Fronto's pain be inflicted on himself, 'of my own accord with every kind of discomfort'.
Fronto never became Marcus' full-time teacher, and continued his career as an advocate. One notorious case brought him into conflict with Atticus. Marcus pleaded with Fronto, first with 'advice', then as a 'favour', not to attack Atticus; he had already asked Atticus to refrain from making the first blows. Fronto replied that he was surprised to discover Marcus counted Atticus as a friend (perhaps Atticus was not yet Marcus' tutor), and allowed that Marcus might be correct, but nonetheless affirmed his intent to win the case by any means necessary: '[T]he charges are frightful and must be spoken of as frightful. Those in particular which refer to the beating and robbing I will describe in such a way that they savour of gall and bile. If I happen to call him an uneducated little Greek it will not mean war to the death'. The outcome of the trial is unknown.
By the age of twenty-five (between April 146 and April 147), Marcus had grown disaffected with his studies in jurisprudence, and showed some signs of general malaise. His master, he writes to Fronto, was an unpleasant blowhard, and had made 'a hit at' him: 'It is easy to sit yawning next to a judge, he says, but to "be" a judge is noble work'. Marcus had grown tired of his exercises, of taking positions in imaginary debates. When he criticized the insincerity of conventional language, Fronto took to defend it. In any case, Marcus' formal education was now over. He had kept his teachers on good terms, following them devotedly. It 'affected his health adversely', his biographer writes, to have devoted so much effort to his studies. It was the only thing the biographer could find fault with in Marcus' entire boyhood.
Fronto had warned Marcus against the study of philosophy early on: 'It is better never to have touched the teaching of philosophy...than to have tasted it superficially, with the edge of the lips, as the saying is'. He disdained philosophy and philosophers, and looked down on Marcus' sessions with Apollonius of Chalcedon and others in this circle. Fronto put an uncharitable interpretation of Marcus' 'conversion to philosophy': 'In the fashion of the young, tired of boring work', Marcus had turned to philosophy to escape the constant exercises of oratorical training. Marcus kept in close touch with Fronto, but would ignore Fronto's scruples.
Apollonius may have introduced Marcus to Stoic philosophy, but Quintus Junius Rusticus would have the strongest influence on the boy. He was the man Fronto recognized as having 'wooed Marcus away' from oratory. He was older than Fronto and twenty years older than Marcus. As the grandson of Arulenus Rusticus, one of the martyrs to the tyranny of Domitian ("r". 81–96), he was heir to the tradition of 'Stoic Opposition' to the 'bad emperors' of the 1st century; the true successor of Seneca (as opposed to Fronto, the false one). Marcus thanks Rusticus for teaching him 'not to be led astray into enthusiasm for rhetoric, for writing on speculative themes, for discoursing on moralizing texts... To avoid oratory, poetry, and 'fine writing".
Philostratus describes how even when Marcus was an old man, in the latter part of his reign, he studied under Sextus of Chaeronea:
The Emperor Marcus was an eager disciple of Sextus the Boeotian philosopher, being often in his company and frequenting his house. Lucius, who had just come to Rome, asked the Emperor, whom he met on his way, where he was going to and on what errand, and Marcus answered, ' it is good even for an old man to learn; I am now on my way to Sextus the philosopher to learn what I do not yet know.' And Lucius, raising his hand to heaven, said, ' O Zeus, the king of the Romans in his old age takes up his tablets and goes to school.'
On 30 November 147, Faustina gave birth to a girl named Domitia Faustina. She was the first of at least thirteen children (including two sets of twins) that Faustina would bear over the next twenty-three years. The next day, 1 December, Antoninus gave Marcus the tribunician power and the "imperium" – authority over the armies and provinces of the emperor. As tribune, he had the right to bring one measure before the senate after the four Antoninus could introduce. His tribunician powers would be renewed with Antoninus' on 10 December 147. The first mention of Domitia in Marcus' letters reveals her as a sickly infant. 'Caesar to Fronto. If the gods are willing we seem to have a hope of recovery. The diarrhea has stopped, the little attacks of fever have been driven away. But the emaciation is still extreme and there is still quite a bit of coughing'. He and Faustina, Marcus wrote, had been 'pretty occupied' with the girl's care. Domitia would die in 151.
In 149, Faustina gave birth again, to twin sons. Contemporary coinage commemorates the event, with crossed cornucopiae beneath portrait busts of the two small boys, and the legend "temporum felicitas", 'the happiness of the times'. They did not survive long. Before the end of the year, another family coin was issued: it shows only a tiny girl, Domitia Faustina, and one boy baby. Then another: the girl alone. The infants were buried in the Mausoleum of Hadrian, where their epitaphs survive. They were called Titus Aurelius Antoninus and Tiberius Aelius Aurelius. Marcus steadied himself: 'One man prays: 'How I may not lose my little child', but you must pray: 'How I may not be afraid to lose him'. He quoted from the "Iliad" what he called the 'briefest and most familiar saying...enough to dispel sorrow and fear': leaves,
the wind scatters some on the face of the ground;
like unto them are the children of men.
– "Iliad" vi.146
Another daughter was born on 7 March 150, Annia Aurelia Galeria Lucilla. At some time between 155 and 161, probably soon after 155, Marcus' mother Domitia Lucilla died. Faustina probably had another daughter in 151, but the child, Annia Galeria Aurelia Faustina, might not have been born until 153. Another son, Tiberius Aelius Antoninus, was born in 152. A coin issue celebrates "fecunditati Augustae", 'the Augusta's fertility', depicting two girls and an infant. The boy did not survive long, as evidenced by coins from 156, only depicting the two girls. He might have died in 152, the same year as Marcus' sister Cornificia. By 28 March 158, when Marcus replied, another of his children was dead. Marcus thanked the temple synod, 'even though this turned out otherwise'. The child's name is unknown. In 159 and 160, Faustina gave birth to daughters: Fadilla and Cornificia, named respectively after Faustina's and Marcus' dead sisters.
Lucius started his political career as a quaestor in 153. He was consul in 154, and was consul again with Marcus in 161. Lucius had no other titles, except that of 'son of Augustus'. Lucius had a markedly different personality from Marcus: he enjoyed sports of all kinds, but especially hunting and wrestling; he took obvious pleasure in the circus games and gladiatorial fights. He did not marry until 164.
In 156, Antoninus turned 70. He found it difficult to keep himself upright without stays. He started nibbling on dry bread to give him the strength to stay awake through his morning receptions. As Antoninus aged, Marcus would take on more administrative duties, more still when he became the praetorian prefect (an office that was as much secretarial as military) when Marcus Gavius Maximus died in 156 or 157. In 160, Marcus and Lucius were designated joint consuls for the following year. Antoninus may have already been ill.
Two days before his death, the biographer reports, Antoninus was at his ancestral estate at Lorium, in Etruria, about 19 kilometres (12 mi) from Rome. He ate Alpine cheese at dinner quite greedily. In the night he vomited; he had a fever the next day. The day after that, 7 March 161, he summoned the imperial council, and passed the state and his daughter to Marcus. The emperor gave the keynote to his life in the last word that he uttered when the tribune of the night-watch came to ask the password – 'aequanimitas' (equanimity). He then turned over, as if going to sleep, and died. His death closed out the longest reign since Augustus, surpassing Tiberius by a couple of months.
After Antoninus died in 161, Marcus was effectively sole ruler of the Empire. The formalities of the position would follow. The senate would soon grant him the name Augustus and the title "imperator", and he would soon be formally elected as "Pontifex Maximus", chief priest of the official cults. Marcus made some show of resistance: the biographer writes that he was 'compelled' to take imperial power. This may have been a genuine "horror imperii", 'fear of imperial power'. Marcus, with his preference for the philosophic life, found the imperial office unappealing. His training as a Stoic, however, had made the choice clear to him that it was his duty.
Although Marcus showed no personal affection for Hadrian (significantly, he does not thank him in the first book of his "Meditations"), he presumably believed it his duty to enact the man's succession plans. Thus, although the senate planned to confirm Marcus alone, he refused to take office unless Lucius received equal powers. The senate accepted, granting Lucius the "imperium", the tribunician power, and the name Augustus. Marcus became, in official titulature, Imperator Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus; Lucius, forgoing his name Commodus and taking Marcus' family name Verus, became Imperator Caesar Lucius Aurelius Verus Augustus. It was the first time that Rome was ruled by two emperors.
In spite of their nominal equality, Marcus held more "auctoritas", or 'authority', than Lucius. He had been consul once more than Lucius, he had shared in Antoninus' rule, and he alone was "Pontifex Maximus". It would have been clear to the public which emperor was the more senior. As the biographer wrote, 'Verus obeyed Marcus...as a lieutenant obeys a proconsul or a governor obeys the emperor'.
Immediately after their senate confirmation, the emperors proceeded to the Castra Praetoria, the camp of the Praetorian Guard. Lucius addressed the assembled troops, which then acclaimed the pair as "imperatores". Then, like every new emperor since Claudius, Lucius promised the troops a special donative. This donative, however, was twice the size of those past: 20,000 sesterces (5,000 denarii) per capita, with more to officers. In return for this bounty, equivalent to several years' pay, the troops swore an oath to protect the emperors. The ceremony was perhaps not entirely necessary, given that Marcus' accession had been peaceful and unopposed, but it was good insurance against later military troubles. Upon his accession he also devalued the Roman currency. He decreased the silver purity of the denarius from 83.5% to 79% – the silver weight dropping from to .
Antoninus' funeral ceremonies were, in the words of the biographer, 'elaborate'. If his funeral followed those of his predecessors, his body would have been incinerated on a pyre at the Campus Martius, and his spirit would have been seen as ascending to the gods' home in the heavens. Marcus and Lucius nominated their father for deification. In contrast to their behaviour during Antoninus' campaign to deify Hadrian, the senate did not oppose the emperors' wishes. A "flamen", or cultic priest, was appointed to minister the cult of the deified Divus Antoninus. Antoninus' remains were laid to rest in Hadrian's mausoleum, beside the remains of Marcus' children and of Hadrian himself. The temple he had dedicated to his wife, Diva Faustina, became the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina. It survives as the church of San Lorenzo in Miranda.
In accordance with his will, Antoninus' fortune passed on to Faustina. (Marcus had little need of his wife's fortune. Indeed, at his accession, Marcus transferred part of his mother's estate to his nephew, Ummius Quadratus.) Faustina was three months pregnant at her husband's accession. During the pregnancy she dreamed of giving birth to two serpents, one fiercer than the other. On 31 August, she gave birth at Lanuvium to twins: T. Aurelius Fulvus Antoninus and Lucius Aurelius Commodus. Aside from the fact that the twins shared Caligula's birthday, the omens were favorable, and the astrologers drew positive horoscopes for the children. The births were celebrated on the imperial coinage.
Soon after the emperors' accession, Marcus' eleven-year-old daughter, Annia Lucilla, was betrothed to Lucius (in spite of the fact that he was, formally, her uncle). At the ceremonies commemorating the event, new provisions were made for the support of poor children, along the lines of earlier imperial foundations. Marcus and Lucius proved popular with the people of Rome, who strongly approved of their "civiliter" ('lacking pomp') behaviour. The emperors permitted free speech, evidenced by the fact that the comedy writer Marullus was able to criticize them without suffering retribution. As the biographer wrote, 'No one missed the lenient ways of Pius'.
Marcus replaced a number of the empire's major officials. The "ab epistulis" Sextus Caecilius Crescens Volusianus, in charge of the imperial correspondence, was replaced with Titus Varius Clemens. Clemens was from the frontier province of Pannonia and had served in the war in Mauretania. Recently, he had served as procurator of five provinces. He was a man suited for a time of military crisis. Lucius Volusius Maecianus, Marcus' former tutor, had been prefectural governor of Egypt at Marcus' accession. Maecianus was recalled, made senator, and appointed prefect of the treasury ("aerarium Saturni"). He was made consul soon after. Fronto's son-in-law, Gaius Aufidius Victorinus, was appointed governor of Germania Superior.
Fronto returned to his Roman townhouse at dawn on 28 March, having left his home in Cirta as soon as news of his pupils' accession reached him. He sent a note to the imperial freedman Charilas, asking if he could call on the emperors. Fronto would later explain that he had not dared to write the emperors directly. The tutor was immensely proud of his students. Reflecting on the speech he had written on taking his consulship in 143, when he had praised the young Marcus, Fronto was ebullient: 'There was then an outstanding natural ability in you; there is now perfected excellence. There was then a crop of growing corn; there is now a ripe, gathered harvest. What I was hoping for then, I have now. The hope has become a reality.' Fronto called on Marcus alone; neither thought to invite Lucius.
Lucius was less esteemed by Fronto than his brother, as his interests were on a lower level. Lucius asked Fronto to adjudicate in a dispute he and his friend Calpurnius were having on the relative merits of two actors. Marcus told Fronto of his reading – Coelius and a little Cicero – and his family. His daughters were in Rome with their great-great-aunt Matidia; Marcus thought the evening air of the country was too cold for them. He asked Fronto for 'some particularly eloquent reading matter, something of your own, or Cato, or Cicero, or Sallust or Gracchus – or some poet, for I need distraction, especially in this kind of way, by reading something that will uplift and diffuse my pressing anxieties.' Marcus' early reign proceeded smoothly; he was able to give himself wholly to philosophy and the pursuit of popular affection. Soon, however, he would find he had many anxieties. It would mean the end of the "felicitas temporum" ('happy times') that the coinage of 161 had proclaimed.
In either autumn 161 or spring 162, the Tiber overflowed its banks, flooding much of Rome. It drowned many animals, leaving the city in famine. Marcus and Lucius gave the crisis their personal attention. In other times of famine, the emperors are said to have provided for the Italian communities out of the Roman granaries.
Fronto's letters continued through Marcus' early reign. Fronto felt that, because of Marcus' prominence and public duties, lessons were more important now than they had ever been before. He believed Marcus was 'beginning to feel the wish to be eloquent once more, in spite of having for a time lost interest in eloquence'. Fronto would again remind his pupil of the tension between his role and his philosophic pretensions: 'Suppose, Caesar, that you can attain to the wisdom of Cleanthes and Zeno, yet, against your will, not the philosopher's woolen cape'.
The early days of Marcus' reign were the happiest of Fronto's life: Marcus was beloved by the people of Rome, an excellent emperor, a fond pupil, and perhaps most importantly, as eloquent as could be wished. Marcus had displayed rhetorical skill in his speech to the senate after an earthquake at Cyzicus. It had conveyed the drama of the disaster, and the senate had been awed: 'Not more suddenly or violently was the city stirred by the earthquake than the minds of your hearers by your speech'. Fronto was hugely pleased.
On his deathbed, Antoninus spoke of nothing but the state and the foreign kings who had wronged him. One of those kings, Vologases IV of Parthia, made his move in late summer or early autumn 161. Vologases entered the Kingdom of Armenia (then a Roman client state), expelled its king and installed his own – Pacorus, an Arsacid like himself. The governor of Cappadocia, the frontline in all Armenian conflicts, was Marcus Sedatius Severianus, a Gaul with much experience in military matters.
Convinced by the prophet Alexander of Abonutichus that he could defeat the Parthians easily and win glory for himself, Severianus led a legion (perhaps the IX Hispana) into Armenia, but was trapped by the great Parthian general Chosrhoes at Elegia, a town just beyond the Cappadocian frontiers, high up past the headwaters of the Euphrates. After Severianus made some unsuccessful efforts to engage Chosrhoes, he committed suicide, and his legion was massacred. The campaign had lasted only three days.
There was threat of war on other frontiers as well – in Britain, and in Raetia and Upper Germany, where the Chatti of the Taunus mountains had recently crossed over the "limes". Marcus was unprepared. Antoninus seems to have given him no military experience; the biographer writes that Marcus spent the whole of Antoninus' twenty-three-year reign at his emperor's side and not in the provinces, where most previous emperors had spent their early careers.
More bad news arrived: the Syrian governor's army had been defeated by the Parthians, and retreated in disarray. Reinforcements were dispatched for the Parthian frontier. P. Julius Geminius Marcianus, an African senator commanding X Gemina at Vindobona (Vienna), left for Cappadocia with detachments from the Danubian legions. Three full legions were also sent east: I Minervia from Bonn in Upper Germany, II Adiutrix from Aquincum, and V Macedonica from Troesmis.
The northern frontiers were strategically weakened; frontier governors were told to avoid conflict wherever possible. M. Annius Libo, Marcus' first cousin, was sent to replace the Syrian governor. His first consulship was in 161, so he was probably in his early thirties, and as a patrician, he lacked military experience. Marcus had chosen a reliable man rather than a talented one.
Marcus took a four-day public holiday at Alsium, a resort town on the coast of Etruria. He was too anxious to relax. Writing to Fronto, he declared that he would not speak about his holiday. Fronto replied: 'What? Do I not know that you went to Alsium with the intention of devoting yourself to games, joking, and complete leisure for four whole days?' He encouraged Marcus to rest, calling on the example of his predecessors (Antoninus had enjoyed exercise in the "palaestra", fishing, and comedy), going so far as to write up a fable about the gods' division of the day between morning and evening – Marcus had apparently been spending most of his evenings on judicial matters instead of at leisure. Marcus could not take Fronto's advice. 'I have duties hanging over me that can hardly be begged off', he wrote back. Marcus Aurelius put on Fronto's voice to chastise himself: "Much good has my advice done you', you will say!' He had rested, and would rest often, but 'this devotion to duty! Who knows better than you how demanding it is!'
Fronto sent Marcus a selection of reading material, and, to settle his unease over the course of the Parthian war, a long and considered letter, full of historical references. In modern editions of Fronto's works, it is labeled "De bello Parthico" ("On the Parthian War"). There had been reverses in Rome's past, Fronto writes, but in the end, Romans had always prevailed over their enemies: 'Always and everywhere [Mars] has changed our troubles into successes and our terrors into triumphs'.
Over the winter of 161–162, news that a rebellion was brewing in Syria arrived and it was decided that Lucius should direct the Parthian war in person. He was stronger and healthier than Marcus, the argument went, and thus more suited to military activity. Lucius' biographer suggests ulterior motives: to restrain Lucius' debaucheries, to make him thrifty, to reform his morals by the terror of war, and to realize that he was an emperor. Whatever the case, the senate gave its assent, and, in the summer of 162, Lucius left. Marcus would remain in Rome, as the city 'demanded the presence of an emperor'.
Lucius spent most of the campaign in Antioch, though he wintered at Laodicea and summered at Daphne, a resort just outside Antioch. Critics declaimed Lucius' luxurious lifestyle, saying that he had taken to gambling, would 'dice the whole night through', and enjoyed the company of actors. Libo died early in the war; perhaps Lucius had murdered him.
In the middle of the war, perhaps in autumn 163 or early 164, Lucius made a trip to Ephesus to be married to Marcus' daughter Lucilla. Marcus moved up the date; perhaps he had already heard of Lucius' mistress Panthea. Lucilla's thirteenth birthday was in March 163; whatever the date of her marriage, she was not yet fifteen. Lucilla was accompanied by her mother Faustina and Lucius' uncle (his father's half-brother) M. Vettulenus Civica Barbarus, who was made "comes Augusti", 'companion of the emperors'. Marcus may have wanted Civica to watch over Lucius, the job Libo had failed at. Marcus may have planned to accompany them all the way to Smyrna (the biographer says he told the senate he would), but this did not happen. He only accompanied the group as far as Brundisium, where they boarded a ship for the east. He returned to Rome immediately thereafter, and sent out special instructions to his proconsuls not to give the group any official reception.
The Armenian capital Artaxata was captured in 163. At the end of the year, Lucius took the title "Armeniacus", despite having never seen combat; Marcus declined to accept the title until the following year. When Lucius was hailed as "imperator" again, however, Marcus did not hesitate to take the "Imperator II" with him.
Occupied Armenia was reconstructed on Roman terms. In 164, a new capital, Kaine Polis ('New City'), replaced Artaxata. A new king was installed: a Roman senator of consular rank and Arsacid descent, Gaius Julius Sohaemus. He may not even have been crowned in Armenia; the ceremony may have taken place in Antioch, or even Ephesus. Sohaemus was hailed on the imperial coinage of 164 under the legend : Lucius sat on a throne with his staff while Sohaemus stood before him, saluting the emperor.
In 163, the Parthians intervened in Osroene, a Roman client in upper Mesopotamia centred on Edessa, and installed their own king on its throne. In response, Roman forces were moved downstream, to cross the Euphrates at a more southerly point. Before the end of 163, however, Roman forces had moved north to occupy Dausara and Nicephorium on the northern, Parthian bank. Soon after the conquest of the north bank of the Euphrates, other Roman forces moved on Osroene from Armenia, taking Anthemusia, a town southwest of Edessa.
In 165, Roman forces moved on Mesopotamia. Edessa was re-occupied, and Mannus, the king deposed by the Parthians, was re-installed. The Parthians retreated to Nisibis, but this too was besieged and captured. The Parthian army dispersed in the Tigris. A second force, under Avidius Cassius and the III Gallica, moved down the Euphrates, and fought a major battle at Dura.
By the end of the year, Cassius' army had reached the twin metropolises of Mesopotamia: Seleucia on the right bank of the Tigris and Ctesiphon on the left. Ctesiphon was taken and its royal palace set to flame. The citizens of Seleucia, still largely Greek (the city had been commissioned and settled as a capital of the Seleucid Empire, one of Alexander the Great's successor kingdoms), opened its gates to the invaders. The city was sacked nonetheless, leaving a black mark on Lucius' reputation. Excuses were sought, or invented: the official version had it that the Seleucids broke faith first.
Cassius' army, although suffering from a shortage of supplies and the effects of a plague contracted in Seleucia, made it back to Roman territory safely. Lucius took the title Parthicus Maximus, and he and Marcus were hailed as "imperatores" again, earning the title 'imp. III'. Cassius' army returned to the field in 166, crossing over the Tigris into Media. Lucius took the title 'Medicus', and the emperors were again hailed as "imperatores", becoming 'imp. IV' in imperial titulature. Marcus took the Parthicus Maximus now, after another tactful delay. On 12 October of that year, Marcus proclaimed two of his sons, Annius and Commodus, as his heirs.
During the early 160s, Fronto's son-in-law Victorinus was stationed as a legate in Germany. He was there with his wife and children (another child had stayed with Fronto and his wife in Rome). The condition on the northern frontier looked grave. A frontier post had been destroyed, and it looked like all the peoples of central and northern Europe were in turmoil. There was corruption among the officers: Victorinus had to ask for the resignation of a legionary legate who was taking bribes.
Experienced governors had been replaced by friends and relatives of the imperial family. Lucius Dasumius Tullius Tuscus, a distant relative of Hadrian, was in Upper Pannonia, succeeding the experienced Marcus Nonius Macrinus. Lower Pannonia was under the obscure Tiberius Haterius Saturnius. Marcus Servilius Fabianus Maximus was shuffled from Lower Moesia to Upper Moesia when Marcus Iallius Bassus had joined Lucius in Antioch. Lower Moesia was filled by Pontius Laelianus' son. The Dacias were still divided in three, governed by a praetorian senator and two procurators. The peace could not hold long; Lower Pannonia did not even have a legion.
Starting in the 160s, Germanic tribes, and other nomadic people launched raids along the northern border, particularly into Gaul and across the Danube. This new impetus westwards was probably due to attacks from tribes further east. A first invasion of the Chatti in the province of Germania Superior was repulsed in 162.
Far more dangerous was the invasion of 166, when the Marcomanni of Bohemia, clients of the Roman Empire since 19 AD, crossed the Danube together with the Lombards and other Germanic tribes. Soon thereafter, the Iranian Sarmatian Iazyges attacked between the Danube and the Theiss rivers.
The Costoboci, coming from the Carpathian area, invaded Moesia, Macedonia, and Greece. After a long struggle, Marcus managed to push back the invaders. Numerous members of Germanic tribes settled in frontier regions like Dacia, Pannonia, Germany, and Italy itself. This was not a new thing, but this time the numbers of settlers required the creation of two new frontier provinces on the left shore of the Danube, Sarmatia and Marcomannia, including today's Czechia, Slovakia, and Hungary. Some Germanic tribes who settled in Ravenna revolted and managed to seize possession of the city. For this reason, Marcus decided not only against bringing more barbarians into Italy, but even banished those who had previously been brought there.
Like many emperors, Marcus spent most of his time addressing matters of law such as petitions and hearing disputes, but unlike many of his predecessors, he was already proficient in imperial administration when he assumed power. He took great care in the theory and practice of legislation. Professional jurists called him 'an emperor most skilled in the law' and 'a most prudent and conscientiously just emperor'. He showed marked interest in three areas of the law: the manumission of slaves, the guardianship of orphans and minors, and the choice of city councillors ("decuriones").
Marcus showed a great deal of respect to the Roman Senate and routinely asked them for permission to spend money even though he did not need to do so as the absolute ruler of the Empire. In one speech, Marcus himself reminded the Senate that the imperial palace where he lived was not truly his possession but theirs. In 168, he revalued the denarius, increasing the silver purity from 79% to 82% – the actual silver weight increasing from . However, two years later he reverted to the previous values because of the military crises facing the empire.
A possible contact with Han China occurred in 166 when a Roman traveller visited the Han court, claiming to be an ambassador representing a certain Andun (Chinese: 安 敦), ruler of Daqin, who can be identified either with Marcus or his predecessor Antoninus. In addition to Republican-era Roman glasswares found at Guangzhou along the South China Sea, Roman golden medallions made during the reign of Antoninus and perhaps even Marcus have been found at Óc Eo, Vietnam, then part of the Kingdom of Funan near the Chinese province of Jiaozhi (in northern Vietnam). This may have been the port city of Kattigara, described by Ptolemy (c. 150) as being visited by a Greek sailor named Alexander and lying beyond the Golden Chersonese (i.e. Malay Peninsula). Roman coins from the reigns of Tiberius to Aurelian have been found in Xi'an, China (site of the Han capital Chang'an), although the far greater amount of Roman coins in India suggests the Roman maritime trade for purchasing Chinese silk was centred there, not in China or even the overland Silk Road running through Persia.
The Antonine Plague started in Mesopotamia in 165 or 166 at the end of Lucius' campaign against the Parthians. It may have continued into the reign of Commodus. Galen, who was in Rome when the plague spread to the city in 166, mentioned that 'fever, diarrhoea, and inflammation of the pharynx, along with dry or pustular eruptions of the skin after nine days' were among the symptoms. It is believed that the plague was smallpox. In the view of historian Rafe de Crespigny, the plagues afflicting the Eastern Han empire of China during the reigns of Emperor Huan of Han (r. 146–168) and Emperor Ling of Han (r. 168–189), which struck in 151, 161, 171, 173, 179, 182, and 185, were perhaps connected to the plague in Rome. Raoul McLaughlin writes that the travel of Roman subjects to the Han Chinese court in 166 may have started a new era of Roman–Far East trade. However, it was also a 'harbinger of something much more ominous'. According to McLaughlin, the disease caused 'irreparable' damage to the Roman maritime trade in the Indian Ocean as proven by the archaeological record spanning from Egypt to India, as well as significantly decreased Roman commercial activity in Southeast Asia.
Marcus died at the age of 58 on 17 March 180 due to natural causes in the city of Vindobona (modern Vienna). He was immediately deified and his ashes were returned to Rome, where they rested in Hadrian's mausoleum (modern Castel Sant'Angelo) until the Visigoth sack of the city in 410. His campaigns against Germans and Sarmatians were also commemorated by a column and a temple built in Rome. Some scholars consider his death to be the end of the Pax Romana.
Marcus was succeeded by his son Commodus, whom he had named Caesar in 166 and with whom he had jointly ruled since 177. Biological sons of the emperor, if there were any, were considered heirs; however, it was only the second time that a "non-adoptive" son had succeeded his father, the only other having been a century earlier when Vespasian was succeeded by his son Titus. Historians have criticized the succession to Commodus, citing Commodus' erratic behaviour and lack of political and military acumen. At the end of his history of Marcus' reign, Cassius Dio wrote an encomium to the emperor, and described the transition to Commodus in his own lifetime with sorrow:
[Marcus] did not meet with the good fortune that he deserved, for he was not strong in body and was involved in a multitude of troubles throughout practically his entire reign. But for my part, I admire him all the more for this very reason, that amid unusual and extraordinary difficulties he both survived himself and preserved the empire. Just one thing prevented him from being completely happy, namely, that after rearing and educating his son in the best possible way he was vastly disappointed in him. This matter must be our next topic; for our history now descends from a kingdom of gold to one of iron and rust, as affairs did for the Romans of that day.
Dio adds that from Marcus' first days as counsellor to Antoninus to his final days as emperor of Rome, "he remained the same [person] and did not change in the least."
Michael Grant, in "The Climax of Rome", writes of Commodus:
The youth turned out to be very erratic, or at least so anti-traditional that disaster was inevitable. But whether or not Marcus ought to have known this to be so, the rejections of his son's claims in favour of someone else would almost certainly have involved one of the civil wars which were to proliferate so disastrously around future successions.
Marcus acquired the reputation of a philosopher king within his lifetime, and the title would remain after his death; both Dio and the biographer call him 'the philosopher'. Christians such as Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, and Eusebius also gave him the title. The last named went so far as to call him "more philanthropic and philosophic" than Antoninus and Hadrian, and set him against the persecuting emperors Domitian and Nero to make the contrast bolder. "Alone of the emperors," wrote the historian Herodian, "he gave proof of his learning not by mere words or knowledge of philosophical doctrines but by his blameless character and temperate way of life". Iain King concludes that Marcus' legacy is tragic, because the emperor's "Stoic philosophy – which is about self-restraint, duty, and respect for others – was so abjectly abandoned by the imperial line he anointed on his death."
In the first two centuries of the Christian era, it was local Roman officials who were largely responsible for the persecution of Christians. In the second century, the emperors treated Christianity as a local problem to be dealt with by their subordinates. The number and severity of persecutions of Christians in various locations of the empire seemingly increased during the reign of Marcus. The extent to which Marcus himself directed, encouraged, or was aware of these persecutions is unclear and much debated by historians. The early Christian apologist, Justin Martyr, includes within his First Apology (written between 140 and 150 A.D.) a letter from Marcus Aurelius to the Roman senate (prior to his reign) describing a battlefield incident in which Marcus believed Christian prayer had saved his army from thirst when "water poured from heaven," after which, "immediately we recognized the presence of God." Marcus goes on to request the senate desist from earlier courses of Christian persecution by Rome.
Marcus and his cousin-wife Faustina had at least 13 children during their 30-year marriage, including two sets of twins. One son and four daughters outlived their father. Their children included:
While on campaign between 170 and 180, Marcus wrote his "Meditations" in Greek as a source for his own guidance and self-improvement. The original title of this work, if it had one, is unknown. 'Meditations' – as well as other titles including 'To Himself' – were adopted later. He had a logical mind and his notes were representative of Stoic philosophy and spirituality. "Meditations" is still revered as a literary monument to a government of service and duty. According to Hays, the book was a favourite of Christina of Sweden, Frederick the Great, John Stuart Mill, Matthew Arnold, and Goethe, and is admired by modern figures such as Wen Jiabao and Bill Clinton. It has been considered by many commentators to be one of the greatest works of philosophy.
It is not known how widely Marcus' writings were circulated after his death. There are stray references in the ancient literature to the popularity of his precepts, and Julian the Apostate was well aware of his reputation as a philosopher, though he does not specifically mention "Meditations". It survived in the scholarly traditions of the Eastern Church and the first surviving quotes of the book, as well as the first known reference of it by name ('Marcus' writings to himself') are from Arethas of Caesarea in the 10th century and in the Byzantine Suda (perhaps inserted by Arethas himself). It was first published in 1558 in Zurich by Wilhelm Xylander (ne Holzmann), from a manuscript reportedly lost shortly afterwards. The oldest surviving complete manuscript copy is in the Vatican library and dates to the 14th century.
The Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius in Rome is the only Roman equestrian statue which has survived into the modern period. This may be due to it being wrongly identified during the Middle Ages as a depiction of the Christian emperor Constantine the Great, and spared the destruction which statues of pagan figures suffered. Crafted of bronze in circa 175, it stands and is now located in the Capitoline Museums of Rome. The emperor's hand is outstretched in an act of clemency offered to a bested enemy, while his weary facial expression due to the stress of leading Rome into nearly constant battles perhaps represents a break with the classical tradition of sculpture.
Marcus' victory column, established in Rome either in his last few years of life or after his reign and completed in 193, was built to commemorate his victory over the Sarmatians and Germanic tribes in 176. A spiral of carved reliefs wraps around the column, showing scenes from his military campaigns. A statue of Marcus had stood atop the column but disappeared during the Middle Ages. It was replaced with a statue of Saint Paul in 1589 by Pope Sixtus V. The column of Marcus and the column of Trajan are often compared by scholars given how they are both Doric in style, had a pedestal at the base, had sculpted friezes depicting their respective military victories, and a statue on top.
All citations to the "Historia Augusta" are to individual biographies, and are marked with a "HA". Citations to the works of Fronto are cross-referenced to C.R. Haines' Loeb edition.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20155
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Maze
A maze is a path or collection of paths, typically from an entrance to a goal. The word is used to refer both to branching tour puzzles through which the solver must find a route, and to simpler non-branching ("unicursal") patterns that lead unambiguously through a convoluted layout to a goal. (The term "labyrinth" is generally synonymous with "maze", but can also connote specifically a unicursal pattern.) The pathways and walls in a maze are typically fixed, but puzzles in which the walls and paths can change during the game are also categorised as mazes or tour puzzles.
Mazes have been built with walls and rooms, with hedges, turf, corn stalks, straw bales, books, paving stones of contrasting colors or designs, and brick, or in fields of crops such as corn or, indeed, maize. Maize mazes can be very large; they are usually only kept for one growing season, so they can be different every year, and are promoted as seasonal tourist attractions. Indoors, mirror mazes are another form of maze, in which many of the apparent pathways are imaginary routes seen through multiple reflections in mirrors. Another type of maze consists of a set of rooms linked by doors (so a passageway is just another room in this definition). Players enter at one spot, and exit at another, or the idea may be to reach a certain spot in the maze. Mazes can also be printed or drawn on paper to be followed by a pencil or fingertip. Mazes can be built with snow.
Maze generation is the act of designing the layout of passages and walls within a maze. There are many different approaches to generating mazes, with various maze generation algorithms for building them, either by hand or automatically by computer.
There are two main mechanisms used to generate mazes. In "carving passages", one marks out the network of available routes. In building a maze by "adding walls", one lays out a set of obstructions within an open area. Most mazes drawn on paper are done by drawing the walls, with the spaces in between the markings composing the passages.
Maze solving is the act of finding a route through the maze from the start to finish. Some maze solving methods are designed to be used inside the maze by a traveler with no prior knowledge of the maze, whereas others are designed to be used by a person or computer program that can see the whole maze at once.
The mathematician Leonhard Euler was one of the first to analyze plane mazes mathematically, and in doing so made the first significant contributions to the branch of mathematics known as topology.
Mazes containing no loops are known as "standard", or "perfect" mazes, and are equivalent to a "tree" in graph theory. Thus many maze solving algorithms are closely related to graph theory. Intuitively, if one pulled and stretched out the paths in the maze in the proper way, the result could be made to resemble a tree.
Mazes are often used in psychology experiments to study spatial navigation and learning. Such experiments typically use rats or mice. Examples are:
Numerous mazes of different kinds have been drawn, painted, published in books and periodicals, used in advertising, in software, and sold as art. In the 1970s there occurred a publishing "maze craze" in which numerous books, and some magazines, were commercially available in nationwide outlets and devoted exclusively to mazes of a complexity that was able to challenge adults as well as children (for whom simple maze puzzles have long been provided both before, during, and since the 1970s "craze").
Some of the best-selling books in the 1970s and early 1980s included those produced by Vladimir Koziakin, Rick and Glory Brightfield, Dave Phillips, Larry Evans, and Greg Bright. Koziakin's works were predominantly of the standard two-dimensional "trace a line between the walls" variety. The works of the Brightfields had a similar two-dimensional form but used a variety of graphics-oriented "path obscuring" techniques. Although the routing was comparable to or simpler than Koziakin's mazes, the Brightfields' mazes did not allow the various pathway options to be discerned easily by the roving eye as it glanced about.
Greg Bright's works went beyond the standard published forms of the time by including "weave" mazes in which illustrated pathways can cross over and under each other. Bright's works also offered examples of extremely complex patterns of routing and optical illusions for the solver to work through. What Bright termed "mutually accessible centers" ("The Great Maze Book", 1973) also called "braid" mazes, allowed a proliferation of paths flowing in spiral patterns from a central nexus and, rather than relying on "dead ends" to hinder progress, instead relied on an overabundance of pathway choices. Rather than have a single solution to the maze, Bright's routing often offered multiple equally valid routes from start to finish, with no loss of complexity or diminishment of solver difficulties because the result was that it became difficult for a solver to definitively "rule out" a particular pathway as unproductive. Some of Bright's innovative mazes had no "dead ends", although some clearly had looping sections (or "islands") that would cause careless explorers to keep looping back again and again to pathways they had already travelled.
The books of Larry Evans focused on 3-D structures, often with realistic perspective and architectural themes, and Bernard Myers ("Supermazes" No. 1) produced similar illustrations. Both Greg Bright ("The Hole Maze Book") and Dave Phillips ("The World's Most Difficult Maze") published maze books in which the sides of pages could be crossed over and in which holes could allow the pathways to cross from one page to another, and one side of a page to the other, thus enhancing the 3-D routing capacity of 2-D printed illustrations.
Adrian Fisher is both the most prolific contemporary author on mazes, and also one of the leading maze designers. His book "The Amazing Book of Mazes" (2006) contains examples and photographs of numerous methods of maze construction, several of which have been pioneered by Fisher; "The Art of the Maze" (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1990) contains a substantial history of the subject, whilst "Mazes and Labyrinths" (Shire Publications, 2004) is a useful introduction to the subject.
A recent book by Galen Wadzinski ("The Ultimate Maze Book") offers formalized rules for more recent innovations that involve single-directional pathways, 3-D simulating illustrations, "key" and "ordered stop" mazes in which items must be collected or visited in particular orders to add to the difficulties of routing (such restrictions on pathway traveling and re-use are important in a printed book in which the limited amount of space on a printed page would otherwise place clear limits on the number of choices and pathways that can be contained within a single maze). Although these innovations are not all entirely new with Wadzinski, the book marks a significant advancement in published maze puzzles, offering expansions on the traditional puzzles that seem to have been fully informed by various video game innovations and designs, and adds new levels of challenge and complexity in both the design and the goals offered to the puzzle-solver in a printed format.
Chartwell Castle in Johannesburg claims to have the biggest known uninterrupted hedgerow maze in the Southern world, with over 900 conifers. It covers about 6000 sq.m. (approximately 1.5 acres), which is around 5 times bigger than The Hampton Court Maze. The center is about 12m × 12m. The maze was designed and laid out by Conrad Penny.
; on "American Gladiators", both contestants ran through the maze simultaneously and were given 45 seconds to find the correct solution. The giant maze was part of the game rotation on both programs concurrently, and was also retired from both programs simultaneously.
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Mammoth
A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus Mammuthus, one of the many genera that make up the order of trunked mammals called proboscideans. The various species of mammoth were commonly equipped with long, curved tusks and, in northern species, a covering of long hair. They lived from the Pliocene epoch (from around 5 million years ago) into the Holocene at about 4,000 years ago, and various species existed in Africa, Europe, Asia, and North America. They were members of the family Elephantidae, which also contains the two genera of modern elephants and their ancestors.
The oldest representative of "Mammuthus", the South African mammoth ("M. subplanifrons"), appeared around 5 million years ago during the early Pliocene in what is now southern and eastern Africa. Descendant species of these mammoths moved north and continued to propagate into numerous subsequent species, eventually covering most of Eurasia before extending into the Americas at least 600,000 years ago. The last species to emerge, the woolly mammoth ("M. primigenius"), developed about 400,000 years ago in East Asia, with some surviving on Russia's Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean until as recently as roughly 3,700 to 4,000 years ago, still extant during the construction of the Great Pyramid of ancient Egypt.
The earliest known proboscideans, the clade that contains the elephants, existed about 55 million years ago around the Tethys Sea area. The closest relatives of the Proboscidea are the sirenians and the hyraxes. The family Elephantidae is known to have existed six million years ago in Africa, and includes the living elephants and the mammoths. Among many now extinct clades, the mastodon is only a distant relative of the mammoths, and part of the separate Mammutidae family, which diverged 25 million years before the mammoths evolved.
The following cladogram shows the placement of the genus "Mammuthus" among other proboscideans, based on hyoid characteristics:
Since many remains of each species of mammoth are known from several localities, it is possible to reconstruct the evolutionary history of the genus through morphological studies. Mammoth species can be identified from the number of enamel ridges on their molars; the primitive species had few ridges, and the amount increased gradually as new species evolved and replaced the former ones. At the same time, the crowns of the teeth became longer, and the skulls become higher from top to bottom and shorter from the back to the front over time to accommodate this.
The first known members of the genus "Mammuthus" are the African species "Mammuthus subplanifrons" from the Pliocene and "Mammuthus africanavus" from the Pleistocene. The former is thought to be the ancestor of later forms. Mammoths entered Europe around 3 million years ago; the earliest known type has been named "M. rumanus", which spread across Europe and China. Only its molars are known, which show it had 8–10 enamel ridges. A population evolved 12–14 ridges and split off from and replaced the earlier type, becoming "M. meridionalis". In turn, this species was replaced by the steppe mammoth, "M. trogontherii", with 18–20 ridges, which evolved in East Asia ca. 1 million years ago. Mammoths derived from "M. trogontherii" evolved molars with 26 ridges 200,000 years ago in Siberia, and became the woolly mammoth, "M. primigenius". The Columbian mammoth, "M. columbi", evolved from a population of "M. trogontherii" that had entered North America. A 2011 genetic study showed that two examined specimens of the Columbian mammoth were grouped within a subclade of woolly mammoths. This suggests that the two populations interbred and produced fertile offspring. It also suggested that a North American form known as ""M. jeffersonii"" may be a hybrid between the two species.
By the late Pleistocene, mammoths in continental Eurasia had undergone a major transformation, including a shortening and heightening of the cranium and mandible, increase in molar hypsodonty index, increase in plate number, and thinning of dental enamel. Due to this change in physical appearance, it became customary to group European mammoths separately into distinguishable clusters:
There is speculation as to what caused this variation within the three chronospecies. Variations in environment, climate change, and migration surely played roles in the evolutionary process of the mammoths. Take "M. primigenius" for example: Woolly mammoths lived in opened grassland biomes. The cool steppe-tundra of the Northern Hemisphere was the ideal place for mammoths to thrive because of the resources it supplied. With occasional warmings during the ice age, climate would change the landscape, and resources available to the mammoths altered accordingly.
The word "mammoth" was first used in Europe during the early 17th century, when referring to "maimanto" tusks discovered in Siberia. John Bell, who was on the Ob River in 1722, said that mammoth tusks were well known in the area. They were called "mammon's horn" and were often found in washed-out river banks. Some local people claimed to have seen a living mammoth, but they only came out at night and always disappeared under water when detected. He bought one and presented it to Hans Sloan who pronounced it an elephant's tooth.
The folklore of some native peoples of Siberia, who would routinely find mammoth bones, and sometimes frozen mammoth bodies, in eroding river banks, had various interesting explanations for these finds. Among the Khanty people of the Irtysh River basin, a belief existed that the mammoth was some kind of a water spirit. According to other Khanty, the mammoth was a creature that lived underground, burrowing its tunnels as it went, and would die if it accidentally came to the surface.
The concept of the mammoth as an underground creature was known to the Chinese, who received some mammoth ivory from the Siberian natives; accordingly, the creature was known in China as "yǐn shǔ" 隐鼠, "the hidden rodent".
Thomas Jefferson, who famously had a keen interest in paleontology, is partially responsible for transforming the word "mammoth" from a noun describing the prehistoric elephant to an adjective describing anything of surprisingly large size. The first recorded use of the word as an adjective was in a description of a large wheel of cheese (the "Cheshire Mammoth Cheese") given to Jefferson in 1802.
Like their modern relatives, mammoths were quite large. The largest known species reached heights in the region of at the shoulder and weights of up to , while exceptionally large males may have exceeded . However, most species of mammoth were only about as large as a modern Asian elephant (which are about 2.5 m to 3 m high at the shoulder, and rarely exceeding 5 tonnes). Both sexes bore tusks. A first, small set appeared at about the age of six months, and these were replaced at about 18 months by the permanent set. Growth of the permanent set was at a rate of about per year.
Based on studies of their close relatives, the modern elephants, mammoths probably had a gestation period of 22 months, resulting in a single calf being born. Their social structure was probably the same as that of African and Asian elephants, with females living in herds headed by a matriarch, whilst bulls lived solitary lives or formed loose groups after sexual maturity.
Scientists discovered and studied the remains of a mammoth calf, and found that fat greatly influenced its form, and enabled it to store large amounts of nutrients necessary for survival in temperatures as low as . The fat also allowed the mammoths to increase their muscle mass, allowing the mammoths to fight against enemies and live longer.
Depending on the species or race of mammoth, the diet differed somewhat depending on location, although all mammoths ate similar things. For the Columbian mammoth, "M. columbi", the diet was mainly grazing. American Columbian mammoths fed primarily on cactus leaves, trees, and shrubs. These assumptions were based on mammoth feces and mammoth teeth. Mammoths, like modern day elephants, have hypsodont molars. These features also allowed mammoths to live an expansive life because of the availability of grasses and trees.
For the Mongochen mammoth, its diet consisted of herbs, grasses, larch, and shrubs, and possibly alder. These inferences were made through the observation of mammoth feces, which scientists observed contained non-arboreal pollen and moss spores.
European mammoths had a major diet of C3 carbon fixation plants. This was determined by examining the isotopic data from the European mammoth teeth.
The arctic tundra and steppe where the mammoths lived appears to have been dominated by forbs, not grass. There were richer in protein and easier to digest than grasses and wooden plants, which came to dominate the areas when the climate became wetter and warmer. This could have been a major contributor to why the arctic megafauna went extinct.
The Yamal baby mammoth Lyuba, found in 2007 in the Yamal Peninsula in Western Siberia, suggests that baby mammoths, as do modern baby elephants, ate the dung of adult animals. The evidence to show this is that the dentition (teeth) of the baby mammoth had not yet fully developed to chew grass. Furthermore, there was an abundance of ascospores of coprophilous fungi from the pollen spectrum of the baby's mother. Coprophilous fungi are fungi that grow on animal dung and disperse spores in nearby vegetation, which the baby mammoth would then consume. Spores might have gotten into its stomach while grazing for the first few times. Coprophagy may be an adaptation, serving to populate the infant's gut with the needed microbiome for digestion.
Mammoths alive in the Arctic during the Last Glacial Maximum consumed mainly forbs, such as "Artemisia"; graminoids were only a minor part of their diet.
The woolly mammoth ("M. primigenius") was the last species of the genus. Most populations of the woolly mammoth in North America and Eurasia, as well as all the Columbian mammoths ("M. columbi") in North America, died out around the time of the last glacial retreat, as part of a mass extinction of megafauna in northern Eurasia and the Americas. Until recently, the last woolly mammoths were generally assumed to have vanished from Europe and southern Siberia about 12,000 years ago, but new findings show some were still present there about 10,000 years ago. Slightly later, the woolly mammoths also disappeared from continental northern Siberia. A small population survived on St. Paul Island, Alaska, up until 3750 BC, and the small mammoths of Wrangel Island survived until 1650 BC. Recent research of sediments in Alaska indicates mammoths survived on the American mainland until 10,000 years ago.
A definitive explanation for their extinction has yet to be agreed upon. The warming trend (Holocene) that occurred 12,000 years ago, accompanied by a glacial retreat and rising sea levels, has been suggested as a contributing factor. Forests replaced open woodlands and grasslands across the continent. The available habitat would have been reduced for some megafaunal species, such as the mammoth. However, such climate changes were nothing new; numerous had occurred previously within the ice age of the last several million years without producing comparable megafaunal extinctions, so climate alone is unlikely to have played a decisive role. The spread of advanced human hunters through northern Eurasia and the Americas around the time of the extinctions, however, was a new development, and thus might have contributed significantly.
Whether the general mammoth population died out for climatic reasons or due to overhunting by humans is controversial. During the transition from the Late Pleistocene epoch to the Holocene epoch, there was shrinkage of the distribution of the mammoth because progressive warming at the end of the Pleistocene epoch changed the mammoth's environment. The mammoth steppe was a periglacial landscape with rich herb and grass vegetation that disappeared along with the mammoth because of environmental changes in the climate. Mammoths had moved to isolated spots in Eurasia, where they disappeared completely. Also, it is thought that Late Paleolithic and Mesolithic human hunters might have affected the size of the last mammoth populations in Europe. There is evidence to suggest that humans did cause the mammoth extinction, although there is no definitive proof. It was found that humans living south of a mammoth steppe learned to adapt themselves to the harsher climates north of the steppe, where mammoths resided. It was concluded that if humans could survive the harsh north climate of that particular mammoth steppe then it was possible humans could hunt (and eventually extinguish) mammoths everywhere. Another hypothesis suggests mammoths fell victim to an infectious disease.
A combination of climate change and hunting by humans may be a possible explanation for their extinction. "Homo erectus" is known to have consumed mammoth meat as early as 1.8 million years ago, though this may mean only successful scavenging, rather than actual hunting. Later humans show greater evidence for hunting mammoths; mammoth bones at a 50,000-year-old site in South Britain suggest that Neanderthals butchered the animals, while various sites in Eastern Europe dating from 15,000 to 44,000 years old suggest humans (probably "Homo sapiens") built dwellings using mammoth bones (the age of some of the earlier structures suggests that Neanderthals began the practice). However, the American Institute of Biological Sciences notes that bones of dead elephants, left on the ground and subsequently trampled by other elephants, tend to bear marks resembling butchery marks, which have allegedly been misinterpreted as such by archaeologists.
Many hypotheses also seek to explain the regional extinction of mammoths in specific areas. Scientists have speculated that the mammoths of Saint Paul Island, an isolated enclave where mammoths survived until about 8,000 years ago, died out as the island shrank by 80–90% when sea levels rose, eventually making it too small to support a viable population. Similarly, genome sequences of the Wrangel Island mammoths indicate a sharp decline in genetic diversity, though the extent to which this played a role in their extinction is still unclear. Another hypothesis, said to be the cause of mammoth extinction in Siberia, comes from the idea that many may have drowned. While traveling to the Northern River, many of these mammoths broke through the ice and drowned. This also explains bones remains in the Arctic Coast and islands of the New Siberian Group.
Dwarfing occurred with the pygmy mammoth on the outer Channel Islands of California, but at an earlier period. Those animals were very likely killed by early Paleo-Native Americans, and habitat loss caused by a rising sea level that split Santa Rosae into the outer Channel Islands.
One proposed scientific use of this preserved genetic material, is to recreate living mammoths. This has long been discussed theoretically but has only recently become the subject of formal effort due to advances in molecular biology techniques and cloning of mammals.
According to one research team, a mammoth cannot be recreated, but they will try to eventually grow in an "artificial womb" a hybrid elephant with some woolly mammoth traits. Comparative genomics shows that the mammoth genome matches 99% of the elephant genome, so some researchers aim to engineer an elephant with some mammoth genes that code for the external appearance and traits of a mammoth. The outcome would be an elephant-mammoth hybrid with no more than 1% mammoth genes. Other projects are working on gradually adding mammoth genes to elephant cells "in vitro".
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Mexican cuisine
Mexican cuisine began about 9,000 years ago, when agricultural communities such as the Maya formed, domesticating maize, creating the standard process of maize nixtamalization, and establishing their foodways. Successive waves of other Mesoamerican groups brought with them their own cooking methods. These included the Olmec, Teotihuacanos, Toltec, Huastec, Zapotec, Mixtec, Otomi, Purépecha, Totonac, Mazatec, Mazahua, and Nahua.
The Mexica establishment of the Aztec Empire created a multi-ethnic society where many different foodways became infused. The staples are native foods, such as corn (maize), beans, squash, amaranth, chia, avocados, tomatoes, tomatillos, cacao, vanilla, agave, turkey, spirulina, sweet potato, cactus, and chili pepper.
After the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire in the 16th century and the subsequent conquest of the Maya area, Europeans introduced a number of other foods, the most important of which were meats from domesticated animals (beef, pork, chicken, goat, and sheep), dairy products (especially cheese and milk), and rice. While the Spanish initially tried to impose their own diet on the country, this was not possible.
Asian and African influences were also introduced into the indigenous cuisine during this era as a result of African slavery in New Spain and the Manila-Acapulco Galleons.
Over the centuries, this resulted in regional cuisines based on local conditions, such as those in Oaxaca, Veracruz and the Yucatán Peninsula. Mexican cuisine is an important aspect of the culture, social structure and popular traditions of Mexico. The most important example of this connection is the use of mole for special occasions and holidays, particularly in the South and Central regions of the country. For this reason and others, traditional Mexican cuisine was inscribed in 2010 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.
Mexican cuisine is a complex and ancient cuisine, with techniques and skills developed over thousands of years of history. It is created mostly with ingredients native to Mexico, as well as those brought over by the Spanish conquistadors, with some new influences since then. Mexican cuisine has been influenced by its proximity to the US-Mexican border. For example, burritos were thought to have been invented for easier transportation of beans by wrapping them in tortillas for field labor. Modifications like these brought Mexican cuisine to the United States, where states like Arizona further adapted burritos by deep frying them, creating the modern chimichanga.
In addition to staples, such as corn and chile peppers, native ingredients include tomatoes, squashes, avocados, cocoa and vanilla, as well as ingredients not generally used in other cuisines, such as edible flowers, vegetables like huauzontle and papaloquelite, or small criollo avocados, whose skin is edible. Chocolate originated in Mexico and was prized by the Aztecs. It remains an important ingredient in Mexican cookery.
Vegetables play an important role in Mexican cuisine. Common vegetables include zucchini, cauliflower, corn, potatoes, spinach, Swiss chard, mushrooms, jitomate (red tomato), green tomato, etc. Other traditional vegetable ingredients include Chili pepper, huitlacoche (corn fungus), huauzontle, and nopal (cactus pads) to name a few.
European contributions include pork, chicken, beef, cheese, herbs and spices, as well as some fruits.
Tropical fruits, many of which are indigenous to Mexico and the Americas, such as guava, prickly pear, sapote, mangoes, bananas, pineapple and cherimoya (custard apple) are popular, especially in the center and south of the country.
Edible insects have been enjoyed in Mexico for millennia. Entemophagy or insect-eating is becoming increasingly popular outside of poor and rural areas for its unique flavors, sustainability, and connection to pre-Hispanic heritage. Popular species include chapulines (grasshoppers or crickets), escamoles (ant larvae), cumiles (stink bugs) and ahuatle (water bug eggs).
Despite the introduction of wheat and rice to Mexico, corn is the most commonly consumed starch in almost all areas of the country and serves as the main ingredient in many local recipes (e.g. corn tortillas, atole, pozol, menudo, tamal). While it is eaten fresh, most corn is dried, nixtamalized and ground into a dough called "masa". This dough is used both fresh and fermented to make a wide variety of dishes from drinks (atole, pozol, etc.) to tamales, sopes, and much more. However, the most common way to eat corn in Mexico is in the form of a tortilla, which accompanies almost every dish. Tortillas are made of corn in most of the country, but other versions exist, such as wheat in the north or plantain, yuca and wild greens in Oaxaca.
The other basic ingredient in all parts of Mexico is the chile pepper. Mexican food has a reputation for being very spicy, but it has a wide range of flavors and while many spices are used for cooking, not all are spicy. Many dishes also have subtle flavors. Chiles are indigenous to Mexico and their use dates back thousands of years. They are used for their flavors and not just their heat, with Mexico using the widest variety. If a savory dish or snack does not contain chile pepper, hot sauce is usually added, and chile pepper is often added to fresh fruit and sweets.
The importance of the chile goes back to the Mesoamerican period, where it was considered to be as much of a staple as corn and beans. In the 16th century, Bartolomé de las Casas wrote that without chiles, the indigenous people did not think they were eating. Even today, most Mexicans believe that their national identity would be at a loss without chiles and the many varieties of sauces and salsas created using chiles as their base.
Many dishes in Mexico are defined by their sauces and the chiles those sauces contain (which are usually very spicy), rather than the meat or vegetable that the sauce covers. These dishes include entomatada (in tomato sauce), adobo or adobados, pipians and moles. A hominy soup called pozole is defined as white, green or red depending on the chile sauce used or omitted. Tamales are differentiated by the filling which is again defined by the sauce (red or green chile pepper strips or mole). Dishes without a sauce are rarely eaten without a salsa or without fresh or pickled chiles. This includes street foods, such as tacos, tortas, soup, sopes, tlacoyos, tlayudas, gorditas and sincronizadas. For most dishes, it is the type of chile used that gives it its main flavor. Chipotle, smoked-dried jalapeño pepper, is very common in Mexican cuisine.
Next to corn, rice is the most common grain in Mexican cuisine. According to food writer Karen Hursh Graber, the initial introduction of rice to Spain from North Africa in the 14th century led to the Spanish introduction of rice to Mexico at the port of Veracruz in the 1520s. This, Graber says, created one of the earliest instances of the world's greatest Fusion cuisines.
Some of the main contributions of the Spanish were several kinds of meat, dairy products and wheat to name few, as the Mesoamerican diet contained very little meat besides domesticated turkey, and dairy products were absent. The Spanish also introduced the technique of frying in pork fat. Today, the main meats found in Mexico are pork, chicken, beef, goat, and sheep. Native seafood and fish remains popular, especially along the coasts.
Cheesemaking in Mexico has evolved its own specialties. It is an important economic activity, especially in the north, and is frequently done at home. The main cheese-making areas are Chihuahua, Oaxaca, Querétaro, and Chiapas. Goat cheese is still made, but it is not as popular and is harder to find in stores.
In most of Mexico, especially in rural areas, much of the food is consumed in the home. Cooking for the family is usually considered to be women's work, and this includes cooking for celebrations as well. Traditionally girls have been considered ready to marry when they can cook, and cooking is considered a main talent for housewives.
The main meal of the day in Mexico is the "comida", meaning 'meal' in Spanish. This refers to dinner or supper. It sometimes begins with soup, often chicken broth with pasta or a "dry soup", which is pasta or rice flavored with onions, garlic or vegetables. The main course is meat served in a cooked sauce with salsa on the side, accompanied with beans and tortillas and often with a fruit drink.
In the evening, it is common to eat leftovers from the comida or sweet bread accompanied by coffee or chocolate. Breakfast can consist of meat in broth (such as pancita), tacos, enchiladas or meat with eggs. This is usually served with beans, tortillas, and coffee or juice.
Mexican cuisine is elaborate and often tied to symbolism and festivals, one reason it was named as an example of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO. Many of the foods of Mexico are complicated because of their relation to the social structure of the country. Food preparation, especially for family and social events, is considered to be an investment in order to maintain social relationships. Even the idea of flavor is considered to be social, with meals prepared for certain dinners and certain occasions when they are considered the most tasty.
The ability to cook well, called "sazón" (lit. seasoning) is considered to be a gift generally gained from experience and a sense of commitment to the diners. For the Day of the Dead festival, foods such as tamales and mole are set out on altars and it is believed that the visiting dead relatives eat the essence of the food. If eaten afterwards by the living it is considered to be tasteless. In central Mexico, the main festival foods are mole, barbacoa, carnitas and mixiotes. They are often prepared to feed hundreds of guests, requiring groups of cooks. The cooking is part of the social custom meant to bind families and communities.
Mexican regional home cooking is completely different from the food served in most Mexican restaurants outside Mexico, which is usually some variety of Tex-Mex. The original versions of Mexican dishes are vastly different from their Tex-Mex evolution. For example, the version of nachos are chilaquiles, which are common to eat for breakfast. They are simple in comparison: tortilla chips topped with green or red salsa, cream, goats cheese, onion, cilantro, and optional egg or chicken.
Some of Mexico's traditional foods involved complex or long cooking processes, including cooking underground (such as cochinita pibil). Before industrialization, traditional women spent several hours a day boiling dried corn then grinding it on a metate to make the dough for tortillas, cooking them one-by-one on a comal griddle. In some areas, tortillas are still made this way. Sauces and salsas were also ground in a mortar called a molcajete. Today, blenders are more often used, though the texture is a bit different. Most people in Mexico would say that those made with a molcajete taste better, but few do this now.
The most important food for festivals and other special occasions is mole, especially mole poblano in the center of the country. Mole is served at Christmas, Easter, Day of the Dead and at birthdays, baptisms, weddings and funerals, and tends to be eaten only for special occasions because it is such a complex and time-consuming dish. While still dominant in this way, other foods have become acceptable for these occasions, such as barbacoa, carnitas and mixiotes, especially since the 1980s. This may have been because of economic crises at that time, allowing for the substitution of these cheaper foods, or the fact that they can be bought ready-made or may already be made as part of the family business.
Another important festive food is the tamale, also known as "tamal" in Spanish. This is a filled cornmeal dumpling, steamed in a wrapping (usually a corn husk or banana leaf) and one of the basic staples in most regions of Mexico. It has its origins in the pre-Hispanic era and today is found in many varieties in all of Mexico. Like mole, it is complicated to prepare and best done in large amounts. Tamales are associated with certain celebrations such as Candlemas. They are wrapped in corn husks in the highlands and desert areas of Mexico and in banana leaves in the tropics.
Mexican street food can include tacos, quesadillas, pambazos, tamales, huaraches, alambres, al pastor, and food not suitable to cook at home, including barbacoa, carnitas, and since many homes in Mexico do not have or make use of ovens, roasted chicken. One attraction of street food in Mexico is the satisfaction of hunger or craving without all the social and emotional connotation of eating at home, although longtime customers can have something of a friendship/familial relationship with a chosen vendor.
Tacos are the top-rated and most well-known street Mexican food. It is made up of meat or other fillings wrapped in a tortilla often served with cheese added. The vegetarian stuffing are mushrooms, potatoes, rice, or beans.
The best known of Mexico's street foods is the taco, whose origin is based on the pre-Hispanic custom of picking up other foods with tortillas as utensils were not used. The origin of the word is in dispute, with some saying it is derived from Nahuatl and others from various Spanish phrases. Tacos are not eaten as the main meal; they are generally eaten before midday or late in the evening. Just about any other foodstuff can be wrapped in a tortilla, and in Mexico, it varies from rice, to meat (plain or in sauce), to cream, to vegetables, to cheese, or simply with plain chile peppers or fresh salsa. Preferred fillings vary from region to region with pork generally found more often in the center and south, beef in the north, seafood along the coasts, and chicken and lamb in most of the country.
Another popular street food, especially in Mexico City and the surrounding area is the torta. It consists of a roll of some type, stuffed with several ingredients. This has its origins in the 19th century, when the French introduced a number of new kinds of bread. The torta began by splitting the roll and adding beans. Today, refried beans can still be found on many kinds of tortas. In Mexico City, the most common roll used for tortas is called "telera", a relatively flat roll with two splits on the upper surface. In Puebla, the preferred bread is called a cemita, as is the sandwich. In both areas, the bread is stuffed with various fillings, especially if it is a hot sandwich, with beans, cream (mayonnaise is rare) and some kind of hot chile pepper.
The influence of American fast food on Mexican street food grew during the late 20th century. One example of this is the invention of the Sonoran hot dog in the late 1980s. The frankfurters are usually boiled then wrapped in bacon and fried. They are served in a bolillo-style bun, typically topped by a combination of pinto beans, diced tomatoes, onions and jalapeño peppers, and other condiments.
Along the US-Mexican border, specifically dense areas like Tijuana, Mexican vendors sell their food like fruit melanged with Tajin spice to people crossing the border via carts. In recent years, these food carts have been threatened by tightened border security at the Port of Entry. Both US and Mexican governments have proposed a project that would widen the streets of the border, allowing for more people to pass through the border. Widening the border would decimate neighboring mercados that rely on the business of travelers.
Besides food, street vendors also sell various kinds of drinks (including aguas frescas, tejuino, and tepache) and treats (such as bionicos, tostilocos, and raspados). Most tamale stands will sell atole as a standard accompaniment.
Around 7000 BCE, the indigenous peoples of Mexico and Central America hunted game and gathered plants, including wild chile peppers. Corn was not yet cultivated, so one main source of calories was roasted agave hearts. By 1200 BCE, corn was domesticated and a process called nixtamalization, or treatment with lye, was developed to soften corn for grinding and improve its nutritional value. This allowed the creation of tortillas and other kinds of flat breads. The indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica had numerous stories about the origin of corn, usually related to being a gift of one or more gods, such as Quetzalcoatl.
The other staple was beans, eaten with corn and some other plants as a complementary protein. Despite this, studies of bones have shown problems with the lack of protein in the indigenous diet , as meat was difficult to obtain. Other protein sources included amaranth, domesticated turkey, insects such as grasshoppers, beetles and ant larvae, iguanas, and turtle eggs on the coastlines. Vegetables included squash and their seeds; chilacayote; jicama, a kind of sweet potato; and edible flowers, especially those of squash. The chile pepper was used as food, ritual and as medicine.
When the Spanish arrived, the Aztecs had sophisticated agricultural techniques and an abundance of food, which was the base of their economy. It allowed them to expand an empire, bringing in tribute which consisted mostly of foods the Aztecs could not grow themselves. According to Bernardino de Sahagún, the Nahua peoples of central Mexico ate corn, beans, turkey, fish, small game, insects and a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, pulses, seeds, tubers, wild mushrooms, plants and herbs that they collected or cultivated.
After the Conquest, the Spanish introduced a variety of foodstuffs and cooking techniques, like frying, to the New World. Regional cuisines remained varied, with native staples more prevalent in the rural southern areas and Spanish foods taking root in the more sparsely populated northern region. European style wheat bread was initially met unfavorably with Moctezuma's emissaries who reportedly described it as tasting of "dried maize stalks". On the Spanish side, Bernal Díaz del Castillo complained about the "maize cake" rations on campaign.
The cuisine of Spain had been influenced by Arab cuisine and Mediterranean cuisine for centuries, including the introduction of the Mediterranean staple olive oil. European settlers introduced these staples of the to the region, but early attempts at local production were unsuccessful leaving Spanish settlers to import certain items such as wine, brandy, nuts, olives, spices and capers. They introduced domesticated animals, such as pigs, cows, chickens, goats and sheep for meat and milk, raising the consumption of protein. Cheese became the most important dairy product.
The Spanish brought rice to Mexico, along with sugar cane, used extensively creation of many kinds of sweets, especially local fruits in syrup. A sugar-based candy craft called alfeñique was adapted, but often with indigenous themes, especially today for Day of the Dead. Over time ingredients like olive oil, rice, onions, garlic, oregano, coriander, cinnamon, cloves became incorporated with native ingredients and cooking techniques. One of the main avenues for the mixing of the two cuisines was in convents.
Despite the influence of Spanish culture, Mexican cuisine has maintained its base of corn, beans and chili peppers. Natives continued to be reliant on maize; it was less expensive than the wheat favored by European settlers, it was easier to cultivate and produced higher yields. European control over the land grew stronger with the founding of wheat farms. In 18th century Mexico City wheat was baked into leaved rolls called "pan frances" or "pan espanol", but only two bakers were allowed to bake this style of bread and they worked on consignment to the viceroy and the archbishop. Large ring loaves of choice flour known as "pan floreado" were available for wealthy "Creoles". Other styles of bread used lower-quality wheat and maize to produce "pan comun", "pambazo" and "cemita".
Pozole is mentioned in the 16th century Florentine Codex by Bernardino de Sahagún.
In the eighteenth century, an Italian Capuchin friar, Ilarione da Bergamo, included descriptions of food in his travelogue. He noted that tortillas were eaten not only by the poor, by the upper class as well. He described lunch fare as pork products like chorizo and ham being eaten between tortillas, with a piquant red chili sauce. For drink pulque, as well as corn-based atole, and for those who could afford it chocolate-based drinks were consumed twice a day. According to de Bergamo's account neither coffee nor wine are consumed, and evening meals ended with a small portion of beans in a thick soup instead, "served to set the stage for drinking water".
During the 19th century, Mexico experienced an influx of various immigrants, including French, Lebanese, German, Chinese and Italian, which have had some effect on the food. During the French intervention in Mexico, French food became popular with the upper classes. An influence on these new trends came from chef Tudor, who was brought to Mexico by the Emperor Maximilian of Habsburg. One lasting evidence of this is the variety of breads and sweet breads, such as bolillos, conchas and much more, which can be found in Mexican bakeries. The Germans brought beer brewing techniques and the Chinese added their cuisine to certain areas of the country. This led to Mexico characterizing its cuisine more by its relation to popular traditions rather than on particular cooking techniques.
Since the 20th century, there have been an interchange of food influences between Mexico and the United States. Mexican cooking was of course still practiced in what is now the Southwest United States after the Mexican–American War, but Diana Kennedy, in her book "The Cuisines of Mexico" (published in 1972), drew a sharp distinction between Mexican food and Tex-Mex.
Tex-Mex food was developed from Mexican and Anglo influences, and was traced to the late 19th century in Texas. It still continues to develop with flour tortillas becoming popular north of the border only in the latter 20th century. From north to south, much of the influence has been related to food industrialization, as well as the greater availability overall of food, especially after the Mexican Revolution. One other very visible sign of influence from the United States is the appearance of fast foods, such as hamburgers, hot dogs and pizza.
In the latter 20th century, international influence in Mexico has led to interest and development of haute cuisine. In Mexico, many professional chefs are trained in French or international cuisine, but the use of Mexican staples and flavors is still favored, including the simple foods of traditional markets. It is not unusual to see some quesadillas or small tacos among the other hors d'oeuvres at fancy dinner parties in Mexico.
Professional cookery in Mexico is growing and includes an emphasis upon traditional methods and ingredients. In the cities, there is interest in publishing and preserving what is authentic Mexican food. This movement is traceable to 1982 with the Mexican Culinary Circle of Mexico City. It was created by a group of women chefs and other culinary experts as a reaction to the fear of traditions being lost with the increasing introduction of foreign techniques and foods. In 2010, Mexico's cuisine was recognized by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
In contemporary times, various world cuisines have become popular in Mexico, thus adopting a Mexican fusion. For example, sushi in Mexico is often made by using a variety of sauces based on mango and tamarind, and very often served with serrano-chili blended soy sauce, or complemented with vinegar, habanero peppers, and chipotle peppers.
Corn in Mexico is not only eaten, but also drunk as a beverage. Corn is the base of a hot drink called atole, which is then flavored with fruit, chocolate, rice or other flavors. Fermented corn is the base of a cold drink, which goes by different names and varieties, such as tejuino, pozol and others. Aguas frescas are flavored drinks usually made from fruit, water and sugar. Beverages also include hibiscus iced tea, one made from tamarind and one from rice called "horchata". One variant of coffee is café de olla, which is coffee brewed with cinnamon and raw sugar. Many of the most popular beverages can be found sold by street vendors and juice bars in Mexico.
Chocolate played an important part in the history of Mexican cuisine. The word "chocolate" originated from Mexico's Aztec cuisine, derived from the Nahuatl word "xocolatl". Chocolate was first drunk rather than eaten. It was also used for religious rituals. The Maya civilization grew cacao trees and used the cacao seeds it produced to make a frothy, bitter drink. The drink, called "xocoatl", was often flavored with vanilla, chile pepper, and "achiote".
Alcoholic beverages from Mexico include tequila, pulque, aguardiente, mezcal and charanda. Wine, rum and beer are also produced. The most common alcoholic beverage consumed with food in Mexico is beer, followed by tequila. A classic margarita, a popular cocktail, is composed of tequila, cointreau and lime juice.
Rompope is believed to have been originally made in the convents of the city of Puebla, Mexico. The word "rompope" is a derivation of the word "rompon", which is used to describe the Spanish version of eggnog that came to Mexico.
A popular Soft drink from Mexico is Sangria Señorial a sangria-flavored, non-alcoholic beverage. Sangria is a Spanish drink that was introduced by Spaniards.
Chamoyada, a mango beverage is consumed in Mexico and the United States.
Tejate is a Mexican beverage made with cocoa and maize.
Licuados are Mexican smoothies.
Similar to other regions in Mexico, corn is a dietary staple and other indigenous foods remain strong in the cuisine as well. Along with a chile called simojovel, used nowhere else in the country, the cuisine is also distinguished by the use of herbs, such as chipilín and hierba santa. Like in Oaxaca, tamales are usually wrapped in banana leaves (or sometimes with the leaves of hoja santa), but often chipilín is incorporated into the dough. As in the Yucatán Peninsula, boiled corn is drunk as a beverage called pozol, but here it is usually flavored with all-natural cacao. Another beverage (which can be served hot or cold) typical from this region is Tascalate, which is made of powdered maize, cocoa beans, achiote (annatto), chilies, pine nuts and cinnamon.
The favored meats are beef, pork and chicken (introduced by the Spanish), especially in the highlands, which favors the raising of livestock. The livestock industry has also prompted the making of cheese, mostly done on ranches and in small cooperatives, with the best known from Ocosingo, Rayón and Pijijiapan. Meat and cheese dishes are frequently accompanied by vegetables, such as squash, chayote, and carrots.
The main feature of Mexico City cooking is that it has been influenced by those of the other regions of Mexico, as well as a number of foreign influences. This is because Mexico City has been a center for migration of people from all over Mexico since pre-Hispanic times. Most of the ingredients of this area's cooking are not grown in situ, but imported from all of the country (such as tropical fruits).
Street cuisine is very popular, with taco stands, and lunch counters on every street. Popular foods in the city include barbacoa (a specialty of the central highlands), birria (from western Mexico), cabrito (from the north), carnitas (originally from Michoacán), mole sauces (from Puebla and central Mexico), tacos with many different fillings, and large sub-like sandwiches called tortas, usually served at specialized shops called 'Torterías'. This is also the area where most of Mexico's haute cuisine can be found. There are eateries that specialize in pre-Hispanic food, including dishes with insects.
The foods eaten in what is now the north of Mexico have differed from those in the south since the pre-Hispanic era. Here, the indigenous people were hunter-gatherers with limited agriculture and settlements because of the arid land.
When the Europeans arrived, they found much of the land in this area suitable for raising cattle, goats and sheep. This led to the dominance of meat, especially beef, in the region, and some of the most popular dishes include machaca, arrachera and cabrito. The region's distinctive cooking technique is grilling, as ranch culture has promoted outdoor cooking done by men.
The ranch culture has also prompted cheese production and the north produces the widest varieties of cheese in Mexico. These include queso fresco (fresh farmer's cheese), ranchero (similar to Monterey Jack), cuajada (a mildly sweet, creamy curd of fresh milk), requesón (similar to cottage cheese or ricotta), Chihuahua's creamy semi-soft queso menonita, and fifty-six varieties of asadero (smoked cheese).
Another important aspect of northern cuisine is the presence of wheat, especially in the use of flour tortillas. The area has at least forty different types of flour tortillas. The main reason for this is that much of the land supports wheat production, introduced by the Spanish. These large tortillas allowed for the creation of burritos, usually filled with machaca in Sonora, which eventually gained popularity in the Southwest United States.
The variety of foodstuffs in the north is not as varied as in the south of Mexico, because of the mostly desert climate. Much of the cuisine of this area is dependent on food preservation techniques, namely dehydration and canning. Dried foods include meat, chiles, squash, peas, corn, lentils, beans and dried fruit. A number of these are also canned. Preservation techniques change the flavor of foods; for example, many chiles are less hot after drying.
In Northeastern Mexico, during the Spanish colonial period, Nuevo León was founded and settled by Spanish families of Jewish origin (Crypto-Jews). They contributed significantly to the regional cuisine with dishes, such as Pan de Semita or "Semitic Bread" (a type of bread made without leavening), capirotada (a type of dessert), and cabrito or "baby goat", which is the typical food of Monterrey and the state of Nuevo León, as well as some regions of Coahuila.
The north has seen waves of immigration by the Chinese, Mormons, and Mennonites, who have influenced the cuisines in areas, such as Chihuahua and Baja California. Most recently, Baja Med cuisine has emerged in Ensenada and elsewhere in Baja California, combining Mexican and Mediterranean flavors.
The cooking of Oaxaca remained more intact after the conquest, as the Spanish took the area with less fighting and less disruption of the economy and food production systems. However, it was the first area to experience the mixing of foods and cooking styles, while central Mexico was still recuperating. Despite its size, the state has a wide variety of ecosystems and a wide variety of native foods. Vegetables are grown in the central valley, seafood is abundant on the coast and the area bordering Veracruz grows tropical fruits.
Much of the state's cooking is influenced by that of the Mixtec and, to a lesser extent, the Zapotec. Later in the colonial period, Oaxaca lost its position as a major food supplier and the area's cooking returned to a more indigenous style, keeping only a small number of foodstuffs, such as chicken and pork. It also adapted mozzarella, brought by the Spanish, and modified it to what is now known as Oaxaca cheese.
One major feature of Oaxacan cuisine is its seven mole varieties, second only to mole poblano in popularity. The seven are Negro (black), Amarillo (yellow), Coloradito (little red), Mancha Manteles (table cloth stainer), Chichilo (smoky stew), Rojo (red), and Verde (green).
Corn is the staple food in the region. Tortillas are called blandas and are a part of every meal. Corn is also used to make empanadas, tamales and more. Black beans are favored, often served in soup or as a sauce for enfrijoladas. Oaxaca's regional chile peppers include pasilla oaxaqueña (red, hot and smoky), along with amarillos (yellow), chilhuacles, chilcostles and costeños. These, along with herbs, such as hoja santa, give the food its unique taste.
Another important aspect to Oaxacan cuisine is chocolate, generally consumed as a beverage. It is frequently hand ground and combined with almonds, cinnamon and other ingredients.
The cuisine of Veracruz is a mix of indigenous, Afro-Mexican and Spanish. The indigenous contribution is in the use of corn as a staple, as well as vanilla (native to the state) and herbs called acuyo and hoja santa. It is also supplemented by a wide variety of tropical fruits, such as papaya, mamey and zapote, along with the introduction of citrus fruit and pineapple by the Spanish. The Spanish also introduced European herbs, such as parsley, thyme, marjoram, bay laurel, cilantro and others, which characterize much of the state's cooking. They are found in the best known dish of the region Huachinango a la veracruzana, a red snapper dish.
The African influence is from the importation of slaves through the Caribbean, who brought foods with them, which had been introduced earlier to Africa by the Portuguese. As it borders the Gulf coast, seafood figures prominently in most of the state. The state's role as a gateway to Mexico has meant that the dietary staple of corn is less evident than in other parts of Mexico, with rice as a heavy favorite. Corn dishes include garnachas (a kind of corn cake), which are readily available especially in the mountain areas, where indigenous influence is strongest.
West of Mexico City are the states of Michoacán, Jalisco and Colima, as well as the Pacific coast. The cuisine of Michoacan is based on the Purepecha culture, which still dominates most of the state. The area has a large network of rivers and lakes providing fish. Its use of corn is perhaps the most varied. While atole is drunk in most parts of Mexico, it is made with more different flavors in Michoacán, including blackberry, cascabel chili and more. Tamales come in different shapes, wrapped in corn husks. These include those folded into polyhedrons called corundas and can vary in name if the filling is different. In the Bajío area, tamales are often served with a meat stew called churipo, which is flavored with cactus fruit.
The main Spanish contributions to Michoacán cuisine are rice, pork and spices. One of the best-known dishes from the state is morisquesta, which is a sausage and rice dish, closely followed by carnitas, which is deep-fried pork. The latter can be found in many parts of Mexico, often claimed to be authentically Michoacán. Other important ingredients in the cuisine include wheat (where bread symbolizes fertility) found in breads and pastries. Another is sugar, giving rise to a wide variety of desserts and sweets, such as fruit jellies and ice cream, mostly associated with the town of Tocumbo. The town of Cotija has a cheese named after it. The local alcoholic beverage is charanda, which is made with fermented sugar cane.
The cuisine of the states of Jalisco and Colima is noted for dishes, such as birria, chilayo, menudo and pork dishes. Jalisco's cuisine is known for tequila with the liquor produced only in certain areas allowed to use the name. The cultural and gastronomic center of the area is Guadalajara, an area where both agriculture and cattle raising have thrived. The best-known dish from the area is birria, a stew of goat, beef, mutton or pork with chiles and spices.
An important street food is tortas ahogadas, where the torta (sandwich) is drowned in a chile sauce. Near Guadalajara is the town of Tonalá, known for its pozole, a hominy stew, reportedly said in the 16th century, to have been originally created with human flesh for ritual use. The area which makes tequila surrounds the city. A popular local drink is tejuino, made from fermented corn. Bionico is also a popular dessert in the Guadalajara area.
On the Pacific coast, seafood is common, generally cooked with European spices along with chile, and is often served with a spicy salsa. Favored fish varieties include marlin, swordfish, snapper, tuna, shrimp and octopus. Tropical fruits are also important. The cuisine of the Baja California Peninsula is especially heavy on seafood, with the widest variety. It also features a mild green chile pepper, as well as dates, especially in sweets.
The food of the Yucatán peninsula is distinct from the rest of the country. It is based primarily on Mayan food with influences from the Caribbean, Central Mexican, European (especially French) and Middle Eastern cultures. As in other areas of Mexico, corn is the basic staple, as both a liquid and a solid food. One common way of consuming corn, especially by the poor, is a thin drink or gruel of white corn called by such names as pozol or keyem.
One of the main spices in the region is the annatto seed, called achiote in Spanish. It gives food a reddish color and a slightly peppery smell with a hint of nutmeg. Recados are seasoning pastes, based on achiote (recado rojo) or a mixture of habanero and chirmole both used on chicken and pork.
Recado rojo is used for the area's best-known dish, cochinita pibil. Pibil refers to the cooking method (from the Mayan word "p'ib", meaning "buried") in which foods are wrapped, generally in banana leaves, and cooked in a pit oven. Various meats are cooked this way. Habaneros are another distinctive ingredient, but they are generally served as (or part of) condiments on the side rather than integrated into the dishes.
A prominent feature of Yucatán cooking is the use of bitter oranges, which gives Yucatán food the tangy element that characterizes it. Bitter orange is used as a seasoning for broth, to marinate meat and it's juice (watered down with sugar) is used as a refreshing beverage.
Honey was used long before the arrival of the Spanish to sweeten foods and to make a ritual alcoholic drink called balché. Today, a honey liquor called xtabentun is still made and consumed in the region. The coastal areas feature several seafood dishes, based on fish like the Mero, a variety of grunt and Esmedregal, which is fried and served with a spicy salsa based on the x'catic pepper and achiote paste. Other dishes include conch fillet (usually served raw, just marinated in lime juice), cocount flavored shrimp and lagoon snails.
Traditionally, some dishes are served as entrées, such as the brazo de reina (a type of tamale made from chaya) and papadzules (egg tacos seasoned in a pumpkin seed gravy).
Street food in the area usually consists of Cochinita Pibil Tacos, Lebanese-based kibbeh, shawarma tacos, snacks made from hardened corn dough called piedras, and fruit-flavored ices.
Lime soup made of chicken or some other meat such as pork or beef, lime juice and served with tortilla chips. Panucho made with a refried tortilla that is stuffed with refried black beans and topped with chopped cabbage, pulled chicken or turkey, tomato, pickled red onion, avocado, and pickled jalapeño pepper.
Mexican cuisine is offered in a few fine restaurants in Europe and the United States. Sometimes landrace corn from Mexico is imported and ground on the premises.
Mexican food in the United States is based on the food of northern Mexico. Chili con carne and chimichangas are examples of American food with Mexican-origins known as Tex-Mex. With the growing ethnic Mexican population in the United States, more authentic Mexican food is gradually appearing in the United States. One reason is that Mexican immigrants use food as a means of combating homesickness, and for their descendants, it is a symbol of ethnicity. Alternatively, with more Americans experiencing Mexican food in Mexico, there is a growing demand for more authentic flavors. Korean tacos are a Korean-Mexican fusion dish popular in a number of urban areas in the United States and Canada. Korean tacos originated in Los Angeles.
In 1989 Rick Bayless, who specializes in traditional Mexican cuisine with a modern interpretations, and his wife, Deann, opened Topolobampo, one of Chicago's first fine-dining Mexican restaurants. As of 2019, Topolobampo has 1 Michelin star.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20167
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MIPS architecture
MIPS (Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipelined Stages) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) developed by MIPS Computer Systems, now MIPS Technologies, based in the United States.
There are multiple versions of MIPS: including MIPS I, II, III, IV, and V; as well as five releases of MIPS32/64 (for 32- and 64-bit implementations, respectively). The early MIPS architectures were 32-bit only; 64-bit versions were developed later. As of April 2017, the current version of MIPS is MIPS32/64 Release 6. MIPS32/64 primarily differs from MIPS I–V by defining the privileged kernel mode System Control Coprocessor in addition to the user mode architecture.
The MIPS architecture has several optional extensions. MIPS-3D which is a simple set of floating-point SIMD instructions dedicated to common 3D tasks, MDMX (MaDMaX) which is a more extensive integer SIMD instruction set using the 64-bit floating-point registers, MIPS16e which adds compression to the instruction stream to make programs take up less room, and MIPS MT, which adds multithreading capability.
Computer architecture courses in universities and technical schools often study the MIPS architecture. The architecture greatly influenced later RISC architectures such as Alpha.
The first version of the MIPS architecture was designed by MIPS Computer Systems for its R2000 microprocessor, the first MIPS implementation. Both MIPS and the R2000 were introduced together in 1985. When MIPS II was introduced, "MIPS" was renamed "MIPS I" to distinguish it from the new version.
MIPS Computer Systems' R6000 microprocessor (1989) was the first MIPS II implementation. Designed for servers, the R6000 was fabricated and sold by Bipolar Integrated Technology, but was a commercial failure. During the mid-1990s, many new 32-bit MIPS processors for embedded systems were MIPS II implementations because the introduction of the 64-bit MIPS III architecture in 1991 left MIPS II as the newest 32-bit MIPS architecture until MIPS32 was introduced in 1999.A
MIPS Computer Systems' R4000 microprocessor (1991) was the first MIPS III implementation. It was designed for use in personal, workstation, and server computers. MIPS Computer Systems aggressively promoted the MIPS architecture and R4000, establishing the Advanced Computing Environment (ACE) consortium to advance its Advanced RISC Computing (ARC) standard, which aimed to establish MIPS as the dominant personal computing platform. ARC found little success in personal computers, but the R4000 (and the R4400 derivative) were widely used in workstation and server computers, especially by its largest user, Silicon Graphics. Other uses of the R4000 included high-end embedded systems and supercomputers. MIPS III was eventually implemented by a number of embedded microprocessors. Quantum Effect Design's R4600 (1993) and its derivatives was widely used in high-end embedded systems and low-end workstations and servers. MIPS Technologies' R4200 (1994), was designed for embedded systems, laptop, and personal computers. A derivative, the R4300i, fabricated by NEC Electronics, was used in the Nintendo 64 game console. The Nintendo 64, along with the PlayStation, were among the highest volume users of MIPS architecture processors in the mid-1990s.
The first MIPS IV implementation was the MIPS Technologies R8000 microprocessor chipset (1994). The design of the R8000 began at Silicon Graphics, Inc. and it was only used in high-end workstations and servers for scientific and technical applications where high performance on large floating-point workloads was important. Later implementations were the MIPS Technologies R10000 (1996) and the Quantum Effect Devices R5000 (1996) and RM7000 (1998). The R10000, fabricated and sold by NEC Electronics and Toshiba, and its derivatives were used by NEC, Pyramid Technology, Silicon Graphics, Inc., and Tandem Computers (among others) in workstations, servers, and supercomputers. The R5000 and R7000 found use in high-end embedded systems, personal computers, and low-end workstations and servers. A derivative of the R5000 from Toshiba, the R5900, was used in Sony Computer Entertainment's Emotion Engine, which powered its PlayStation 2 game console.
Announced on October 21, 1996 at the Microprocessor Forum 1996 alongside the MIPS Digital Media Extensions (MDMX) extension, MIPS V was designed to improve the performance of 3D graphics transformations. In the mid-1990s, a major use of non-embedded MIPS microprocessors were graphics workstations from SGI. MIPS V was completed by the integer-only MDMX extension to provide a complete system for improving the performance of 3D graphics applications. MIPS V implementations were never introduced. On May 12, 1997, SGI announced the "H1" ("Beast") and "H2" ("Capitan") microprocessors. The former was to have been the first MIPS V implementation, and was due to be introduced in the first half of 1999. The "H1" and "H2" projects were later combined and were eventually canceled in 1998. While there have not been any MIPS V implementations, MIPS64 Release 1 (1999) was based on MIPS V and retains all of its features as an optional Coprocessor 1 (FPU) feature called Paired-Single.
When MIPS Technologies was spun-out of Silicon Graphics in 1998, it refocused on the embedded market. Up to MIPS V, each successive version was a strict superset of the previous version, but this property was found to be a problem, and the architecture definition was changed to define a 32-bit and a 64-bit architecture: MIPS32 and MIPS64. Both were introduced in 1999. MIPS32 is based on MIPS II with some additional features from MIPS III, MIPS IV, and MIPS V; MIPS64 is based on MIPS V. NEC, Toshiba and SiByte (later acquired by Broadcom) each obtained licenses for MIPS64 as soon as it was announced. Philips, LSI Logic, IDT, Raza Microelectronics, Inc., Cavium, Loongson Technology and Ingenic Semiconductor have since joined them. MIPS32/MIPS64 Release 5 was announced on December 6, 2012. Release 4 was skipped because the number four is perceived as unlucky in many Asian cultures.
In December 2018, Wave Computing, the new owner of the MIPS architecture, announced that MIPS ISA would be open-sourced in a program dubbed the MIPS Open initiative. The program was intended to open up access to the most recent versions of both the 32-bit and 64-bit designs making them available without any licensing or royalty fees as well as granting participants licenses to existing MIPS patents.
In March 2019, one version of the architecture was made available under a royalty-free license, but later that year the program was shut down again.
MIPS is a modular architecture supporting up to four coprocessors (CP0/1/2/3). In MIPS terminology, CP0 is the System Control Coprocessor (an essential part of the processor that is implementation-defined in MIPS I–V), CP1 is an optional floating-point unit (FPU) and CP2/3 are optional implementation-defined coprocessors (MIPS III removed CP3 and reused its opcodes for other purposes). For example, in the PlayStation video game console, CP2 is the Geometry Transformation Engine (GTE), which accelerates the processing of geometry in 3D computer graphics.
MIPS is a load/store architecture (also known as a "register-register architecture"); except for the load/store instructions used to access memory, all instructions operate on the registers.
MIPS I has thirty-two 32-bit general-purpose registers (GPR). Register $0 is hardwired to zero and writes to it are discarded. Register $31 is the link register. For integer multiplication and division instructions, which run asynchronously from other instructions, a pair of 32-bit registers, "HI" and "LO", are provided. There is a small set of instructions for copying data between the general-purpose registers and the HI/LO registers.
The program counter has 32 bits. The two low-order bits always contain zero since MIPS I instructions are 32 bits long and are aligned to their natural word boundaries.
Instructions are divided into three types: R, I and J. Every instruction starts with a 6-bit opcode. In addition to the opcode, R-type instructions specify three registers, a shift amount field, and a function field; I-type instructions specify two registers and a 16-bit immediate value; J-type instructions follow the opcode with a 26-bit jump target.
The following are the three formats used for the core instruction set:
MIPS I has instructions that load and store 8-bit bytes, 16-bit halfwords, and 32-bit words. Only one addressing mode is supported: base + displacement. Since MIPS I is a 32-bit architecture, loading quantities fewer than 32 bits requires the datum to be either signed- or zero-extended to 32 bits. The load instructions suffixed by "unsigned" perform zero extension; otherwise sign extension is performed. Load instructions source the base from the contents of a GPR (rs) and write the result to another GPR (rt). Store instructions source the base from the contents of a GPR (rs) and the store data from another GPR (rt). All load and store instructions compute the memory address by summing the base with the sign-extended 16-bit immediate. MIPS I requires all memory accesses to be aligned to their natural word boundaries, otherwise an exception is signaled. To support efficient unaligned memory accesses, there are load/store word instructions suffixed by "left" or "right". All load instructions are followed by a load delay slot. The instruction in the load delay slot cannot use the data loaded by the load instruction. The load delay slot can be filled with an instruction that is not dependent on the load; a nop is substituted if such an instruction cannot be found.
MIPS I has instructions to perform addition and subtraction. These instructions source their operands from two GPRs (rs and rt), and write the result to a third GPR (rd). Alternatively, addition can source one of the operands from a 16-bit immediate (which is sign-extended to 32 bits). The instructions for addition and subtraction have two variants: by default, an exception is signaled if the result overflows; instructions with the "unsigned" suffix do not signal an exception. The overflow check interprets the result as a 32-bit two's complement integer. MIPS I has instructions to perform bitwise logical AND, OR, XOR, and NOR. These instructions source their operands from two GPRs and write the result to a third GPR. The AND, OR, and XOR instructions can alternatively source one of the operands from a 16-bit immediate (which is zero-extended to 32 bits). The Set on "relation" instructions write one or zero to the destination register if the specified relation is true or false. These instructions source their operands from two GPRs or one GPR and a 16-bit immediate (which is sign-extended to 32 bits), and write the result to a third GPR. By default, the operands are interpreted as signed integers. The variants of these instructions that are suffixed with "unsigned" interpret the operands as unsigned integers (even those that source an operand from the sign-extended 16-bit immediate).
The Load Immediate Upper instruction copies the 16-bit immediate into the high-order 16 bits of a GPR. It is used in conjunction with the Or Immediate instruction to load a 32-bit immediate into a register.
MIPS I has instructions to perform left and right logical shifts and right arithmetic shifts. The operand is obtained from a GPR (rt), and the result is written to another GPR (rd). The shift distance is obtained from either a GPR (rs) or a 5-bit "shift amount" (the "sa" field).
MIPS I has instructions for signed and unsigned integer multiplication and division. These instructions source their operands from two GPRs and write their results to a pair of 32-bit registers called HI and LO, since they may execute separately from (and concurrently with) the other CPU instructions. For multiplication, the high- and low-order halves of the 64-bit product is written to HI and LO (respectively). For division, the quotient is written to LO and the remainder to HI. To access the results, a pair of instructions (Move from HI and Move from LO) is provided to copy the contents of HI or LO to a GPR. These instructions are interlocked: reads of HI and LO do not proceed past an unfinished arithmetic instruction that will write to HI and LO. Another pair of instructions (Move to HI or Move to LO) copies the contents of a GPR to HI and LO. These instructions are used to restore HI and LO to their original state after exception handling. Instructions that read HI or LO must be separated by two instructions that do not write to HI or LO.
All MIPS I control flow instructions are followed by a branch delay slot. Unless the branch delay slot is filled by an instruction performing useful work, an nop is substituted. MIPS I branch instructions compare the contents of a GPR (rs) against zero or another GPR (rt) as signed integers and branch if the specified condition is true. Control is transferred to the address computed by shifting the 16-bit offset left by two bits, sign-extending the 18-bit result, and adding the 32-bit sign-extended result to the sum of the program counter (instruction address) and 810. Jumps have two versions: absolute and register-indirect. Absolute jumps ("Jump" and "Jump and Link") compute the address control is transferred to by shifting the 26-bit instr_index left by two bits and concatenating the 28-bit result with the four high-order bits of the address of the instruction in the branch delay slot. Register-indirect jumps transfer control to the instruction at the address sourced from a GPR (rs). The address sourced from the GPR must be word-aligned, else an exception is signaled after the instruction in the branch delay slot is executed. Branch and jump instructions that link (except for "Jump and Link Register") save the return address to GPR 31. The "Jump and Link Register" instruction permits the return address to be saved to any writable GPR.
MIPS I has two instructions for software to signal an exception: System Call and Breakpoint. System Call is used by user mode software to make kernel calls; and Breakpoint is used to transfer control to a debugger via the kernel's exception handler. Both instructions have a 20-bit Code field that can contain operating environment-specific information for the exception handler.
MIPS has 32 floating-point registers. Two registers are paired for double precision numbers. Odd numbered registers cannot be used for arithmetic or branching, just as part of a double precision register pair, resulting in 16 usable registers for most instructions (moves/copies and loads/stores were not affected).
Single precision is denoted by the .s suffix, while double precision is denoted by the .d suffix.
MIPS II removed the load delay slot and added several sets of instructions. For shared-memory multiprocessing, the "Synchronize Shared Memory", "Load Linked Word", and "Store Conditional Word" instructions were added. A set of Trap-on-Condition instructions were added. These instructions caused an exception if the evaluated condition is true. All existing branch instructions were given "branch-likely" versions that executed the instruction in the branch delay slot only if the branch is taken. These instructions improve performance in certain cases by allowing useful instructions to fill the branch delay slot. Doubleword load and store instructions for COP1–3 were added. Consistent with other memory access instructions, these loads and stores required the doubleword to be naturally aligned.
The instruction set for the floating point coprocessor also had several instructions added to it. An IEEE 754-compliant floating-point square root instruction was added. It supported both single- and double-precision operands. A set of instructions that converted single- and double-precision floating-point numbers to 32-bit words were added. These complemented the existing conversion instructions by allowing the IEEE rounding mode to be specified by the instruction instead of the Floating Point Control and Status Register.
MIPS III is a backwards-compatible extension of MIPS II that added support for 64-bit memory addressing and integer operations. The 64-bit data type is called a doubleword, and MIPS III extended the general-purpose registers, HI/LO registers, and program counter to 64 bits to support it. New instructions were added to load and store doublewords, to perform integer addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and shift operations on them, and to move doubleword between the GPRs and HI/LO registers. Existing instructions originally defined to operate on 32-bit words were redefined, where necessary, to sign-extend the 32-bit results to permit words and doublewords to be treated identically by most instructions. Among those instructions redefined was "Load Word". In MIPS III it sign-extends words to 64 bits. To complement "Load Word", a version that zero-extends was added.
The R instruction format's inability to specify the full shift distance for 64-bit shifts (its 5-bit shift amount field is too narrow to specify the shift distance for doublewords) required MIPS III to provide three 64-bit versions of each MIPS I shift instruction. The first version is a 64-bit version of the original shift instructions, used to specify constant shift distances of 0–31 bits. The second version is similar to the first, but adds 3210 the shift amount field's value so that constant shift distances of 32–64 bits can be specified. The third version obtains the shift distance from the six low-order bits of a GPR.
MIPS III added a "supervisor" privilege level in between the existing kernel and user privilege levels. This feature only affected the implementation-defined System Control Processor (Coprocessor 0).
MIPS III removed the Coprocessor 3 (CP3) support instructions, and reused its opcodes for the new doubleword instructions. The remaining coprocessors gained instructions to move doublewords between coprocessor registers and the GPRs. The floating general registers (FGRs) were extended to 64 bits and the requirement for instructions to use even-numbered register only was removed. This is incompatible with earlier versions of the architecture; a bit in the floating-point control/status register is used to operate the MIPS III floating-point unit (FPU) in a MIPS I- and II-compatible mode. The floating-point control registers were not extended for compatibility. The only new floating-point instructions added were those to copy doublewords between the CPU and FPU convert single- and double-precision floating-point numbers into doubleword integers and vice versa.
MIPS IV is the fourth version of the architecture. It is a superset of MIPS III and is compatible with all existing versions of MIPS. MIPS IV was designed to mainly improve floating-point (FP) performance. To improve access to operands, an indexed addressing mode (base + index, both sourced from GPRs) for FP loads and stores was added, as were prefetch instructions for performing memory prefetching and specifying cache hints (these supported both the base + offset and base + index addressing modes).
MIPS IV added several features to improve instruction-level parallelism. To alleviate the bottleneck caused by a single condition bit, seven condition code bits were added to the floating-point control and status register, bringing the total to eight. FP comparison and branch instructions were redefined so they could specify which condition bit was written or read (respectively); and the delay slot in between an FP branch that read the condition bit written to by a prior FP comparison was removed. Support for partial predication was added in the form of conditional move instructions for both GPRs and FPRs; and an implementation could choose between having precise or imprecise exceptions for IEEE 754 traps.
MIPS IV added several new FP arithmetic instructions for both single- and double-precision FPNs: fused-multiply add or subtract, reciprocal, and reciprocal square-root. The FP fused-multiply add or subtract instructions perform either one or two roundings (it is implementation-defined), to exceed or meet IEEE 754 accuracy requirements (respectively). The FP reciprocal and reciprocal square-root instructions do not comply with IEEE 754 accuracy requirements, and produce results that differ from the required accuracy by one or two units of last place (it is implementation defined). These instructions serve applications where instruction latency is more important than accuracy.
MIPS V added a new data type, the Paired Single (PS), which consisted of two single-precision (32-bit) floating-point numbers stored in the existing 64-bit floating-point registers. Variants of existing floating-point instructions for arithmetic, compare and conditional move were added to operate on this data type in a SIMD fashion. New instructions were added for loading, rearranging and converting PS data. It was the first instruction set to exploit floating-point SIMD with existing resources.
The first release of MIPS32, based on MIPS II, added conditional moves, prefetch instructions, and other features from the R4000 and R5000 families of 64-bit processors. The first release of MIPS64 adds a MIPS32 mode to run 32-bit code. The MUL and MADD (multiply-add) instructions, previously available in some implementations, were added to the MIPS32 and MIPS64 specifications, as were cache control instructions.
MIPS32/MIPS64 Release 6 in 2014 added the following:
Removed infrequently used instructions:
Reorganized the instruction encoding, freeing space for future expansions.
The microMIPS32/64 architectures are supersets of the MIPS32 and MIPS64 architectures (respectively) designed to replace the MIPS16e ASE. A disadvantage of MIPS16e is that it requires a mode switch before any of its 16-bit instructions can be processed. microMIPS adds versions of the most-frequently used 32-bit instructions that are encoded as 16-bit instructions. This allows programs to intermix 16- and 32-bit instructions without having to switch modes. microMIPS was introduced alongside of MIPS32/64 Release 3, and each subsequent release of MIPS32/64 has a corresponding microMIPS32/64 version. A processor may implement microMIPS32/64 or both microMIPS32/64 and its corresponding MIPS32/64 subset. Starting with MIPS32/64 Release 6, support for MIPS16e ended, and microMIPS is the only form of code compression in MIPS.
The base MIPS32 and MIPS64 architectures can be supplemented with a number of optional architectural extensions, which are collectively referred to as "application-specific extensions" (ASEs). These ASEs provide features that improve the efficiency and performance of certain workloads, such as digital signal processing.
MIPS processors are used in embedded systems such as residential gateways and routers. Originally, MIPS was designed for general-purpose computing. During the 1980s and 1990s, MIPS processors for personal, workstation, and server computers were used by many companies such as Digital Equipment Corporation, MIPS Computer Systems, NEC, Pyramid Technology, SiCortex, Siemens Nixdorf, Silicon Graphics, and Tandem Computers.
Historically, video game consoles such as the Nintendo 64, Sony PlayStation, PlayStation 2, and PlayStation Portable used MIPS processors. MIPS processors also used to be popular in supercomputers during the 1990s, but all such systems have dropped off the TOP500 list. These uses were complemented by embedded applications at first, but during the 1990s, MIPS became a major presence in the embedded processor market, and by the 2000s, most MIPS processors were for these applications.
In the mid- to late-1990s, it was estimated that one in three RISC microprocessors produced was a MIPS processor.
Open Virtual Platforms (OVP) includes the freely available for non-commercial use simulator OVPsim, a library of models of processors, peripherals and platforms, and APIs which enable users to develop their own models. The models in the library are open source, written in C, and include the MIPS 4K, 24K, 34K, 74K, 1004K, 1074K, M14K, microAptiv, interAptiv, proAptiv 32-bit cores and the MIPS 64-bit 5K range of cores. These models are created and maintained by Imperas and in partnership with MIPS Technologies have been tested and assigned the MIPS-Verified (tm) mark. Sample MIPS-based platforms include both bare metal environments and platforms for booting unmodified Linux binary images. These platforms–emulators are available as source or binaries and are fast, free for non-commercial usage, and are easy to use. OVPsim is developed and maintained by Imperas and is very fast (hundreds of million of instructions per second), and built to handle multicore homogeneous and heterogeneous architectures and systems.
There is a freely available MIPS32 simulator (earlier versions simulated only the R2000/R3000) called SPIM for use in education. EduMIPS64 is a GPL graphical cross-platform MIPS64 CPU simulator, written in Java/Swing. It supports a wide subset of the MIPS64 ISA and allows the user to graphically see what happens in the pipeline when an assembly program is run by the CPU.
MARS is another GUI-based MIPS emulator designed for use in education, specifically for use with Hennessy's "Computer Organization and Design".
WebMIPS is a browser-based MIPS simulator with visual representation of a generic, pipelined processor. This simulator is quite useful for register tracking during step by step execution.
More advanced free emulators are available from the GXemul (formerly known as the mips64emul project) and QEMU projects. These emulate the various MIPS III and IV microprocessors in addition to entire computer systems which use them.
Commercial simulators are available especially for the embedded use of MIPS processors, for example Wind River Simics (MIPS 4Kc and 5Kc, PMC RM9000, QED RM7000, Broadcom/Netlogic ec4400, Cavium Octeon I), Imperas (all MIPS32 and MIPS64 cores), VaST Systems (R3000, R4000), and CoWare (the MIPS4KE, MIPS24K, MIPS25Kf and MIPS34K).
WepSIM is a browser-based simulator where a subset of MIPS instructions are micro-programmed. This simulator is very useful in order to learn how a CPU works (microprogramming, MIPS routines, traps, interruptions, system calls, etc.).
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=20170
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Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. This state of mind may, depending upon the jurisdiction, distinguish murder from other forms of unlawful homicide, such as manslaughter. Manslaughter is killing committed in the absence of "malice", brought about by reasonable provocation, or diminished capacity. "Involuntary" manslaughter, where it is recognized, is a killing that lacks all but the most attenuated guilty intent, recklessness.
Most societies consider murder to be an extremely serious crime, and thus that a person convicted of murder should receive harsh punishments for the purposes of retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, or incapacitation. In most countries, a person convicted of murder generally faces a long-term prison sentence, possibly a life sentence; and in a few, the death penalty may be imposed.
The modern English word "murder" descends from the Proto-Indo-European "mrtró" which meant "to die". The Middle English "mordre" is a noun from Anglo-Saxon "morðor" and Old French "murdre". Middle English "mordre" is a verb from Anglo-Saxon "myrdrian" and the Middle English noun.
In many countries, in news reports, out of concern for being accused of defamation, journalists are generally careful not to identify a suspect as a murderer until the suspect is convicted of murder in a court of law. After arrest, for example, journalists may instead write that the person was "arrested on suspicion of murder", or, after a prosecutor files charges, as an "accused murderer".
The eighteenth-century English jurist William Blackstone (citing Edward Coke), in his "Commentaries on the Laws of England" set out the common law definition of murder, which by this definition occurs
The elements of common law murder are:
The four states of mind recognized as constituting "malice" are:
Under state of mind (i), intent to kill, the "deadly weapon rule" applies. Thus, if the defendant intentionally uses a deadly weapon or instrument against the victim, such use authorizes a permissive inference of intent to kill. In other words, "intent follows the bullet". Examples of deadly weapons and instruments include but are not limited to guns, knives, deadly toxins or chemicals or gases and even vehicles when intentionally used to harm one or more victims.
Under state of mind (iii), an "abandoned and malignant heart", the killing must result from the defendant's conduct involving a reckless indifference to human life and a conscious disregard of an unreasonable risk of death or serious bodily injury. In Australian jurisdictions, the unreasonable risk must amount to a foreseen probability of death (or grievous bodily harm in most states), as opposed to possibility.
Under state of mind (iv), the felony-murder doctrine, the felony committed must be an inherently dangerous felony, such as burglary, arson, rape, robbery or kidnapping. Importantly, the underlying felony "cannot" be a lesser included offense such as assault, otherwise all criminal homicides would be murder as all are felonies.
In Spanish criminal law, murder takes place when any of these requirements concur: Treachery (the use of means to avoid risk for the aggressor or to ensure that the crime goes unpunished), price or reward (financial gain) or viciousness (deliberately increasing the pain of the victim). After the last reform of the Spanish Criminal Code, in force since July 1, 2015, another circumstance that turns homicide into murder is the desire to facilitate the commission of another crime or to prevent it from being discovered.
As with most legal terms, the precise definition of murder varies between jurisdictions and is usually codified in some form of legislation. Even when the legal distinction between murder and manslaughter is clear, it is not unknown for a jury to find a murder defendant guilty of the lesser offense. The jury might sympathize with the defendant (e.g. in a crime of passion, or in the case of a bullied victim who kills their tormentor), and the jury may wish to protect the defendant from a sentence of life imprisonment or execution.
Many jurisdictions divide murder by degrees. The distinction between first- and second-degree murder exists, for example, in Canadian murder law and U.S. murder law.
The most common division is between first- and second-degree murder. Generally, second-degree murder is common law murder, and first-degree is an aggravated form. The aggravating factors of first-degree murder depend on the jurisdiction, but may include a specific intent to kill, premeditation, or deliberation. In some, murder committed by acts such as strangulation, poisoning, or lying in wait are also treated as first-degree murder. A few states in the U.S. further distinguish third-degree murder, but they differ significantly in which kinds of murders they classify as second-degree versus third-degree. For example, Minnesota defines third-degree murder as depraved-heart murder, whereas Florida defines third-degree murder as felony murder (except when the underlying felony is specifically listed in the definition of first-degree murder).
Some jurisdictions also distinguish premeditated murder. This is the crime of wrongfully and intentionally causing the death of another human being (also known as murder) after rationally considering the timing or method of doing so, in order to either increase the likelihood of success, or to evade detection or apprehension. State laws in the United States vary as to definitions of "premeditation". In some states, premeditation may be construed as taking place mere seconds before the murder. Premeditated murder is one of the most serious forms of homicide, and is punished more severely than manslaughter or other types of homicide, often with a life sentence without the possibility of parole, or in some countries, the death penalty. In the U.S, federal law () criminalizes premeditated murder, felony murder and second-degree murder committed under situations where federal jurisdiction applies. In Canada, the Criminal Code classifies murder as either 1st- or 2nd-degree. The former type of murder is often called premeditated murder, although premeditation is not the only way murder can be classified as first-degree.
According to Blackstone, English common law identified murder as a "public wrong". According to common law, murder is considered to be "malum in se", that is, an act which is evil within itself. An act such as murder is wrong or evil by its very nature. And it is the very nature of the act which does not require any specific detailing or definition in the law to consider murder a crime.
Some jurisdictions still take a common law view of murder. In such jurisdictions, what is considered to be murder is defined by precedent case law or previous decisions of the courts of law. However, although the common law is by nature flexible and adaptable, in the interests both of certainty and of securing convictions, most common law jurisdictions have codified their criminal law and now have statutory definitions of murder.
Although laws vary by country, there are circumstances of exclusion that are common in many legal systems.
All jurisdictions require that the victim be a natural person; that is, a human being who was still alive before being murdered. In other words, under the law one cannot murder a corpse, a corporation, a non-human animal, or any other non-human organism such as a plant or bacterium.
California's murder statute, Penal Code Section 187, was interpreted by the Supreme Court of California in 1994 as not requiring any proof of the viability of the fetus as a prerequisite to a murder conviction. This holding has two implications. The first is a defendant in California can be convicted of murder for killing a fetus which the mother herself could have terminated without committing a crime. The second, as stated by Justice Stanley Mosk in his dissent, is that because women carrying nonviable fetuses may not be visibly pregnant, it may be possible for a defendant to be convicted of intentionally murdering a person they did not know existed.
Some countries allow conditions that "affect the balance of the mind" to be regarded as mitigating circumstances. This means that a person may be found guilty of "manslaughter" on the basis of "diminished responsibility" rather than being found guilty of murder, if it can be proved that the killer was suffering from a condition that affected their judgment at the time. Depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and medication side-effects are examples of conditions that may be taken into account when assessing responsibility.
Mental disorder may apply to a wide range of disorders including psychosis caused by schizophrenia and dementia, and excuse the person from the need to undergo the stress of a trial as to liability. Usually, sociopathy and other personality disorders are not legally considered insanity, because of the belief they are the result of free will in many societies. In some jurisdictions, following the pre-trial hearing to determine the extent of the disorder, the defense of "not guilty by reason of insanity" may be used to get a not guilty verdict. This defense has two elements:
Under New York law, for example:
Under the French Penal Code:
Those who successfully argue a defense based on a mental disorder are usually referred to mandatory clinical treatment until they are certified safe to be released back into the community, rather than prison. A criminal defendant is often presented with the option of pleading "not guilty by reason of insanity". Thus, a finding of insanity results in a not-guilty verdict, although the defendant is placed in a state treatment facility where they could be kept for years or even decades.
Postpartum depression (also known as post-natal depression) is recognized in some countries as a mitigating factor in cases of infanticide. According to Dr. Susan Friedman, "Two dozen nations have infanticide laws that decrease the penalty for mothers who kill their children of up to one year of age. The United States does not have such a law, but mentally ill mothers may plead not guilty by reason of insanity." In the law of the Republic of Ireland, infanticide was made a separate crime from murder in 1949, applicable for the mother of a baby under one year old where "the balance of her mind was disturbed by reason of her not having fully recovered from the effect of giving birth to the child or by reason of the effect of lactation consequent upon the birth of the child". Since independence, death sentences for murder in such cases had always been commuted; the new act was intended "to eliminate all the terrible ritual of the black cap and the solemn words of the judge pronouncing sentence of death in those cases ... where it is clear to the Court and to everybody, except perhaps the unfortunate accused, that the sentence will never be carried out." In Russia, murder of a newborn child by the mother has been separate crime since 1996.
For a killing to be considered murder in nine out of fifty states in the US, there normally needs to be an element of intent. A defendant may argue that they took precautions not to kill, that the death could not have been anticipated, or was unavoidable. As a general rule, manslaughter constitutes reckless killing, but manslaughter also includes criminally negligent (i.e. grossly negligent) homicide. Unintentional killing that results from an involuntary action generally cannot constitute murder. After examining the evidence, a judge or jury (depending on the jurisdiction) would determine whether the killing was intentional or unintentional.
In those jurisdictions using the Uniform Penal Code, such as California, diminished capacity may be a defense. For example, Dan White used this defence to obtain a manslaughter conviction, instead of murder, in the assassination of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. Afterward, California amended its penal code to provide "As a matter of public policy there shall be no defense of diminished capacity, diminished responsibility, or irresistible impulse in a criminal action..."
Murder with specified aggravating circumstances is often punished more harshly. Depending on the jurisdiction, such circumstances may include:
In the United States and Canada, these murders are referred to as first-degree or aggravated murders. Murder, under English criminal law, always carries a mandatory life sentence, but is not classified into degrees. Penalties for murder committed under aggravating circumstances are often higher, under English law, than the 15-year minimum non-parole period that otherwise serves as a starting point for a murder committed by an adult.
A legal doctrine in some common law jurisdictions broadens the crime of murder: when an offender kills in the commission of a dangerous crime, (regardless of intent), he/she is guilty of murder. The felony murder rule is often justified by its supporters as a means of deterring dangerous felonies, but the case of Ryan Holle shows it can be used very widely.
In some common law jurisdictions, a defendant accused of murder is not guilty if the victim survives for longer than one year and one day after the attack. This reflects the likelihood that if the victim dies, other factors will have contributed to the cause of death, breaking the chain of causation; and also means that the responsible person does not have a charge of murder "hanging over their head indefinitely". Subject to any statute of limitations, the accused could still be charged with an offense reflecting the seriousness of the initial assault.
With advances in modern medicine, most countries have abandoned a fixed time period and test causation on the facts of the case. This is known as "delayed death" and cases where this was applied or was attempted to be applied go back to at least 1966.
In England and Wales, the "year-and-a-day rule" was abolished by the Law Reform (Year and a Day Rule) Act 1996. However, if death occurs three years or more after the original attack then prosecution can take place only with the Attorney-General's approval.
In the United States, many jurisdictions have abolished the rule as well. Abolition of the rule has been accomplished by enactment of statutory criminal codes, which had the effect of displacing the common-law definitions of crimes and corresponding defenses. In 2001 the Supreme Court of the United States held that retroactive application of a state supreme court decision abolishing the year-and-a-day rule did not violate the Ex Post Facto Clause of Article I of the United States Constitution.
The potential effect of fully abolishing the rule can be seen in the case of 74-year-old William Barnes, charged with the murder of a Philadelphia police officer Walter T. Barclay Jr., who he had shot nearly 41 years previously. Barnes had served 16 years in prison for attempting to murder Barkley, but when the policeman died on August 19, 2007, this was alleged to be from complications of the wounds suffered from the shooting – and Barnes was charged with his murder. He was acquitted on May 24, 2010.
Martin Daly and Margo Wilson of McMaster University have claimed that several aspects of homicides, including the genetic relations or proximity between murderers and their victims, (as in the Cinderella effect), can often be explained by the evolution theory or evolutionary psychology.
In the Abrahamic religions, the first ever murder was committed by Cain against his brother Abel out of jealousy. In the past, certain types of homicide were lawful and justified. Georg Oesterdiekhoff wrote:
In many such societies the redress was not via a legal system, but by blood revenge, although there might also be a form of payment that could be made instead—such as the weregild which in early Germanic society could be paid to the victim's family in lieu of their right of revenge.
One of the oldest-known prohibitions against murder appears in the Sumerian Code of Ur-Nammu written sometime between 2100 and 2050 BC. The code states, "If a man commits a murder, that man must be killed."
In Judeo-Christian traditions, the prohibition against murder is one of the Ten Commandments given by God to Moses in (Exodus: 20v13) and (Deuteronomy 5v17). The Vulgate and subsequent early English translations of the Bible used the term "secretly killeth his neighbour" or "smiteth his neighbour secretly" rather than "murder" for the Latin "clam percusserit proximum". Later editions such as Young's Literal Translation and the World English Bible have translated the Latin "occides" simply as "murder" rather than the alternatives of "kill", "assassinate", "fall upon", or "slay".
In Islam according to the Qur'an, one of the greatest sins is to kill a human being who has committed no fault. "For that cause We decreed for the Children of Israel that whosoever killeth a human being for other than manslaughter or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he had killed all mankind, and whoso saveth the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind." "And those who cry not unto any other god along with Allah, nor take the life which Allah hath forbidden save in (course of) justice, nor commit adultery – and whoso doeth this shall pay the penalty."
The term "assassin" derives from Hashshashin, a militant Ismaili Shi'ite sect, active from the 8th to 14th centuries. This mystic secret society killed members of the Abbasid, Fatimid, Seljuq and Crusader elite for political and religious reasons. The Thuggee cult that plagued India was devoted to Kali, the goddess of death and destruction. According to some estimates the Thuggees murdered 1 million people between 1740 and 1840. The Aztecs believed that without regular offerings of blood the sun god Huitzilopochtli would withdraw his support for them and destroy the world as they knew it. According to Ross Hassig, author of "Aztec Warfare", "between 10,000 and 80,400 persons" were sacrificed in the 1487 re-consecration of the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan.
Southern slave codes did make willful killing of a slave illegal in most cases. For example, the 1860 Mississippi case of "Oliver v. State" charged the defendant with murdering his own slave. In 1811, the wealthy white planter Arthur Hodge was hanged for murdering several of his slaves on his plantation in the British West Indies.
In Corsica, vendetta was a social code that required Corsicans to kill anyone who wronged their family honor. Between 1821 and 1852, no fewer than 4,300 murders were perpetrated in Corsica.
The World Health Organization reported in October 2002 that a person is murdered every 60 seconds. An estimated 520,000 people were murdered in 2000 around the globe. Another study estimated the worldwide murder rate at 456,300 in 2010 with a 35% increase since 1990. Two-fifths of them were young people between the ages of 10 and 29 who were killed by other young people. Because murder is the least likely crime to go unreported, statistics of murder are seen as a bellwether of overall crime rates.
Murder rates vary greatly among countries and societies around the world. In the Western world, murder rates in most countries have declined significantly during the 20th century and are now between 1 and 4 cases per 100,000 people per year. Latin America and the Caribbean, the region with the highest murder rate in the world, experienced more than 2.5 million murders between 2000 and 2017.
Murder rates in jurisdictions such as Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Iceland, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and Germany are among the lowest in the world, around 0.3–1 cases per 100,000 people per year; the rate of the United States is among the highest of developed countries, around 4.5 in 2014, with rates in larger cities sometimes over 40 per 100,000. The top ten highest murder rates are in Honduras (91.6 per 100,000), El Salvador, Ivory Coast, Venezuela, Belize, Jamaica, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guatemala, Saint Kitts and Nevis and Zambia. (UNODC, 2011 – full table here).
The following absolute murder counts per-country are not comparable because they are not adjusted by each country's total population. Nonetheless, they are included here for reference, with 2010 used as the base year (they may or may not include justifiable homicide, depending on the jurisdiction). There were 52,260 murders in Brazil, consecutively elevating the record set in 2009. Over half a million people were shot to death in Brazil between 1979 and 2003. 33,335 murder cases were registered across India, about 19,000 murders committed in Russia, approximately 17,000 murders in Colombia (the murder rate was 38 per 100,000 people, in 2008 murders went down to 15,000), approximately 16,000 murders in South Africa, approximately 15,000 murders in the United States, approximately 26,000 murders in Mexico, approximately 13,000 murders in Venezuela, approximately 4,000 murders in El Salvador, approximately 1,400 murders in Jamaica, approximately 550 murders in Canada and approximately 470 murders in Trinidad and Tobago. Pakistan reported 12,580 murders.
In the United States, 666,160 people were killed between 1960 and 1996. Approximately 90% of murders in the US are committed by males. Between 1976 and 2005, 23.5% of all murder victims and 64.8% of victims murdered by intimate partners were female. For women in the US, homicide is the leading cause of death in the workplace.
In the US, murder is the leading cause of death for African American males aged 15 to 34. Between 1976 and 2008, African Americans were victims of 329,825 homicides. In 2006, Federal Bureau of Investigation's Supplementary Homicide Report indicated that nearly half of the 14,990 murder victims that year were Black (7421). In the year 2007, there were 3,221 black victims and 3,587 white victims of non-negligent homicides. While 2,905 of the black victims were killed by a black offender, 2,918 of the white victims were killed by white offenders. There were 566 white victims of black offenders and 245 black victims of white offenders. The "white" category in the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) includes non-black Hispanics. In London in 2006, 75% of the victims of gun crime and 79% of the suspects were "from the African/Caribbean community".
Murder demographics are affected by the improvement of trauma care, which has resulted in reduced lethality of violent assaults – thus the murder rate may not necessarily indicate the overall level of social violence.
Workplace homicide, which tripled during the 1980s, is the fastest growing category of murder in America.
Development of murder rates over time in different countries is often used by both supporters and opponents of capital punishment and gun control. Using properly filtered data, it is possible to make the case for or against either of these issues. For example, one could look at murder rates in the United States from 1950 to 2000, and notice that those rates went up sharply shortly after a moratorium on death sentences was effectively imposed in the late 1960s. This fact has been used to argue that capital punishment serves as a deterrent and, as such, it is morally justified. Capital punishment opponents frequently counter that the United States has much higher murder rates than Canada and most European Union countries, although all those countries have abolished the death penalty. Overall, the global pattern is too complex, and on average, the influence of both these factors may not be significant and could be more social, economic, and cultural.
Despite the immense improvements in forensics in the past few decades, the fraction of murders solved has decreased in the United States, from 90% in 1960 to 61% in 2007. Solved murder rates in major U.S. cities varied in 2007 from 36% in Boston, Massachusetts to 76% in San Jose, California. Major factors affecting the arrest rate include witness cooperation and the number of people assigned to investigate the case.
According to scholar Pieter Spierenburg homicide rates per 100,000 in Europe have fallen over the centuries, from 35 per 100,000 in medieval times, to 20 in 1500 AD, 5 in 1700, to below two per 100,000 in 1900.
In the United States, murder rates have been higher and have fluctuated. They fell below 2 per 100,000 by 1900, rose during the first half of the century, dropped in the years following World War II, and bottomed out at 4.0 in 1957 before rising again. The rate stayed in 9 to 10 range most of the period from 1972 to 1994, before falling to 5 in present times. The increase since 1957 would have been even greater if not for the significant improvements in medical techniques and emergency response times, which mean that more and more attempted homicide victims survive. According to one estimate, if the lethality levels of criminal assaults of 1964 still applied in 1993, the country would have seen the murder rate of around 26 per 100,000, almost triple the actually observed rate of 9.5 per 100,000.
A similar, but less pronounced pattern has been seen in major European countries as well. The murder rate in the United Kingdom fell to 1 per 100,000 by the beginning of the 20th century and as low as 0.62 per 100,000 in 1960, and was at 1.28 per 100,000 . The murder rate in France (excluding Corsica) bottomed out after World War II at less than 0.4 per 100,000, quadrupling to 1.6 per 100,000 since then.
The specific factors driving this dynamics in murder rates are complex and not universally agreed upon. Much of the raise in the U.S. murder rate during the first half of the 20th century is generally thought to be attributed to gang violence associated with Prohibition. Since most murders are committed by young males, the near simultaneous low in the murder rates of major developed countries circa 1960 can be attributed to low birth rates during the Great Depression and World War II. Causes of further moves are more controversial. Some of the more exotic factors claimed to affect murder rates include the availability of abortion and the likelihood of chronic exposure to lead during childhood (due to the use of leaded paint in houses and tetraethyllead as a gasoline additive in internal combustion engines).
The success rate of criminal investigations into murders (the clearance rate) tends to be relatively high for murder compared to other crimes, due to its seriousness. In the United States, the clearance rate was 62.6% in 2004.
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Mariner program
The Mariner program was a 10-mission program conducted by the American space agency NASA in conjunction with Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The program launched a series of robotic interplanetary probes, from 1962 to 1973, designed to investigate Mars, Venus and Mercury. The program included a number of firsts, including the first planetary flyby, the first planetary orbiter, and the first gravity assist maneuver.
Of the ten vehicles in the Mariner series, seven were successful, forming the starting point for many subsequent NASA/JPL space probe programs. The planned Mariner Jupiter-Saturn vehicles were adapted into the Voyager program, while the Viking program orbiters were enlarged versions of the Mariner 9 spacecraft. Later Mariner-based spacecraft include the Magellan probe and the Galileo probe, while the second-generation Mariner Mark II series evolved into the Cassini–Huygens probe.
The total cost of the Mariner program was approximately $554 million.
The name of the Mariner program was decided in "May 1960-at the suggestion of Edgar M. Cortright" to have the "planetary mission probes ... patterned after nautical terms, to convey 'the impression of travel to great distances and remote lands.'" That "decision was the basis for naming Mariner, Ranger, Surveyor, and Viking probes."
All Mariner spacecraft were based on a hexagonal or octagonal "bus", which housed all of the electronics, and to which all components were attached, such as antennae, cameras, propulsion, and power sources. Mariner 2 was based on the Ranger Lunar probe. All of the Mariners launched after Mariner 2 had four solar panels for power, except for Mariner 10, which had two. Additionally, all except Mariner 1, Mariner 2 and Mariner 5 had TV cameras.
The first five Mariners were launched on Atlas-Agena rockets, while the last five used the Atlas-Centaur. All Mariner-based probes after Mariner 10 used the Titan IIIE, Titan IV unmanned rockets or the Space Shuttle with a solid-fueled Inertial Upper Stage and multiple planetary flybys.
Mariner 1 (P-37) and Mariner 2 (P-38) were two deep-space probes making up NASA's Mariner-R project. The primary goal of the project was to develop and launch two spacecraft sequentially to the near vicinity of Venus, receive communications from the spacecraft and to perform radiometric temperature measurements of the planet. A secondary objective was to make interplanetary magnetic field and/or particle measurements on the way to, and in the vicinity of, Venus. Mariner 1 (designated Mariner R-1) was launched on July 22, 1962, but was destroyed approximately 5 minutes after liftoff by the Air Force Range Safety Officer when its malfunctioning Atlas-Agena rocket went off course. Mariner 2 (designated Mariner R-2) was launched on August 27, 1962, sending it on a 3½-month flight to Venus. The mission was a success, and Mariner 2 became the first spacecraft to have flown by another planet.
Status:
Sisterships Mariner 3 and Mariner 4 were Mars flyby missions.
Mariner 3 was lost when the launch vehicle's nose fairing failed to jettison.
Mariner 4, launched on November 28, 1964, was the first successful flyby of the planet Mars and gave the first glimpse of Mars at close range.
Status:
The Mariner 5 spacecraft was launched to Venus on June 14, 1967 and arrived in the vicinity of the planet in October 1967. It carried a complement of experiments to probe Venus' atmosphere with radio waves, scan its brightness in ultraviolet light, and sample the solar particles and magnetic field fluctuations above the planet.
Status:
Mariner 5 – Defunct. Now in Heliocentric orbit.
Mariners 6 and 7 were identical teammates in a two-spacecraft mission to Mars. Mariner 6 was launched on February 24, 1969, followed by Mariner 7 on March 21, 1969. They flew over the equator and southern hemisphere of the planet Mars.
Status: Both Mariner 6 and Mariner 7 are now defunct and are in a Heliocentric orbit.
Mariner 8 and Mariner 9 were identical sister craft designed to map the Martian surface simultaneously, but Mariner 8 was lost in a launch vehicle failure. Mariner 9 was launched in May 1971 and became the first artificial satellite of Mars. It entered Martian orbit in November 1971 and began photographing the surface and analyzing the atmosphere with its infrared and ultraviolet instruments.
Status:
The Mariner 10 spacecraft launched on November 3, 1973 and was the first to use a gravity assist trajectory, accelerating as it entered the gravitational influence of Venus, then being flung by the planet's gravity onto a slightly different course to reach Mercury. It was also the first spacecraft to encounter two planets at close range, and for 33 years the only spacecraft to photograph Mercury in closeup.
Status: Mariner 10 – Defunct. Now in a Heliocentric orbit.
Mariner Jupiter-Saturn was approved in 1972 after the cancellation of the Grand Tour program, which proposed visiting all the outer planets with multiple spacecraft. The Mariner Jupiter-Saturn program proposed two Mariner-derived probes that would perform a scaled back mission involving flybys of only the two gas giants, though designers at JPL built the craft with the intention that further encounters past Saturn would be an option. Trajectories were chosen to allow one probe to visit Jupiter and Saturn first, and perform a flyby of Saturn's moon Titan to gather information about the moon's substantial atmosphere. The other probe would arrive at Jupiter and Saturn later, and its trajectory would enable it to continue on to Uranus and Neptune assuming the first probe accomplished all its objectives, or be redirected to perform a Titan flyby if necessary. The program's name was changed to Voyager just before launch in 1977, and after Voyager 1 successfully completed its Titan encounter, Voyager 2 went on to visit the two ice giants.
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Mariner 4
Mariner 4 (together with Mariner 3 known as Mariner–Mars 1964) was the fourth in a series of spacecraft intended for planetary exploration in a flyby mode. It was designed to conduct closeup scientific observations of Mars and to transmit these observations to Earth. Launched on November 28, 1964, Mariner 4 performed the first successful flyby of the planet Mars, returning the first close-up pictures of the Martian surface. It captured the first images of another planet ever returned from deep space; their depiction of a cratered, seemingly dead world largely changed the scientific community's view of life on Mars. Other mission objectives were to perform field and particle measurements in interplanetary space in the vicinity of Mars and to provide experience in and knowledge of the engineering capabilities for interplanetary flights of long duration. On December 21, 1967, communications with Mariner 4 were terminated.
The Mariner 4 spacecraft consisted of an octagonal magnesium frame, 127 cm across a diagonal and 45.7 cm high. Four solar panels were attached to the top of the frame with an end-to-end span of 6.88 meters, including solar pressure vanes which extended from the ends. A 104.1 cm x 66.0 cm elliptical high-gain parabolic antenna was mounted at the top of the frame as well. An omnidirectional low-gain antenna was mounted on a seven-foot, four inch (223.5 cm) tall mast next to the high-gain antenna. The overall height of the spacecraft was 2.89 meters. The octagonal frame housed the electronic equipment, cabling, midcourse propulsion system, and attitude control gas supplies and regulators.
The scientific instruments included:
The electric power for the instruments and the radio transmitter of Mariner 4 was supplied by 28,224 solar cells contained in the four 176 x 90 cm solar panels, which could provide 310 watts at the distance of Mars. A rechargeable 1200 W·h silver-zinc battery was also used for maneuvers and backup. Monopropellant hydrazine was used for propulsion, via a four-jet vane vector control motor, with thrust, installed on one of the sides of the octagonal structure. The space probe's attitude control was provided by 12 cold nitrogen gas jets mounted on the ends of the solar panels and three gyros. Solar pressure vanes, each with an area of 0.65 square meter (seven ft²), were attached to the tips of the solar panels. Positional information was provided by four Sun sensors, and a sensor for either the Earth, Mars, or the star Canopus, depending on the time in its spaceflight. Mariner 4 was the first space probe that needed a star for a navigational reference object, since earlier missions, which remained near either the Earth, the Moon, or the planet Venus, had sighted onto either the bright face of the home planet or the brightly lit target. During this flight, both the Earth and Mars would be too dim to lock onto. Another bright source at a wide angle away from the Sun was needed and Canopus filled this requirement. Subsequently, Canopus was used as a reference point in many following missions.
The telecommunications equipment on Mariner 4 consisted of dual S-band transmitters (with either a seven-watt triode cavity amplifier or a ten watt traveling-wave tube amplifier) and a single radio receiver which together could send and receive data via the low- and high-gain antennas at 8⅓ or 33⅓ bits per second. Data could also be stored onto a magnetic tape recorder with a capacity of 5.24 million bits for later transmission. All electronic operations were controlled by a command subsystem which could process any of 29 direct command words or three quantitative word commands for mid-course maneuvers. The central computer and sequencer operated stored time-sequence commands using a 38.4 kHz synchronization frequency as a time reference. Temperature control was achieved through the use of adjustable louvers mounted on six of the electronics assemblies, plus multilayer insulating blankets, polished aluminum shields, and surface treatments. Other measurements that could be made included:
After Mariner 3 was a total loss due to failure of the payload shroud to jettison, JPL engineers suggested that there had been a malfunction caused during separation of the metal fairing exterior from the fiberglass inner lining due to pressure differences between the inner and outer part of the shroud and that this could have caused the spring-loaded separation mechanism to become tangled and fail to detach properly.
Testing at JPL confirmed this failure mode and an effort was made to develop a new, all-metal fairing. The downside of this was that the new fairing would be significantly heavier and reduce the Atlas-Agena's lift capacity. Convair and Lockheed-Martin had to make several performance enhancements to the booster to wring more power out of it. Despite fears that the work could not be completed before the 1964 Mars window closed, the new shroud was ready by November.
After launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 12, the protective shroud covering Mariner 4 was jettisoned and the Agena-D/Mariner 4 combination separated from the Atlas-D booster at 14:27:23 UTC on November 28, 1964. The Agena's first burn took place from 14:28:14 to 14:30:38. The initial burn put the spacecraft into an Earth parking orbit and the second burn from 15:02:53 to 15:04:28 injected the craft into a Mars transfer orbit. Mariner 4 separated from the Agena at 15:07:09 and began cruise mode operations. The solar panels deployed and the scan platform was unlatched at 15:15:00. Sun acquisition occurred 16 minutes later.
After Sun acquisition, the Canopus star tracker went searching for Canopus. The star tracker was set to respond to any object more than one-eighth as, and less than eight times as bright as Canopus. Including Canopus, there were seven such objects visible to the sensor. It took more than a day of "star-hopping" to find Canopus, as the sensor locked on to other stars instead: a stray light pattern from the near Earth, Alderamin, Regulus, Naos, and Gamma Velorum were acquired before Canopus.
A consistent problem that plagued the spacecraft during the early portion of its mission was that roll error signal transients would occur frequently and on occasion would cause loss of the Canopus star lock. The first attempt at a midcourse maneuver was aborted by a loss of lock shortly after the gyros began spinup. Canopus lock was lost six times within a period of less than three weeks after launch and each time a sequence of radio commands would be required to reacquire the star. After a study of the problem, the investigators concluded that the behavior was due to small dust particles that were being released from the spacecraft by some means and were drifting through the star sensor field-of-view. Sunlight scattered from the particles then appeared as illumination equivalent to that from a bright star. This would cause a roll error transient as the object passed through the field-of-view while the sensor was locked onto Canopus. When the object was bright enough that it exceeded the high gate limits at eight times the Canopus intensity, the spacecraft would automatically disacquire Canopus and initiate a roll search for a new star. Finally, a radio command was sent on December 17, 1964, that removed the high gate limit. There was no further loss of Canopus lock, although roll transients occurred 38 more times before encounter with Mars.
The 7½ month flight of Mariner 4 involved one midcourse maneuver on December 5, 1964. The maneuver was initially scheduled for December 4, but due to a loss of lock with Canopus, it was postponed. The maneuver was successfully completed on December 5; it consisted of a negative pitch turn of 39.16 degrees, a positive roll turn of 156.08 degrees, and a thrusting time of 20.07 seconds. The turns aimed the motor of the spacecraft back in the general direction of Earth, as the motor was initially pointed along the direction of flight. Both the pitch and roll changes were completed with better than 1% accuracy, the velocity change with about 2.5% accuracy. After the maneuver, Mariner 4 was on course for Mars as planned.
On January 5, 1965, 36 days after launch and 10,261,173 km from Earth, Mariner 4 reduced its rate of transmission of scientific data from 33 1/3 to 8 1/2 bits per second. This was the first autonomous action the spacecraft had taken since the midcourse maneuver.
The Mariner 4 spacecraft flew by Mars on July 14 and 15, 1965. Its closest approach was 9,846 km from the Martian surface at 01:00:57 UT July 15, 1965 (8:00:57 p.m. EST July 14), its distance to Earth was 216 million km, its speed was 7 km/s relative to Mars, 1.7 km/s relative to Earth.
Planetary science mode was turned on at 15:41:49 UT on July 14. The camera sequence started at 00:18:36 UT on July 15 (7:18:49 p.m. EST on July 14) and 21 pictures using alternate red and green filters, plus 21 lines of a 22nd picture were taken. The images covered a discontinuous swath of Mars starting near 40° N, 170° E, down to about 35° S, 200° E, and then across to the terminator at 50° S, 255° E, representing about 1% of the planet's surface. The images taken during the flyby were stored in the on-board tape recorder. At 02:19:11 UT, Mariner 4 passed behind Mars as seen from Earth and the radio signal ceased. The signal was reacquired at 03:13:04 UT when the spacecraft reappeared. Cruise mode was then re-established. Transmission of the taped images to Earth began about 8.5 hours after signal reacquisition and continued until August 3. All images were transmitted twice to ensure no data was missing or corrupt. Each individual photograph took approximately six hours to be transmitted back to Earth.
The spacecraft performed all programmed activities successfully and returned useful data from launch until 22:05:07 UT on October 1, 1965, when the long distance to Earth (309.2 million km) and the imprecise antenna orientation led to a temporary loss of communication with the spacecraft until 1967.
The on-board tape recorder used on Mariner 4 was a spare, not originally intended for the Mariner 4 flight. Between the failure of Mariner 3, the fact that the Mariner 4 recorder was a spare, and some error readings suggesting an issue with the tape-recorder, it was determined that the team would test the camera function definitively. This eventually led to the first digital image being hand-drawn. While waiting for the image data to be computer processed, the team used a pastel set from an art supply store to hand-color (paint-by-numbers style) a numerical printout of the raw pixels. The resulting image provided early verification that the camera was functioning. The hand-drawn image compared favorably with the processed image when it became available.
Data acquisition resumed in late 1967. The cosmic dust detector registered 17 hits in a 15-minute span on September 15, part of an apparent micrometeoroid shower that temporarily changed the spacecraft attitude and probably slightly damaged its thermal shield. Later it was speculated that Mariner 4 passed through debris of D/1895 Q1 (D/Swift), and even made a flyby of that comet's possibly shattered nucleus at 20 million kilometers.
On December 7 the gas supply in the attitude control system was exhausted, and between December 10 and 11, a total of 83 micrometeoroid hits were recorded which caused perturbation of the spacecraft's attitude and degradation of the signal strength. On December 21, 1967, communications with Mariner 4 were terminated. The spacecraft is now derelict in an exterior heliocentric orbit.
The total data returned by the mission was 5.2 million bits (about 634 kB). All instruments operated successfully with the exception of a part of the ionization chamber, namely the Geiger–Müller tube, which failed in February 1965. In addition, the plasma probe had its performance degraded by a resistor failure on December 8, 1964, but experimenters were able to recalibrate the instrument and still interpret the data. The images returned showed a Moon-like cratered terrain, which scientists did not expect, although amateur astronomer Donald Cyr had predicted craters. Later missions showed that the craters were not typical for Mars, but only for the more ancient region imaged by Mariner 4. A surface atmospheric pressure of 4.1 to 7.0 millibars (410 to 700 pascals) and daytime temperatures of −100°C were estimated. No magnetic field or Martian radiation belts or, again surprisingly, surface water was detected.
Bruce C. Murray used photographs from Mariner 4 to elucidate Mars' geologic history.
Images of craters and measurements of a thin atmosphere—much thinner than expected—indicating a relatively inactive planet exposed to the harshness of space, generally dissipated hopes of finding intelligent life on Mars. Life on Mars had been the subject of speculation and science fiction for centuries. If there was life on Mars, after Mariner 4 most concluded it would probably be smaller, simpler forms. Others concluded that a search for life on Earth at kilometer resolution, using several thousand photographs, did not reveal a sign of life on the vast majority of these photographs; thus, based on the 22 photographs taken by Mariner 4, one could not conclude there was no intelligent life on Mars.
The solar wind was measured, and compared with simultaneous records from Mariner 5 which went to Venus.
The total cost of the Mariner 4 mission is estimated at $83.2 million. Total research, development, launch, and support costs for the Mariner series of spacecraft (Mariners 1 through 10) was approximately $554 million.
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MOO (programming language)
The MOO programming language is a relatively simple programming language used to support the MOO Server. It is dynamically typed and uses a prototype-based object-oriented system, with syntax roughly derived from the Ada school of programming languages.
Stephen White authored the first MOO Server and language in 1990 using C. Over the course of the year, Pavel Curtis joined the project, releasing the first version of the LambdaMOO Server. LambdaMOO is run and maintained entirely on a volunteer basis, and now has its own SourceForge project. Although the last packaged release was in 2001, development is still active in the project's CVS, on Sourceforge.net Some follow-on code is also available on Github.net
White describes MOO as "a mishmash of c-like operators and Ada-like control structures, combined with prototype-style single-inheritance."
The language has explicit exception handling control flow, as well as traditional looping constructs. A verb and property hierarchy provides default values to prototype objects, with over-riding values lower in the hierarchy. This hierarchy of objects is maintained through delegation to an object's "parent" property, resulting in a form of single inheritance. Special security-related attributes of objects, verbs, and properties include ownership, and read, write and execute flags. MOO programs are byte-code compiled, with implicit decompilation when editing, providing a canonical form of programs.
MOO programs are orthogonally persistent through periodic checkpoints. Objects are identified by a unique integer identifier. Unused program data is eliminated through automatic garbage collection (implemented by reference counting). However, MOO objects themselves are not garbage collected and are manually deleted by their owners or superusers (aka wizards) through a process called 'recycling.'
MOO is explicitly a multi-user system and programs (verbs) are contributed by any number of connected users. A distinction is made between the 'driver' (runtime) and 'core' (programs written in the MOO language.) The vast majority of the functionality of a running MOO is handled 'in-core.'
The runtime supports multi-tasking using a retribution based time slicing method. Verbs run with exclusive access to the database, so no explicit locking is necessary to maintain synchronization. Simple TCP/IP messaging (telnet compatible) is used to communicate with client sockets, each of which is identified with a 'player' in the Virtual reality representation system.
The language supports weak references to objects by number, and to properties and verbs through strings. Built-in functions to retrieve lists of properties and verbs exist, giving the language runtime facilities for reflection. The server also contains support for wildcard verb matching, so the same code can easily be used to handle multiple commands with similar names and functions.
Available sequence types in MOO are lists and strings. Both support random access, as well as head and tail operations similar to those available in Lisp. All operations on lists and strings are non-destructive, and all non-object datatypes are immutable. Built-in functions and libraries allow lists to also be used as associative arrays and ordered and unordered sets.
MOO has a very basic set of control structures, with for-in-list being the only "fancy" feature.
if ()
elseif ()
else
endif
for in [..]
endfor
for in ()
endfor
while ()
endwhile
try
except ()
endtry
The classic Hello World Program can be written in MOO as:
@program hello:run
player:tell("Hello to the world of MOO!");
A more interesting example:
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Musical ensemble
A musical ensemble, also known as a music group or musical group, is a group of people who perform instrumental or vocal music, with the ensemble typically known by a distinct name. Some music ensembles consist solely of instruments, such as the jazz quartet or the orchestra. Some music ensembles consist solely of singers, such as choirs and doo wop groups. In both popular music and classical music, there are ensembles in which both instrumentalists and singers perform, such as the rock band or the Baroque chamber group for basso continuo (harpsichord and cello) and one or more singers. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families (such as piano, strings, and wind instruments) or group together instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles (e.g., string quartet) or wind ensembles (e.g., wind quintet). Some ensembles blend the sounds of a variety of instrument families, such as the orchestra, which uses a string section, brass instruments, woodwinds and percussion instruments, or the concert band, which uses brass, woodwinds and percussion.
In jazz ensembles or combos, the instruments typically include wind instruments (one or more saxophones, trumpets, etc.), one or two chordal "comping" instruments (electric guitar, piano, or Hammond organ), a bass instrument (bass guitar or double bass), and a drummer or percussionist. Jazz ensembles may be solely instrumental, or they may consist of a group of instruments accompanying one or more singers. In rock and pop ensembles, usually called rock bands or pop bands, there are usually guitars and keyboards (piano, electric piano, Hammond organ, synthesizer, etc.), one or more singers, and a rhythm section made up of a bass guitar and drum kit.
Music ensembles typically have a leader. In jazz bands, rock and pop groups and similar ensembles, this is the band leader. In classical music, orchestras, concert bands and choirs are led by a conductor. In orchestra, the concertmaster (principal first violin player) is the instrumentalist leader of the orchestra. In orchestras, the individual sections also have leaders, typically called the "principal" of the section (e.g., the leader of the viola section is called the "principal viola"). Conductors are also used in jazz big bands and in some very large rock or pop ensembles (e.g., a rock concert that includes a string section, a horn section and a choir which are accompanying a rock band's performance).
In Western classical music, smaller ensembles are called chamber music ensembles. The terms duet, trio, quartet, quintet, sextet, septet, octet, nonet and decet describe groups of two up to ten musicians, respectively. A group of eleven musicians, such as found in "The Carnival of the Animals", is called either a "hendecet" or an "undecet", and a group of twelve is called a "duodecet" (see Latin numerical prefixes). A soloist playing unaccompanied (e.g., a pianist playing a solo piano piece or a cellist playing a Bach suite for unaccompanied cello) is not an ensemble because it only contains one musician.
A string quartet consists of two violins, a viola and a cello. There is a vast body of music written for string quartets, as it is seen as an important genre in classical music.
A woodwind quartet usually features a flute, an oboe, a clarinet and a bassoon. A brass quartet features two trumpets, a trombone and a tuba. A saxophone quartet consists of a soprano saxophone, an alto saxophone, a tenor saxophone, and a baritone saxophone.
The string "quintet" is a common type of group. It is similar to the string quartet, but with an additional viola, cello, or more rarely, the addition of a double bass. Terms such as "piano quintet" or "clarinet quintet" frequently refer to a string quartet "plus" a fifth instrument. Mozart's Clarinet Quintet is similarly a piece written for an ensemble consisting of two violins, a viola, a cello and a clarinet, the last being the exceptional addition to a "normal" string quartet.
Some other quintets in classical music are the wind quintet, usually consisting of flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn; the brass quintet, consisting of two trumpets, one horn, a trombone and a tuba; and the reed quintet, consisting of an oboe, a soprano clarinet, a saxophone, a bass clarinet, and a bassoon.
Classical chamber ensembles of six (sextet), seven (septet), or eight musicians (octet) are fairly common; use of latinate terms for larger groups is rare, except for the nonet (nine musicians). In most cases, a larger classical group is referred to as an orchestra of some type or a concert band. A small orchestra with fifteen to thirty members (violins, violas, four cellos, two or three double basses, and several woodwind or brass instruments) is called a chamber orchestra. A sinfonietta usually denotes a somewhat smaller orchestra (though still not a chamber orchestra). Larger orchestras are called symphony orchestras (see below) or philharmonic orchestras.
A pops orchestra is an orchestra that mainly performs light classical music (often in abbreviated, simplified arrangements) and orchestral arrangements and medleys of popular jazz, music theater, or pop music songs. A string orchestra has only string instruments, i.e., violins, violas, cellos and double basses.
A symphony orchestra is an ensemble usually comprising at least thirty musicians; the number of players is typically between fifty and ninety-five and may exceed one hundred. A symphony orchestra is divided into families of instruments. In the string family, there are sections of violins (I and II), violas, cellos (often eight), and basses (often from six to eight). The standard woodwind section consists of flutes (one doubling piccolo), oboes (one doubling English horn), soprano clarinets (one doubling bass clarinet), and bassoons (one doubling contrabassoon). The standard brass section consists of horns, trumpets, trombones, and tuba. The percussion section includes the timpani, bass drum, snare drum, and any other percussion instruments called for in a score (e.g., triangle, glockenspiel, chimes, cymbals, wood blocks, etc.). In Baroque music (1600–1750) and music from the early Classical period music (1750–1820), the percussion parts in orchestral works may only include timpani.
A concert band is a large classical ensemble generally made up of between 40 and 70 musicians from the woodwind, brass, and percussion families, along with the double bass. The concert band has a larger number and variety of wind instruments than the symphony orchestra, but does not have a string section (although a single double bass is common in concert bands). The woodwind section of a concert band consists of piccolo, flutes, oboes (one doubling English horn), bassoons (one doubling contrabassoon), soprano clarinets (one doubling E clarinet, one doubling alto clarinet), bass clarinets (one doubling contrabass clarinet or contra-alto clarinet), alto saxophones (one doubling soprano saxophone), tenor saxophone, and baritone saxophone. The brass section consists of horns, trumpets or cornets, trombones, euphoniums, and tubas. The percussion section consists of the timpani, bass drum, snare drum, and any other percussion instruments called for in a score (e.g., triangle, glockenspiel, chimes, cymbals, wood blocks, etc.).
When orchestras perform baroque music (from the 17th century and early 18th century), they may also use a harpsichord or pipe organ, playing the continuo part. When orchestras perform Romantic-era music (from the 19th century), they may also use harps or unusual instruments such as the wind machine or cannons. When orchestras perform music from the 20th century or the 21st century, occasionally instruments such as electric guitar, theremin, or even an electronic synthesizer may be used.
In jazz, there are several types of trios. One type of jazz trio is formed with a piano player, a bass player and a drummer. Another type of jazz trio that became popular in the 1950s and 1960s is the organ trio, which is composed of a Hammond organ player, a drummer, and a third instrumentalist (either a saxophone player or an electric jazz guitarist). In organ trios, the Hammond organ player performs the bass line on the organ bass pedals while simultaneously playing chords or lead lines on the keyboard manuals. Other types of trios include the "drummer-less" trio, which consists of a piano player, a double bassist, and a horn (saxophone or trumpet) or guitar player; and the jazz trio with a horn player (saxophone or trumpet), double bass player, and a drummer. In the latter type of trio, the lack of a chordal instrument means that the horn player and the bassist have to imply the changing harmonies with their improvised lines.
Jazz quartets typically add a "horn" (the generic jazz name for saxophones, trombones, trumpets, or any other wind or brass instrument commonly associated with jazz) to one of the jazz trios described above. Slightly larger jazz ensembles, such as quintets (five instruments) or sextets (six instruments) typically add other soloing instruments to the basic quartet formation, such as different types of saxophones (e.g., alto saxophone, tenor saxophone, etc.) or an additional chordal instrument.
The lineup of larger jazz ensembles can vary considerably, depending on the style of jazz being performed. In a 1920s-style dixieland jazz band, a larger ensemble would be formed by adding a banjo player, woodwind instruments, as with the clarinet, or additional horns (saxophones, trumpets, trombones) to one of the smaller groups. In a 1930s-style Swing big band, a larger ensemble is formed by adding "sections" of like instruments, such as a saxophone section, a trumpet section and a trombone section, which perform arranged "horn lines" to accompany the ensemble. Some Swing bands also added a string section for a lush sound. In a 1970s-style jazz fusion ensemble, a larger ensemble is often formed by adding additional percussionists or sometimes a saxophone player, who would "double" or "triple" (meaning that they would also be proficient at the clarinet, flute or both). Larger jazz ensembles are also formed by the addition of other soloing instruments.
Two-member rock and pop bands are relatively rare, because of the difficulty in providing all of the musical elements which are part of the rock or pop sound (vocals, chords, bass lines, and percussion or drumming). Two-member rock and pop bands typically omit one of these musical elements. In many cases, two-member bands will omit a drummer, since guitars, bass guitars, and keyboards can all be used to provide a rhythmic pulse.
Examples of two-member bands are The Carpenters, Sleaford Mods, Japandroids, They Might Be Giants, Local H, Pet Shop Boys, Hella, Flight of the Conchords, Death from Above 1979, Om (band), I Set My Friends on Fire, Middle Class Rut, The Pity Party, Little Fish, The White Stripes, Big Business, Two Gallants, Lightning Bolt, The Ting Tings, The Black Box Revelation, Satyricon, The Black Keys, Twenty One Pilots, Tenacious D, Simon and Garfunkel, Hall & Oates, Johnossi, The Pack A.D., Air Supply and Royal Blood.
When electronic sequencers became widely available in the 1980s, this made it easier for two-member bands to add in musical elements that the two band members were not able to perform. Sequencers allowed bands to pre-program some elements of their performance, such as an electronic drum part and a synth-bass line. Two-member pop music bands such as Soft Cell, Blancmange, Yazoo and Erasure used pre-programmed sequencers.
W.A.S.P. guitarist Doug Blair is also known for his work in the non-notable two-piece progressive rock band signal2noise, where he acts as the lead guitarist and bassist at the same time, thanks to a special custom instrument he invented (an electric guitar with five regular guitar strings paired with three bass guitar strings). Heisenflei of Los Angeles duo The Pity Party plays drums, keyboards, and sings simultaneously. Providence-based Lightning Bolt is a two-member band. Bassist Brian Gibson augments his playing with delay pedals, pitch shifters, looping devices and other pedals, occasionally creating harmony. Local H, Blood Red Shoes, PS I Love You, The Redmond Barry's and Warship are other prominent two-person experimental rock bands.
The smallest ensemble that is commonly used in rock music is the trio format. In a hard-rock or blues-rock band, or heavy metal rock group, a "power trio" format is often used, which consists of an electric guitar player, an electric bass guitar player and a drummer, and typically one or more of these musicians also sing (sometimes all three members will sing, e.g. Bee Gees or Alkaline Trio). Some well-known power trios with the guitarist on lead vocals are The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble, Nirvana, Violent Femmes, Gov't Mule, Green Day, The Minutemen, Triumph, Shellac, Sublime, Chevelle, Muse, The Jam, Short Stack, and ZZ Top.
A handful of others with the bassist on vocals include Primus, Motörhead, The Police, The Melvins, MxPx, Blue Cheer, Rush, The Presidents of the United States of America, Venom, and Cream. Some power trios feature two lead vocalists. For example, in the band blink-182 vocals are split between bassist Mark Hoppus and guitarist Tom DeLonge, or in the band Dinosaur Jr., guitarist J. Mascis is the primary songwriter and vocalist, but bassist Lou Barlow writes some songs and sings as well.
An alternative to the power trio are organ trios formed with an electric guitarist, a drummer and a keyboardist. Although organ trios are most commonly associated with 1950s and 1960s jazz organ trio groups such as those led by organist Jimmy Smith, there are also organ trios in rock-oriented styles, such as jazz-rock fusion and Grateful Dead-influenced jam bands such as Medeski Martin & Wood. In organ trios, the keyboard player typically plays a Hammond organ or similar instrument, which permits the keyboard player to perform bass lines, chords, and lead lines, one example being hard rock band Zebra. A variant of the organ trio are trios formed with an electric bassist, a drummer and an electronic keyboardist (playing synthesizers) such as the progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Triumvirat, and Atomic Rooster. Another variation is to have a vocalist, a guitarist and a drummer, an example being Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Another variation is two guitars, a bassist, and a drum machine, examples including Magic Wands and Big Black.
A power trio with the guitarist on lead vocals is a popular record company lineup, as the guitarist and singer will usually be the songwriter. Therefore, the label only has to present one "face" to the public. The backing band may or may not be featured in publicity. If the backup band is not marketed as an integral part of the group, this gives the record company more flexibility to replace band members or use substitute musicians. This lineup often leads to songs that are fairly simple and accessible, as the frontman (or frontwoman) will have to sing and play guitar at the same time.
The four-piece band is the most common configuration in rock and pop music.
Another common formation was a vocalist, electric guitarist, bass guitarist, and a drummer (e.g. The Who, The Monkees, Led Zeppelin, Queen, Ramones, Sex Pistols, Red Hot Chili Peppers, R.E.M., Blur, The Smiths, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Stone Roses, Creed, Black Sabbath, Van Halen, Rage Against the Machine, Gym Class Heroes, The Stooges, Joy Division, and U2.) Instrumentally, these bands can be considered as trios. This format is popular with new bands, as there are only two instruments that need tuning, the melody and chords formula prevalent with their material is easy to learn, four members are commonplace to work with, the roles are clearly defined and generally are: instrumental melody line, rhythm section which plays the chords or countermelody, and vocals on top.
In some early rock bands, keyboardists were used, performing on piano (e.g. The Seeds and The Doors) with a guitarist, singer, drummer and keyboardist. Some bands will have a guitarist, bassist, drummer, and keyboard player (for example, Talking Heads, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Small Faces, King Crimson, The Guess Who, Pink Floyd, Queen, Coldplay, The Killers and Blind Faith).
Some bands will have the bassist on lead vocals, such as Thin Lizzy, The Chameleons, Skillet, Pink Floyd, Motörhead, NOFX, +44, Slayer, The All-American Rejects or even the lead guitarist, such as Death, Dire Straits, Megadeth and Creedence Clearwater Revival. Some bands, such as The Beatles, Dire Straits and Metallica have a lead guitarist, a rhythm guitarist and a bassist that all sing lead and backing vocals, that also play keyboards regularly, as well as a drummer.
Five-piece bands have existed in rock music since the development of the genre. The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones (until 1993), Aerosmith, Def Leppard, AC/DC, Oasis, Pearl Jam, Guns N' Roses, Radiohead, The Strokes, The Yardbirds, 311 and The Hives are examples of the common vocalist, lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass, and drums lineup whilst other bands such as Judas Priest have two guitarists who equally share lead and rhythm parts. An alternative to the five-member lineup replaces the rhythm guitarist with a keyboard–synthesizer player (examples being the bands Journey, Elbow, Dream Theater, Genesis, Jethro Tull, The Zombies, The Animals, Bon Jovi, Yes, Fleetwood Mac, Marilyn Manson and Deep Purple, all of which consist of a vocalist, guitarist, bassist, keyboardist, and a drummer) or with a turntablist such as Deftones, Hed PE, Incubus or Limp Bizkit.
Alternatives include a keyboardist, guitarist, drummer, bassist, and saxophonist, such as The Sonics, The Dave Clark 5, and Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs. Another alternative is three guitarists, a bassist and a drummer, such as Foo Fighters, Radiohead, and The Byrds. Some five-person bands feature two guitarists, a keyboardist, a bassist and a drummer, with one or more of these musicians (typically one of the guitarists) handling lead vocals on top of their instrument (examples being Children of Bodom, Styx, Sturm und Drang, Relient K, Ensiferum, The Cars and the current line up of Status Quo). In some cases, typically in cover bands, one musician plays either rhythm guitar or keyboards, depending on the song (one notable band being Firewind, with Bob Katsionis handling this particular role).
Other times, the vocalist will bring another musical "voice" to the table, most commonly a harmonica or percussion; Mick Jagger, for example, played harmonica and percussion instruments like maracas and tambourine whilst singing at the same time. Keith Relf of the Yardbirds played harmonica frequently, though not often while also singing. Ozzy Osbourne was also known to play the harmonica on some occasions (i.e. "The Wizard" by Black Sabbath). Vocalist Robert Brown of lesser known steampunk band Abney Park plays harmonica, accordion, and darbuka in addition to mandolin. Flutes are also commonly used by vocalists, most notably Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull and Ray Thomas of the Moody Blues, though these are difficult to play while singing at the same time.
A less common lineup is to have lead vocals, two guitarists of varying types and two drummers, e.g. Adam and the Ants.
Although they are quite uncommon, larger bands have long been a part of rock and pop music, in part due to the influence of the "singer accompanied with orchestra" model inherited from popular big-band jazz and swing and popularized by Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald. To create larger ensembles, rock bands often add an additional guitarist, an additional keyboardist, additional percussionists or second drummer, an entire horn section, and even a flautist. An example of a six-member rock band is Toto with a lead vocalist, guitarist, bassist, two keyboard players, and drummer. The American heavy metal band Slipknot is composed of nine members, with a vocalist, two guitarists, a drummer, a bassist, two custom percussionists/backing vocalists, a turntablist, and a sampler/keyboardist.
In larger groups (such as The Band), instrumentalists could play multiple instruments, which enabled the ensemble to create a wider variety of instrument combinations. More modern examples of such a band are Arcade Fire and Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros.
More rarely, rock or pop groups will be accompanied in concerts by a full or partial symphony orchestra, where lush string-orchestra arrangements are used to flesh out the sound of slow ballads.
Rhys Chatham and Glenn Branca started doing performances in the late 1970s with orchestras consisting of ten to hundred (Branca) and even four hundred guitars.
Some groups have a large number of members that all play the same instrument, such as guitar, keyboard, ocarinas, horns or strings.
Electronic music groups typically use electronic musical instruments such as synthesizers, sequencers, samplers and electronic drums to produce music. The production technique of music programming is also widely used in electronic music. Examples include Kraftwerk, Daft Punk, The Chemical Brothers, Faithless and Apollo 440.
Electronic dance music groups usually consist of two to three members, and are mainly producers, DJs and remixers, whose work is solely produced in a studio or with the use of a digital audio workstation. Examples include Basement Jaxx, Flip & Fill, Tin Tin Out, The Chainsmokers, Cheat Codes, Cash Cash and Major Lazer.
Women have a high prominence in many popular music styles as singers. However, professional women instrumentalists are uncommon in popular music, especially in rock genres such as heavy metal. "[P]laying in a band is largely a male homosocial activity, that is, learning to play in a band is largely a peer-based... experience, shaped by existing sex-segregated friendship networks. As well, rock music "...is often defined as a form of male rebellion vis-à-vis female bedroom culture." In popular music, there has been a gendered "distinction between public (male) and private (female) participation" in music. "[S]everal scholars have argued that men exclude women from bands or from the bands' rehearsals, recordings, performances, and other social activities." "Women are mainly regarded as passive and private consumers of allegedly slick, prefabricated – hence, inferior – pop music..., excluding them from participating as high status rock musicians." One of the reasons that there are rarely mixed gender bands is that "bands operate as tight-knit units in which homosocial solidarity – social bonds between people of the same sex... – plays a crucial role." In the 1960s pop music scene, "[s]inging was sometimes an acceptable pastime for a girl, but playing an instrument...simply wasn't done."
"The rebellion of rock music was largely a male rebellion; the women—often, in the 1950s and '60s, girls in their teens—in rock usually sang songs as personæ utterly dependent on their macho boyfriends...". Philip Auslander says that "Although there were many women in rock by the late 1960s, most performed only as singers, a traditionally feminine position in popular music". Though some women played instruments in American all-female garage rock bands, none of these bands achieved more than regional success. So they "did not provide viable templates for women's on-going participation in rock". In relation to the gender composition of heavy metal bands, it has been said that "[h]eavy metal performers are almost exclusively male" "...[a]t least until the mid-1980s" apart from "...exceptions such as Girlschool." However, "...now [in the 2010s] maybe more than ever–strong metal women have put up their dukes and got down to it", "carv[ing] out a considerable place for [them]selves."
When Suzi Quatro emerged in 1973, "no other prominent female musician worked in rock simultaneously as a singer, instrumentalist, songwriter, and bandleader". According to Auslander, she was "kicking down the male door in rock and roll and proving that a female "musician" ... and this is a point I am extremely concerned about ... could play as well if not better than the boys".
Sung dramas such as operas and musicals usually have numbers where several of the principals are singing together, either on their own or with the chorus. Such numbers ("duets", "trios", etc.) are also referred to as 'ensembles'.
A choir is a group of voices. By analogy, sometimes a group of similar instruments in a symphony orchestra are referred to as a choir. For example, the woodwind instruments of a symphony orchestra could be called the woodwind choir.
A group that plays popular music or military music is usually called a band; a drum and bugle corps is a type of the latter. These bands perform a wide range of music, ranging from arrangements of jazz orchestral, or popular music to military-style marches. Drum corps perform on brass and percussion instruments only. Drum and Bugle Corps incorporate costumes, hats, and pageantry in their performances.
Other band types include:
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Afghan Armed Forces
The Afghan Armed Forces are the military forces of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. They consist of the Afghan National Army and the Afghan Air Force. The President of Afghanistan is the Commander-in-Chief of the Afghan Armed Forces, which is administratively controlled through the Ministry of Defense. The National Military Command Center in Kabul serves as the headquarters of the Afghan Armed Forces.
The current Afghan military originates in 1709 when the Hotaki dynasty was established in Kandahar followed by the Durrani Empire. The Afghan military fought many wars with the Safavid dynasty and Maratha Empire from the 18th to the 19th century. It was re-organized with help from the British in 1880, when the country was ruled by Amir Abdur Rahman Khan. It was modernized during King Amanullah Khan's rule in the early 20th century, and upgraded during King Zahir Shah's forty-year rule. From 1978 to 1992, the Soviet-backed Afghan Armed Force fought with multi-national mujahideen groups who were being backed by the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. After President Najibullah's resignation in 1992 and the end of Soviet support, the military dissolved into portions controlled by different warlord factions and the mujahideen took control over the government. This era was followed by the rise of the Taliban regime, who established a military force on the basis of Islamic sharia law.
After the removal of the Taliban and the formation of the Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan in late 2001 and 2002, respectively, the Afghan Armed Forces was gradually rebuilt by NATO forces in the country, primarily by the United States Armed Forces. Despite early problems with recruitment and training, it is becoming effective in fighting against the Taliban insurgency. As of 2014, it is becoming able to operate independently from the NATO International Security Assistance Force. As a major non-NATO ally of the United States, Afghanistan continues to receive billions of dollars in military assistance.
Afghans have served in the militaries of the Ghaznavids (963–1187), Ghurids (1148–1215), Delhi Sultanate (1206–1527), Mughals (1526–1858) and the Persian army. The current Afghan military traces its origin to the early 18th century when the Hotaki dynasty rose to power in Kandahar and defeated the Persian Safavid Empire at the Battle of Gulnabad in 1722.
When Ahmad Shah Durrani formed the Durrani Empire in 1747, his Afghan army fought a number of wars in the Punjab region of Hindustan during the 18th to the 19th century. One of the famous battles was the 1761 Battle of Panipat in which the Afghans invaded and decisively defeated the Hindu Maratha Empire. The Afghans then engaged in wars with the Punjabi Sikh Empire of Ranjit Singh, which included the Battle of Jamrud in which Hari Singh Nalwa was killed by Prince Akbar Khan. During the First Anglo-Afghan War, British India invaded Afghanistan in 1838 but withdraw in 1842. During the three years a number of battles took place in different parts of Afghanistan.
The first organized army of Afghanistan (in the modern sense) was established after the Second Anglo-Afghan War in 1880 when the nation was ruled by Emir Abdur Rahman Khan. Traditionally, Afghan governments relied on three military institutions: the regular army, tribal levies, and community militias. The regular army was sustained by the state and commanded by government leaders. The tribal or regional levies - irregular forces - had part-time soldiers provided by tribal or regional chieftains. The chiefs received tax breaks, land ownership, cash payments, or other privileges in return. The community militia included all available able-bodied members of the community, mobilized to fight, probably only in exceptional circumstances, for common causes under community leaders. Combining these three institutions created a formidable force whose components supplemented each other's strengths and minimized their weaknesses.
After the Third Anglo-Afghan War ended, the reforming King Amanullah did not see the need for a large army, instead deciding to rely on Afghanistan's historical martial qualities. This resulted in neglect, cutbacks, recruitment problems, and finally an army unable to quell the 1929 up-rising that cost him his throne. However, under his reign, the Afghan Air Force was formed in 1924. The Afghan Armed Forces were expanded during King Zahir Shah's reign, reaching a strength of 70,000 in 1933.
Following World War II, Afghanistan briefly received continued military support from the British government under the Lancaster Plan from 1945 to 1947, until the partition of India realigned British priorities in the region. Afghanistan declined to join the 1955 United States-sponsored Baghdad Pact; this rebuff did not stop the United States from continuing its low-level aid program, but it was reluctant to provide Afghanistan with military assistance, so Daoud turned to the Soviet Union and its allies for military aid, and in 1955 he received approximately US$25 million of military aid. In addition, the Soviet bloc also began construction of military airfields in Bagram, Mazar-e-Sharif, and Shindand. By the 1960s, Soviet assistance started to improve the structure, armament, training, and command and control arrangements for the military. The Afghan Armed Forces reached a strength of 98,000 (90,000 soldiers and 8,000 airmen) by this period.
After the exile of King Zahir Shah in 1973, President Daud Khan forged stronger ties with the Soviets by signing two highly controversial military aid packages for his nation in 1973 and 1975. For three years, the Afghan Armed Forces and police officers received advanced Soviet weapons, as well as training by the KGB and Soviet Armed Forces. Due to problems with local political parties in his country, President Daud Khan decided to distance himself from the Soviets in 1976. He made Afghanistan's ties closer to the Greater Middle East and the United States instead.
From 1977 to 1978, the Afghan Armed Forces conducted joint military training with the Egyptian Armed Forces. In April 1978 there was a coup, known as the Saur Revolution, orchestrated by members of the government loyal to the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). This led to a full-scale Soviet invasion in December 1979, led by the 40th Army and the Airborne Forces. In 1981 the total strength of the Army was around 85,000 troops according to The New York Times. The Army had around 35-40,000 soldiers, who was mostly conscripts, the Air Force had around 7,000 airmen and if put together all military personnel in 1984, the total strength of the Afghan Armed Forces was around 87,000 in 1984. Throughout the 1980s, the Afghan Armed Forces was heavily involved in fighting against the multi-national Mujahiddin rebel groups who were largely backed by the United States and trained by the Pakistani Armed Forces. The rebel groups were fighting to force the Soviet Union to withdraw from Afghanistan as well as to remove the Soviet-backed government of President Mohammad Najibullah. Due to large number of defectors, the Afghan Armed Forces in 1985 were reduced to around 47,000. The Air Force had over 150 combat aircraft with about 7,000 officers who were supported by an estimated 5,000 Cuban Revolutionary Air and Air Defense Force and Czechoslovak Air Force advisers.
Weapons supplies were made available to the Mujahideen through numerous countries; the United States purchased all of Israel's captured Soviet weapons clandestinely, and then funnelled the weapons to the Mujahideen, while Egypt upgraded their own Army's weapons, and sent the older weapons to the militants, Turkey sold their World War II stockpiles to the warlords, and the British and Swiss provided Blowpipe missiles and Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns respectively, after they were found to be poor models for their own forces. China provided the most relevant weapons, likely due to their own experience with guerrilla warfare, and kept meticulous record of all the shipments.
Following the Soviet withdrawal in 1989 the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan continued to deal with attacks from the Mujahiddin. For several years the Afghan Armed Forces had actually increased their effectiveness past levels ever achieved during the Soviet military presence. But the government was dealt a major blow when Abdul Rashid Dostum, a leading general, switched allegiances to the Mujahideen in 1992 and together they captured the city of Kabul. By 1992 the Army fragmented into regional militias under local warlords because of the fall of the Soviet Union which stopped supplying the Afghan Armed Forces and later in 1992 when the Afghan government lost power and the country went into a state of chaos.
After the fall of Najibullah's regime in 1992, private militias were formed and the nation began to witness a Civil War between the various warlords, including Ahmad Shah Massoud, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Abdul Rashid Dostum, Abdul Ali Mazari, Ismail Khan, and many others. They received logistics support from foreign powers including Russia, Pakistan, India, Iran, China, France, Canada and the United States. When the Taliban took power in 1996, the warlords fled Kabul to the north or neighboring countries. With the backing and support of Pakistan, the Taliban began creating a new military force purely based on Islam's Sharia law.
The Taliban maintained a military during their period of control. The Taliban Army possessed over 400 T-54/55 and T-62 tanks and more than 200 Armoured personnel carriers.
The Afghan Air Force under the Taliban maintained five supersonic MIG-21MFs and 10 Sukhoi-22 fighter-bombers. In 1995, during the 1995 Airstan incident, a Taliban fighter plane captured a Russian transport. They also held six Mil Mi-8 helicopters, five Mi-35s, five L-39Cs, six An-12s, 25 An-26s, a dozen An-24/32s, an IL-18, and a Yakovlev.
After the formation of the Karzai administration in late 2001, the Afghan Armed Forces was gradually reestablished by the United States and its allies. Initially, a new land force, the Afghan National Army (ANA), was created, along with an air arm, the Afghan National Army Air Corps, as an integral part of the Army. The ANA Air Corps later split off to become an independent branch, the Afghan Air Force (AAF). Commandos and Special Forces were also trained and formed as a part of the Afghan National Army. Training was managed initially by the U.S. Office of Military Cooperation, followed by other U.S. organisations and then Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan, and is now being run by the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan.
The Afghan Air Force was relatively capable before and during the 1980s but by late 2001, the number of operational aircraft available was minimal. The United States and its allies quickly eliminated the remaining strength and ability of the Taliban to operate aircraft in the opening stages of their invasion. With the occupation of airbases by American forces it became clear how destitute the Air Force had become since the withdrawal of the Soviet Union. Most aircraft were only remnants rusting away for a decade or more. Many others were relocated to neighboring countries for storage purposes or sold cheaply. The AAF was reduced to a very small force while the country was torn by civil war. It is currently being rebuilt and modernized by the NATO-led multinational Combined Air Power Transition Force of the international Combined Security Transition Command - Afghanistan (CSTC-A).
There has been significant progress toward revitalization of the Afghan Armed Forces in the last decade, with two service branches established. The ANA and AAF are under the Afghan Ministry of Defense, which forms the basic military force. By 2006, more than 60,000 former militiamen from around the country have been disarmed. Most heavy weapons from Panjshir, Balkh, Nangarhar and other areas were seized by the Afghan government. In 2007, it was reported that the DDR programmes had dismantled 274 paramilitary organizations, reintegrated over 62,000 militia members into civilian life, and recovered more than 84,000 weapons, including heavy weapons. But "The New York Times" reported in October 2007 this information in the context of a reported rise in the number of hoarded weapons in the face of what has been seen as a growing Taliban threat, even in the north of the country.
The ANA Commando Battalion was established in 2007. The Afghan National Development Strategy of 2008 explained that the aim of DIAG (Disbandment of Illegal Armed Groups) was to ban all illegal armed groups in all provinces of the country. Approximately 2,000 such groups have been identified and most of them have surrendered to the Afghan government or joined the nation's military.
The NATO-trained Afghan National Army is organized into 31 Kandaks, or Battalions, 28 of which are considered combat ready. Seven regional corps headquarters exist. The National Military Academy of Afghanistan was built to provide future officers, it is modeled after the United States Military Academy and United States Air Force Academy. The Afghan Defense University (ADU) is located in Kabul province and consists of a headquarters building, classrooms, dining facility, library, and medical clinic. In addition to this, an $80 million central command center was built next to the Hamid Karzai International Airport. In 2012, Afghanistan became a Major non-NATO ally of the United States.
Sizable numbers of Afghan officers are sent to be trained in India either at the Indian Military Academy in Dehradun, the National Defence Academy near Pune or the Officers Training Academy in Chennai. The Indian Military Academy which has been in existence since 1932, provides a 4-year degree to army officers, while the National Defence Academy is a tri-service college provides a 3-year degree after which officers undergo a 1-year specialization in their respective service colleges. The Officers Training Academy on the other hand provides a 49-week course to Graduate officer candidates. In 2014 the number of Afghan officers in training in India was nearly 1,100.
The total manpower of the Afghan Armed Forces was around 164,000 in May 2011. By September 2014 it has reached 195,000. Its Air Force has about 100 refurbished aircraft, which includes A-29 Super Tucano attack aircraft, Lockheed C-130 Hercules and Pilatus PC-12s military transport aircraft, as well as Mil Mi-17 and Mi-24 helicopters. It also includes trainers such as Aero L-39 Albatros and Cessna 182. The manpower of the Afghan Air Force is around 3600 airmen, including 450 pilots. It also has small number of female pilots.
Large numbers of military bases are found all cross the country, including major ones in Kabul, Kandahar, Herat, Balkh, Nangarhar, Khost, Paktia, Paktika, Maidan Wardak, Ghazni, Farah, and many other provinces. Some of these were built by the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) while others by ISAF and Afghans. It was reported in 2010 that there were at least 700 military bases inside Afghanistan but more were expected to be built in the coming years. About 400 of these were used by Americans and ISAF forces with the remaining 300 or so by Afghan National Security Forces.
During the 1950s and 1960s, Afghanistan purchased moderate quantities of Soviet weapons to keep the military up to date. It was mainly Sukhoi Su-7, MiG-21 fighter jets, T-34 and Iosif Stalin tanks, SU-76 self-propelled guns, GAZ-69 4x4 light trucks of jeep class (in many versions), ZIL-157 military trucks, Katyusha multiple rocket launchers, and BTR-40 and BTR-152 armored personnel carriers. Also included were PPSh-41 and RPK machine guns. After King Zahir Shah's exile in 1973, President Daoud Khan made attempts to create a strong Afghan military in the Greater Middle East-South Asia region. Between 1973 and 1978, Afghanistan obtained more sophisticated Soviet weapons such as Mi-4 and Mi-8 helicopters, Su-22 and Il-28 jets. In addition to that the nation possessed great many T-55, T-62, and PT-76 tanks along with huge amounts of AKM assault rifles ordered. Armored vehicles delivered in the 1970s also included: ZIL-135s, BMP-1s, BRDM-1s, BTR-60s, UAZ-469, and GAZ-66 as well as large quantities of small arms and artillery.
Under the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (1978–1992), weapon deliveries by the Soviets were increased and included Mi-24 helicopters, MiG-23 fighter aircraft, ZSU-23-4 "Shilka" and ZSU-57-2 anti-aircraft self-propelled mounts, MT-LB armored personnel carriers, BM-27 "Uragan" and BM-21 "Grad" multiple-launch rocket systems and FROG-7 and Scud launchers. Some of the weapons that were not damaged during the decades of wars are still being used today, while the remainder have probably been sold on the black market.
The United States has provided billions of dollars in military aid. One package included 2,500 Humvees, tens of thousands of M16 assault rifles and body armoured-jackets. It also included the building of a national military command center as well as training compounds in several provinces of the country. Canadian Forces supplied some ANA soldiers surplus C7 assault rifles but the Afghans returned the Canadian-made C7 in favor of the American-made M16 rifle, reason being that parts between the two rifles, despite being similar, are not fully interchangeable.
Besides NATO, Afghanistan has been increasingly turning to India and Russia for assistance. Both countries have supported the Northern Alliance, with funding, training, supplies and medical treatment of wounded fighters, against the Taliban prior to 2002. India has been helping with several billion dollars invested in infrastructure development projects in Afghanistan besides the training of Afghan officers in India, but has been reluctant to provide military aid due to fears of antagonizing its regional rival Pakistan. In 2013, after years of subtle reminders, the Afghan government sent a wish list of heavy weapons to India.The list includes as many as 150 battle tanks T-72, 120 (105 mm) field guns, a large number of 82 mm mortars, one medium lift transport aircraft AN-32, two squadrons of medium lift Mi-17 and attack helicopters Mi-35, and a large number of trucks. In 2014, India signed a deal with Russia and Afghanistan where it would pay Russia for all the heavy equipment requested by Afghanistan instead of directly supplying them. The deal also includes the refurbishment of heavy weapons left behind since the Soviet war.
The United States has also been largely responsible for the growth of the Afghan Air Force, as part of the Combined Air Power Transition Force, from four aircraft at the end of 2001 to about 100 as of 2011. Types include Lockheed C-130 Hercules and Pilatus PC-12 transport aircraft, A-29 Super Tucano attack aircraft, as well as Mi-17 troop-carrying helicopters and Mi-35 attack helicopters. The aircrew are being trained by an American team. The American intention is to spend around $5 billion by 2016 to increase the force to around 120 aircraft.
As the size of Afghan Armed Force is growing rapidly so is the need for more aircraft and vehicles. It was announced in 2011 that the Afghan Armed Forces would be provided with 145 multi-type aircraft, 21 helicopters and 23,000 various type vehicles. As a Major non-NATO ally of the United States, Afghanistan is able to purchase and receive weapons from the United States without restrictions. In the meantime, the Afghan Air Force began seeking fighter aircraft and other advanced weapons. Defense Minister Wardak explained that "what we are asking to acquire is just the ability to defend ourselves, and also to be relevant in the future so that our friends and allies can count on us to participate in peacekeeping and other operations of mutual interest."
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Motorcycle sport
Motorcycle sport is a broad field that encompasses all sporting aspects of motorcycling. The disciplines are not all races or timed-speed events, as several disciplines test a competitor's various riding skills.
Motorcycle racing (also known as moto racing and motorbike racing) is a motorcycle sport involving racing motorcycles. Motorcycle racing can be divided into two categories, tarmac-based road disciplines and off-road.
Track racing is a motorcycle sport where teams or individuals race opponents around an oval track. There are differing variants, with each variant racing on a different surface type.
A road rally is a navigation event on public roads whereby competitors must visit a number of checkpoints in diverse geographical locations while still obeying road traffic laws (not to be confused with car rallies such as WRC).
Speedway is a motorcycle sport in which the motorcycles have one gear and no brakes.
Land speed is where a single rider accelerates over a 1 to long straight track (usually on dry lake beds) and is timed for top speed through a trap at the end of the run. The rider must exceed the previous top speed record for that class or type of bike for their name to be placed on the record books. See— for an example.
Enduro is not exactly racing, because the main objective is to traverse a series of checkpoints, arriving exactly "on time" in accordance with your beginning time and the time it is supposed to take to arrive at each checkpoint. The courses are usually run over thick wooded terrain, sometimes with large obstacles such as logs, ditches, and sudden drops.
A competition based upon points for acrobatic ability on an MX bike over jumps. This activity evolved from Motocross a continuing popular form of racing at both the Amateur and Professional levels.
Known in the US as Observed Trials, it is not racing, but a sport nevertheless. Trials is a test of skill on a motorcycle whereby the rider attempts to traverse an observed section without placing a foot on the ground (and traditionally, although not always, without ceasing forward motion). The winner is the rider with the least penalty points.
Time and observation trials are trials with a time limit. The person who completes the route the quickest sets the "standard time" and all other competitors must finish within a certain amount of time of the standard time to be counted as a finisher (they received penalty points for every minute after the quickest finisher). This is combined with the penalty points accrued from the observed sections to arrive at a winner, who is not alway the quickest rider or the rider who lost the less marks on observation but the rider who balanced these competing demands the best. One of the most famous time and observation trials is the "Scott" trial held annually in North Yorkshire.
Indoor trials held in stadiums (not necessarily with a roof) which by their very nature use man-made artificial sections in contrast to outdoor trials which rely heavily on the natural terrain.
Long Distance Trials (often shortened to 'LDT') in the UK are events for road-registered motorcycles. A course of typically 80 to 120 miles is plotted by the organiser, taking in roads, lanes and Byways Open to All Traffic (known as BOATs). The event is not a race and riders are required to follow the course by using a RoadBook compiled by the organiser.
Similar to car Autocross, Motorcycle Gymkhana is a motorcycle time trial sport round cones on a paved area. The winner is the competitor who completes the course in the shortest time. Time penalties are incurred by putting a foot down, hitting a cone, or going outside the designated area.
Similar to football, but all players (except goalkeepers) are riding motorcycles, and the ball is much bigger. Motorcycle Polo first began as an officially organized sport in the mid-1930s. In France, there are organized motoball competitions, and the sport was included in the inaugural Goodwill Games.
In the United States the completions are usually held on off-road courses, where one competitor at a time attempts to ride up a very steep hill, often 45 degrees or more. In some cases, few riders actually complete the course and results are judged on the distance that they manage to achieve. Of those that do complete the course, the rider to reach the top with the shortest elapsed time wins. The motorcycle of choice in the early decades was the Harley-Davidson 45 cubic inch model due to its high torque at low rpms, similar to farm engines. For years the national competitions was held at Mount Garfield near Muskegon, Michigan.
In other countries, notably the United Kingdom, completions mostly take place on tarmac courses, occasionally closed public roads, with the machines used for competition being similar to those used for other road disciplines.
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Marina Tsvetaeva
Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva (; 31 August 1941) was a Russian and Soviet poet. Her work is considered among some of the greatest in twentieth century Russian literature. She lived through and wrote of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Moscow famine that followed it. In an attempt to save her daughter Irina from starvation, she placed her in a state orphanage in 1919, where she died of hunger. Tsvetaeva left Russia in 1922 and lived with her family in increasing poverty in Paris, Berlin and Prague before returning to Moscow in 1939. Her husband Sergei Efron and her daughter Ariadna Èfron (Alya) were arrested on espionage charges in 1941; her husband was executed. Tsvetaeva committed suicide in 1941. As a lyrical poet, her passion and daring linguistic experimentation mark her as a striking chronicler of her times and the depths of the human condition.
Marina Tsvetaeva was born in Moscow, the daughter of Ivan Vladimirovich Tsvetaev, a professor of Fine Art at the University of Moscow, who later founded the Alexander III Museum of Fine Arts (known from 1937 as the Pushkin Museum). (The Tsvetaev family name evokes association with flowers – the Russian word цвет ("tsvet") means "color" or "flower".) Tsvetaeva's mother, , Ivan's second wife, was a concert pianist, highly literate, with German and Polish ancestry. Growing up in considerable material comfort, Tsvetaeva would later come to identify herself with the Polish aristocracy.
Tsvetaeva's two half-siblings, Valeria and Andrei, were the children of Ivan's deceased first wife, Varvara Dmitrievna Ilovaiskaya, daughter of the historian Dmitry Ilovaisky. Tsvetaeva's only full sister, Anastasia, was born in 1894. The children quarrelled frequently and occasionally violently. There was considerable tension between Tsvetaeva's mother and Varvara's children, and Tsvetaeva's father maintained close contact with Varvara's family. Tsvetaeva's father was kind, but deeply wrapped up in his studies and distant from his family. He was also still deeply in love with his first wife; he would never get over her. Maria Tsvetaeva had had a love affair before her marriage, from which she never recovered. Maria Tsvetaeva disapproved of Marina's poetic inclination; she wanted her daughter to become a pianist, holding the opinion that her poetry was poor.
In 1902 Tsvetaeva's mother contracted tuberculosis. A change in climate was believed to help cure the disease, and so the family travelled abroad until shortly before her death in 1906, when Tsvetaeva was 14. They lived for a while by the sea at Nervi, near Genoa. There, away from the rigid constraints of a bourgeois Muscovite life, Tsvetaeva was able for the first time to run free, climb cliffs, and vent her imagination in childhood games. There were many Russian "émigré" revolutionaries residing at that time in Nervi, who may have had some influence on the young Tsvetaeva.
In June 1904 Tsvetaeva was sent to school in Lausanne. Changes in the Tsvetaev residence led to several changes in school, and during the course of her travels she acquired the Italian, French, and German languages. She gave up the strict musical studies that her mother had imposed and turned to poetry. She wrote "With a mother like her, I had only one choice: to become a poet".
In 1908, aged 16, Tsvetaeva studied literary history at the Sorbonne. During this time, a major revolutionary change was occurring within Russian poetry: the flowering of the Russian symbolist movement, and this movement was to colour most of her later work. It was not the theory which was to attract her, but the poetry and the gravity which writers such as Andrei Bely and Alexander Blok were capable of generating. Her own first collection of poems, "Vecherny Albom" ("Evening Album"), self-published in 1910, promoted her considerable reputation as a poet. It was well received, although her early poetry was held to be insipid compared to her later work. It attracted the attention of the poet and critic Maximilian Voloshin, whom Tsvetaeva described after his death in "A Living Word About a Living Man". Voloshin came to see Tsvetaeva and soon became her friend and mentor.
She began spending time at Voloshin's home in the Black Sea resort of Koktebel ("Blue Height"), which was a well-known haven for writers, poets and artists. She became enamoured of the work of Alexander Blok and Anna Akhmatova, although she never met Blok and did not meet Akhmatova until the 1940s. Describing the Koktebel community, the "émigré" Viktoria Schweitzer wrote: "Here inspiration was born." At Koktebel, Tsvetaeva met Sergei Yakovlevich Efron, a 17-year-old cadet in the Officers' Academy. She was 19, he 18: they fell in love and were married in 1912, the same year as her father's project, the Alexander III Museum of Fine Arts, was ceremonially opened, an event attended by Tsar Nicholas II. Tsvetaeva's love for Efron was intense; however, this did not preclude her from having affairs, including one with Osip Mandelstam, which she celebrated in a collection of poems called "Mileposts". At around the same time, she became involved in an affair with the poet Sophia Parnok, who was 7 years older than Tsvetaeva, an affair that caused her husband great grief. The two women fell deeply in love, and the relationship profoundly affected both women's writings. She deals with the ambiguous and tempestuous nature of this relationship in a cycle of poems which at times she called "The Girlfriend", and at other times "The Mistake". Tsvetaeva and her husband spent summers in the Crimea until the revolution, and had two daughters: Ariadna, or Alya (born 1912) and Irina (born 1917).
In 1914, Efron volunteered for the front and by 1917 he was an officer stationed in Moscow with the 56th Reserve. Tsvetaeva was a close witness of the Russian Revolution, which she rejected. On trains, she came into contact with ordinary Russian people and was shocked by the mood of anger and violence. She wrote in her journal: "In the air of the compartment hung only three axe-like words: bourgeois, Junkers, leeches." After the 1917 Revolution, Efron joined the White Army, and Marina returned to Moscow hoping to be reunited with her husband. She was trapped in Moscow for five years, where there was a terrible famine.
She wrote six plays in verse and narrative poems. Between 1917 and 1922 she wrote the epic verse cycle "Lebedinyi stan" ("The Encampment of the Swans") about the civil war, glorifying those who fought against the communists. The cycle of poems in the style of a diary or journal begins on the day of Tsar Nicholas II's abdication in March 1917, and ends late in 1920, when the anti-communist White Army was finally defeated. The 'swans' of the title refers to the volunteers in the White Army, in which her husband was fighting as an officer. In 1922 she published a long pro-imperial verse fairy tale, "Tsar-devitsa" ("Tsar-Maiden").
The Moscow famine was to exact a toll on Tsvetaeva. With no immediate family to turn to, she had no way to support herself or her daughters. In 1919, she placed both her daughters in a state orphanage, mistakenly believing that they would be better fed there. Alya became ill, and Tsvetaeva removed her, but Irina died there of starvation in 1920. The child's death caused Tsvetaeva great grief and regret. In one letter, she wrote, "God punished me."
During these years, Tsvetaeva maintained a close and intense friendship with the actress Sofia Evgenievna Holliday, for whom she wrote a number of plays. Many years later, she would write the novella "Povest o Sonechke" about her relationship with Holliday.
In May 1922, Tsvetaeva and Ariadna left Soviet Russia and were reunited with Efron in Berlin, whom she had thought had been killed by the Bolsheviks. There she published the collections "Separation", "Poems to Blok", and the poem "The Tsar Maiden", much of her poetry appeared in Moscow and Berlin, consolidating her reputation. In August 1922, the family moved to Prague. Living in unremitting poverty, unable to afford living accommodation in Prague itself, with Efron studying politics and sociology at the Charles University and living in hostels, Tsvetaeva and Ariadna found rooms in a village outside the city. She writes "we are devoured by coal, gas, the milkman, the baker...the only meat we eat is horsemeat". When offered an opportunity to earn money by reading her poetry, she describes having to beg a simple dress from a friend to replace the one she had been living in.
Tsvetaeva began a passionate affair with , a former military officer, a liaison which became widely known throughout émigré circles. Efron was devastated. Her break-up with Rodziewicz in 1923 was almost certainly the inspiration for her "The Poem of the End" and "The Poem of the Mountain". At about the same time, Tsvetaeva began correspondence with poet Rainer Maria Rilke and novelist Boris Pasternak. Tsvetaeva and Pasternak were not to meet for nearly twenty years, but maintained friendship until Tsvetaeva's return to Russia.
In summer 1924, Efron and Tsvetaeva left Prague for the suburbs, living for a while in Jíloviště, before moving on to Všenory, where Tsvetaeva completed "The Poem of the End", and was to conceive their son, Georgy, whom she was to later nickname 'Mur'. Tsvetaeva wanted to name him Boris (after Pasternak); Efron insisted on Georgy. He was to be a most difficult child but Tsvetaeva loved him obsessively. With Efron now rarely free from tuberculosis, their daughter Ariadna was relegated to the role of mother's helper and confidante, and consequently felt robbed of much of her childhood. In Berlin before settling in Paris, Tsvetaeva wrote some of her greatest verse, including "Remeslo" ("Craft", 1923) and "Posle Rossii" ("After Russia", 1928). Reflecting a life in poverty and exiled, the work holds great nostalgia for Russia and its folk history, while experimenting with verse forms.
In 1925, the family settled in Paris, where they would live for the next 14 years. At about this time Tsvetaeva contracted tuberculosis. Tsvetaeva received a small stipend from the Czechoslovak government, which gave financial support to artists and writers who had lived in Czechoslovakia. In addition, she tried to make whatever she could from readings and sales of her work. She turned more and more to writing prose because she found it made more money than poetry. Tsvetaeva did not feel at all at home in Paris's predominantly ex-bourgeois circle of Russian émigré writers. Although she had written passionately pro-'White' poems during the Revolution, her fellow émigrés thought that she was insufficiently anti-Soviet, and that her criticism of the Soviet régime was altogether too nebulous. She was particularly criticised for writing an admiring letter to the Soviet poet Vladimir Mayakovsky. In the wake of this letter, the émigré paper "Posledniye Novosti", to which Tsvetaeva had been a frequent contributor, refused point-blank to publish any more of her work. She found solace in her correspondence with other writers, including Boris Pasternak, Rainer Maria Rilke, the Czech poet Anna Tesková, the critics D. S. Mirsky and Aleksandr Bakhrakh, and the Georgian émigré princess Salomea Andronikova, who became her main source of financial support. Her poetry and critical prose of the time, including her autobiographical prose works of 1934–7, is of lasting literary importance. "Consumed by the daily round", resenting the domesticity that left her no time for solitude or writing, her émigré milieu regarded Tsvetaeva as a crude sort who ignored social graces. Describing her misery, she wrote to Tesková "In Paris, with rare personal exceptions, everyone hates me, they write all sorts of nasty things, leave me out in all sorts of nasty ways, and so on". To Pasternak she complained "They don't like poetry and what am I apart from that, not poetry but that from which it is made. [I am] an inhospitable hostess. A young woman in an old dress." She began to look back at even the Prague times with nostalgia and resent her exiled state more deeply.
Meanwhile, Tsvetaeva's husband was developing Soviet sympathies and was homesick for Russia. Eventually, he began working for the NKVD, the forerunner of the KGB. Alya shared his views, and increasingly turned against her mother. In 1937, she returned to the Soviet Union. Later that year, Efron too had to return to the USSR. The French police had implicated him in the murder of the former Soviet defector Ignace Reiss in September 1937, on a country lane near Lausanne, Switzerland. After Efron's escape, the police interrogated Tsvetaeva, but she seemed confused by their questions and ended up reading them some French translations of her poetry. The police concluded that she was deranged and knew nothing of the murder. Later it was learned that Efron possibly had also taken part in the assassination of Trotsky's son in 1936. Tsvetaeva does not seem to have known that her husband was a spy, nor the extent to which he was compromised. However, she was held responsible for his actions and was ostracised in Paris because of the implication that he was involved with the NKVD. World War II had made Europe as unsafe and hostile as the USSR. In 1939, she became lonely and alarmed by the rise of fascism, which she attacked in "Stikhi k Chekhii" ("Verses to Czechia" 1938–39).
In 1939, she and her son returned to Moscow, unaware of the reception she would receive. In Stalin's USSR, anyone who had lived abroad was suspect, as was anyone who had been among the intelligentsia before the Revolution. Tsvetaeva's sister had been arrested before Tsvetaeva's return; although Anastasia survived the Stalin years, the sisters never saw each other again. Tsvetaeva found that all doors had closed to her. She got bits of work translating poetry, but otherwise the established Soviet writers refused to help her, and chose to ignore her plight; Nikolai Aseev, who she had hoped would assist, shied away, fearful for his life and position.
Efron and Alya were arrested for espionage. Alya's fiancé was actually an NKVD agent who had been assigned to spy on the family. Efron was shot in 1941; Alya served over eight years in prison. Both were exonerated after Stalin's death. In 1941, Tsvetaeva and her son were evacuated to Yelabuga (Elabuga), while most families of the Union of Soviet Writers were evacuated to Chistopol. Tsvetaeva had no means of support in Yelabuga, and on 24 August 1941 she left for Chistopol desperately seeking a job. On 26 August, Marina Tsvetaeva and poet Valentin Parnakh applied to the Soviet of Literature Fund asking for a job at the LitFund's canteen. Parnakh was accepted as a doorman, while Tsvetaeva's application for a permission to live in Chistopol was turned down and she had to return to Yelabuga on 28 August.
On 31 August 1941, while living in Yelabuga, Tsvetaeva hanged herself. She left a note for her son Mur: "Forgive me, but to go on would be worse. I am gravely ill, this is not me anymore. I love you passionately. Do understand that I could not live anymore. Tell Papa and Alya, if you ever see them, that I loved them to the last moment and explain to them that I found myself in a trap." According to book "The Death of a Poet: The Last Days of Marina Tsvetaeva", the local NKVD department tried to force Tsvetaeva to start working as their informant, which left her no choice other than to commit suicide.
Tsvetaeva was buried in Yelabuga cemetery on 2 September 1941, but the exact location of her grave remains unknown.
Her son Georgy volunteered for the Eastern Front of World War II and died in battle in 1944. Her daughter Ariadna spent 16 years in Soviet prison camps and exile and was released in 1955. Ariadna wrote a memoir of her family; an English-language edition was published in 2009. She died in 1975.
In the town of Yelabuga, the Tsvetaeva house is now a museum and a monument stands to her. Much of her poetry was republished in the Soviet Union after 1961, and her passionate, articulate and precise work, with its daring linguistic experimentation, brought her increasing recognition as a major poet.
A minor planet, 3511 Tsvetaeva, discovered in 1982 by Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Karachkina, is named after her.
In 1989 in Gdynia, Poland, a special-purpose ship was built for the Russian Academy of Sciences and named Marina Tsvetaeva in her honor. From 2007, the ship served as a tourist vessel to the polar regions for Aurora Expeditions. In 2011 she was renamed and is currently operated by Oceanwide Expeditions as a tourist vessel in the polar regions.
Tsvetaeva's poetry was admired by poets such as Valery Bryusov, Maximilian Voloshin, Osip Mandelstam, Boris Pasternak, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Anna Akhmatova. Later, that recognition was also expressed by the poet Joseph Brodsky, pre-eminent among Tsvetaeva's champions. Tsvetaeva was primarily a lyrical poet, and her lyrical voice remains clearly audible in her narrative poetry. Brodsky said of her work: "Represented on a graph, Tsvetaeva's work would exhibit a curve – or rather, a straight line – rising at almost a right angle because of her constant effort to raise the pitch a note higher, an idea higher (or, more precisely, an octave and a faith higher.) She always carried everything she has to say to its conceivable and expressible end. In both her poetry and her prose, nothing remains hanging or leaves a feeling of ambivalence. Tsvetaeva is the unique case in which the paramount spiritual experience of an epoch (for us, the sense of ambivalence, of contradictoriness in the nature of human existence) served not as the object of expression but as its means, by which it was transformed into the material of art." Critic Annie Finch describes the engaging, heart-felt nature of the work. "Tsvetaeva is such a warm poet, so unbridled in her passion, so completely vulnerable in her love poetry, whether to her female lover Sofie Parnak, to Boris Pasternak. [...] Tsvetaeva throws her poetic brilliance on the altar of her heart’s experience with the faith of a true romantic, a priestess of lived emotion. And she stayed true to that faith to the tragic end of her life.
Tsvetaeva's lyric poems fill ten collections; the uncollected lyrics would add at least another volume. Her first two collections indicate their subject matter in their titles: "Evening Album" (Vecherniy albom, 1910) and "The Magic Lantern" (Volshebnyi fonar, 1912). The poems are vignettes of a tranquil childhood and youth in a professorial, middle-class home in Moscow, and display considerable grasp of the formal elements of style. The full range of Tsvetaeva's talent developed quickly, and was undoubtedly influenced by the contacts she had made at Koktebel, and was made evident in two new collections: "Mileposts" (Versty, 1921) and "Mileposts: Book One" (Versty, Vypusk I, 1922).
Three elements of Tsvetaeva's mature style emerge in the "Mileposts" collections. First, Tsvetaeva dates her poems and publishes them chronologically. The poems in "Mileposts: Book One", for example, were written in 1916 and resolve themselves as a versified journal. Secondly, there are cycles of poems which fall into a regular chronological sequence among the single poems, evidence that certain themes demanded further expression and development. One cycle announces the theme of "Mileposts: Book One" as a whole: the "Poems of Moscow." Two other cycles are dedicated to poets, the "Poems to Akhmatova" and the "Poems to Blok", which again reappear in a separate volume, Poems to Blok ("Stikhi k Bloku", 1922). Thirdly, the "Mileposts" collections demonstrate the dramatic quality of Tsvetaeva's work, and her ability to assume the guise of multiple "dramatis personae" within them.
The collection "Separation" (Razluka, 1922) was to contain Tsvetaeva's first long verse narrative, "On a Red Steed" ("Na krasnom kone"). The poem is a prologue to three more verse-narratives written between 1920 and 1922. All four narrative poems draw on folkloric plots. Tsvetaeva acknowledges her sources in the titles of the very long works, "The Maiden Tsar: A Fairy-tale Poem" ("Tsar-devitsa: Poema-skazka", 1922) and "The Swain", subtitled "A Fairytale" ("Molodets: skazka", 1924). The fourth folklore-style poem is "Byways" ("Pereulochki", published in 1923 in the collection "Remeslo"), and it is the first poem which may be deemed incomprehensible in that it is fundamentally a soundscape of language. The collection "Psyche" ("Psikheya", 1923) contains one of Tsvetaeva's best-known cycles "Insomnia" (Bessonnitsa) and the poem The Swans' Encampment (Lebedinyi stan, Stikhi 1917–1921, published in 1957) which celebrates the White Army.
Tsvetaeva was so infatuated by the subject that she was looking for the topic in other poets writings and even used their lines as a base for her narrative, for example:
Subsequently, as an émigré, Tsvetaeva's last two collections of lyrics were published by émigré presses, "Craft" ("Remeslo", 1923) in Berlin and "After Russia" ("Posle Rossii", 1928) in Paris. There then followed the twenty-three lyrical "Berlin" poems, the pantheistic "Trees" ("Derev'ya"), "Wires" ("Provoda") and "Pairs" ("Dvoe"), and the tragic "Poets" ("Poety"). "After Russia" contains the poem "In Praise of the Rich", in which Tsvetaeva's oppositional tone is merged with her proclivity for ruthless satire.
In 1924, Tsvetaeva wrote "Poem of the End", which details a walk around Prague and across its bridges; the walk is about the final walk she will take with her lover Konstantin Rodzevich. In it everything is foretold: in the first few lines (translated by Elaine Feinstein) the future is already written:
Again, further poems foretell future developments. Principal among these is the voice of the classically oriented Tsvetaeva heard in cycles "The Sibyl", "Phaedra", and "Ariadne". Tsvetaeva's beloved, ill-starred heroines recur in two verse plays, "Theseus-Ariadne" (Tezei-Ariadna, 1927) and "Phaedra" (Fedra, 1928). These plays form the first two parts of an incomplete trilogy "Aphrodite's Rage".
The satirist in Tsvetaeva plays second fiddle only to the poet-lyricist. Several satirical poems, moreover, are among Tsvetaeva's best-known works: "The Train of Life" ("Poezd zhizni") and "The Floorcleaners' Song" ("Poloterskaya"), both included in After Russia, and The Ratcatcher (Krysolov, 1925–1926), a long, folkloric narrative. The target of Tsvetaeva's satire is everything petty and petty bourgeois. Unleashed against such dull creature comforts is the vengeful, unearthly energy of workers both manual and creative. In her notebook, Tsvetaeva writes of "The Floorcleaners' Song": "Overall movement: the floorcleaners ferret out a house's hidden things, they scrub a fire into the door... What do they flush out? Coziness, warmth, tidiness, order... Smells: incense, piety. Bygones. Yesterday... The growing force of their threat is far stronger than the climax." "The Ratcatcher" poem, which Tsvetaeva describes as a "lyrical satire", is loosely based on the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. The Ratcatcher, which is also known as The Pied Piper, is considered by some to be the finest of Tsvetaeva's work. It was also partially an act of "homage" to Heinrich Heine's poem "Die Wanderratten". The Ratcatcher appeared initially, in serial format, in the émigré journal "" in 1925–1926 whilst still being written. It was not to appear in the Soviet Union until after the death of Joseph Stalin in 1956. Its hero is the Pied Piper of Hamelin who saves a town from hordes of rats and then leads the town's children away too, in retribution for the citizens' ingratitude. As in the other folkloric narratives, The Ratcatcher's story line emerges indirectly through numerous speaking voices which shift from invective, to extended lyrical flights, to pathos.
Tsvetaeva's last ten years of exile, from 1928 when "After Russia" appeared until her return in 1939 to the Soviet Union, were principally a "prose decade", though this would almost certainly be by dint of economic necessity rather than one of choice.
Translators of Tsvetaeva's work into English include Elaine Feinstein and David McDuff. Nina Kossman translated many of Tsvetaeva's long (narrative) poems, as well as her lyrical poems; they are collected in two books, "Poem of the End" and "In the Inmost Hour of the Soul". J. Marin King translated a great deal of Tsvetaeva's prose into English, compiled in a book called "A Captive Spirit". Tsvetaeva scholar Angela Livingstone has translated a number of Tsvetaeva's essays on art and writing, compiled in a book called "Art in the Light of Conscience". Livingstone's translation of Tsvetaeva's "The Ratcatcher" was published as a separate book. Mary Jane White has translated the early cycle "Miles" in a book called "Starry Sky to Starry Sky", as well as Tsvetaeva's elegy for Rilke, "New Year's", (Adastra Press 16 Reservation Road, Easthampton, MA 01027 USA) and "Poem of the End" (The Hudson Review, Winter 2009; and in the anthology Poets Translate Poets, Syracuse U. Press 2013) and "Poem of the Hill", (New England Review, Summer 2008) and Tsvetaeva's 1914–1915 cycle of love poems to Sophia Parnok. In 2002, Yale University Press published Jamey Gambrell's translation of post-revolutionary prose, entitled "Earthly Signs: Moscow Diaries, 1917–1922", with notes on poetic and linguistic aspects of Tsvetaeva's prose, and endnotes for the text itself.
The Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich set six of Tsvetaeva's poems to music. Later the Russian-Tatar composer Sofia Gubaidulina wrote an "Hommage à Marina Tsvetayeva" featuring her poems. Her poem "Mne Nravitsya..." ("I like that..."), was performed by Alla Pugacheva in the film "The Irony of Fate". In 2003, the opera "Marina: A Captive Spirit", based on Tsvetaeva's life and work, premiered from American Opera Projects in New York with music by Deborah Drattell and libretto by poet Annie Finch. The production was directed by Anne Bogart and the part of Tsvetaeva was sung by Lauren Flanigan. The poetry by Tsvetaeva was set to music and frequently performed as songs by Elena Frolova, Larisa Novoseltseva, Zlata Razdolina and other Russian bards.
On 8 October 2015, Google Doodle commemorated her 123rd birthday.
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Matilda of Tuscany
Matilda of Tuscany (Italian: "Matilde di Canossa" , Latin: "Matilda", "Mathilda"; 1046 – 24 July 1115) was a powerful feudal Margravine of Tuscany, ruler in northern Italy and the chief Italian supporter of Pope Gregory VII during the Investiture Controversy; in addition, she was one of the few medieval women to be remembered for her military accomplishments, thanks to which she was able to dominate all the territories north of the Papal States.
In 1076 she came into possession of a substantial territory that included present-day Lombardy, Emilia, the Romagna and Tuscany, and made the castle of Canossa, in the Apennines south of Reggio, the centre of her domains. Between 6 and 11 May 1111 she was crowned Imperial Vicar and Vice-Queen of Italy by Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor at the Castle of Bianello (Quattro Castella, Reggio Emilia).
Sometimes called la Gran Contessa ("the Great Countess") or Matilda of Canossa after her ancestral castle of Canossa, Matilda was one of the most important figures of the Italian Middle Ages. She lived in a period of constant battles, intrigues and excommunications, and was able to demonstrate an extraordinary force, even enduring great pain and humiliation, showing an innate leadership ability.
In a miniature in the early twelfth-century "Vita Mathildis" by the monk Donizo (or, in Italian, Donizone), Matilda is referred to as 'Resplendent Matilda' ("Mathildis Lucens"). Since the Latin word "lucens" is similar to "lucensis" (of/from Lucca), this may also be a reference to Matilda's origins. She was descended from the nobleman Sigifred of Lucca,
and was the youngest of the three children of Margrave Boniface III of Tuscany, ruler of a substantial territory in Northern Italy and one of the most powerful vassals of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry III. Matilda's mother, Beatrice of Lorraine, was the Emperor's first cousin and closely connected to the imperial household. Renowned for her learning, Matilda was literate in Latin, as well as reputed to speak German and French. The extent of Matilda's education in military matters is debated. It has been asserted that she was taught strategy, tactics, riding and wielding weapons, but recent scholarship challenges these claims.
Following the death of their father in 1052, Matilda's brother, Frederick, inherited the family lands and titles under the regency of their mother. Matilda's sister, Beatrice, died the next year, making Matilda heir presumptive to Frederick's personal holdings. In 1054, determined to safeguard the interests of her children as well as her own, her mother married Godfrey the Bearded, a distant kinsman who had been stripped of the Duchy of Upper Lorraine after openly rebelling against Emperor Henry III.
Henry was enraged by Beatrice of Lorraine's unauthorised union with his most vigorous adversary and took the opportunity to have her arrested, along with Matilda, when he marched south to attend a synod in Florence on Pentecost in 1055. Frederick's rather suspicious death soon thereafter made Matilda the last member of the House of Canossa. Mother and daughter were taken to Germany, but Godfrey successfully avoided capture. Unable to defeat him, Henry sought a rapproachment. The Emperor's death in October 1056, which brought to throne the underage Henry IV, seems to have accelerated the negotiations. Godfrey was reconciled with the crown and recognized as Margrave of Tuscany in December, while Beatrice and Matilda were released. By the time she and her mother returned to Italy, in the company of Pope Victor II, Matilda was formally acknowledged as heir to the greatest territorial lordship in the southern part of the Empire.
Matilda's mother and stepfather became heavily involved in the series of disputed papal elections during their regency, supporting the Gregorian Reforms. Godfrey's brother Frederick became Pope Stephen IX, while both of the following two popes, Nicholas II and Alexander II, had been Tuscan bishops. Matilda made her first journey to Rome with her family in the entourage of Nicholas in 1059. Godfrey and Beatrice actively assisted them in dealing with antipopes, while the adolescent Matilda's role remains unclear. A contemporary account of her stepfather's 1067 expedition against Prince Richard I of Capua on behalf of the papacy mentions Matilda's participation in the campaign, describing it as the "first service that the most excellent daughter of Boniface offered to the blessed prince of the apostles."
In 1069, as Godfrey the Bearded lay dying in Verdun, Beatrice and Matilda hastened to reach Lorraine, anxious to ensure a smooth transition of power. Matilda was present at her stepfather's deathbed, and on that occasion she is for the first time clearly mentioned as the wife of her stepbrother, Godfrey the Hunchback, to whom she had been betrothed since childhood. The marriage proved a failure; the death of their only child (a daughter called Beatrice) shortly after birth in August 1071 and Godfrey's physical deformity may have helped fuel deep animosity between the spouses.
By the end of 1071, Matilda had left her husband and returned to Tuscany. Matilda's bold decision to repudiate her husband came at a cost, but ensured her independence. Beatrice started preparing Matilda for rule by holding court jointly with her and, eventually, encouraging her to issue charters on her own as countess ("comitissa") and duchess ("ducatrix").
Godfrey fiercely protested the separation and demanded that Matilda come back to him, which she repeatedly refused. The Duke descended into Italy in 1072, determined to enforce the marriage. He sought the help of both Matilda's mother and her ally, the newly elected Pope Gregory VII, promising military aid to the latter. Matilda's resolution was unshakable, and Godfrey returned to Lorraine alone, losing all hope by 1074. Rather than supporting the Pope as promised, Godfrey turned his attention to imperial affairs. Meanwhile, the conflict later known as the Investiture Controversy was brewing between Gregory and Henry, with both men claiming the right to appoint bishops and abbots within the Empire. Matilda and Godfrey soon found themselves on opposing sides of the dispute, leading to a further detoriation of their difficult relationship. German chroniclers, writing of the synod held at Worms in January 1076, even suggested that Godfrey inspired Henry's allegation of a licentious affair between Gregory and Matilda.
Matilda became a widow on 26 February 1076. Godfrey the Hunchback was assassinated in Flanders while "answering the call of nature". Having been accused of adultery with the Pope the previous month, Matilda was suspected of ordering her estranged husband's death. She could not have known about the proceedings at the Synod of Worms at the time, however, since the news took three months to reach the Pope himself, and it is more likely that Godfrey was killed at the instigation of an enemy nearer to him. Within two months, Beatrice was dead as well. Matilda's power was considerably augmented by these deaths; she was now the undisputed heir of all her parents' allodial lands. Her inheritance would have been threatened had Godfrey survived her mother, but she now enjoyed the privileged status of a widow. It seemed unlikely, however, that Henry would formally invest her with the margraviate.
Between 1076 and 1080, Matilda travelled to Lorraine to lay claim to her husband's estate in Verdun, which he had willed (along with the rest of his patrimony) to his sister Ida's son, Godfrey of Bouillon. Godfrey of Bouillon also disputed her right to Stenay and Mosay, which her mother had received as dowry. The quarrel between aunt and nephew over the episcopal county of Verdun was eventually settled by Theoderic, Bishop of Verdun, who enjoyed the right to nominate the counts. He easily found in favor of Margravine Matilda, as such verdict happened to please both Pope Gregory and King Henry. Matilda then proceeded to enfeoff Verdun to her husband's pro-reform cousin, Albert III of Namur. The deep animosity between Matilda and her nephew is thought to have prevented her from travelling to Jerusalem during the First Crusade, led by him in the late 1090s.
The disagreement between Pope Gregory VII and King Henry IV culminated in the aftermath of the Synod of Worms in February 1076. Gregory declared Henry excommunicated, releasing all his subjects from allegiance to him and providing the perfect reason for rebellion against his rule. Insubordinate southern German princes gathered in Trebur, awaiting the Pope. Matilda's first military endeavor, as well as the first major task altogether as ruler, turned out to be protecting the Pope during his perilous journey north. Gregory could rely on nobody else; as the sole heir to the Attonid patrimony, Matilda controlled all the Apennine passes and nearly all the rest that connected central Italy to the north. The Lombard bishops, who were also excommunicated for taking part in the synod and whose sees bordered Matilda's domain, were keen to capture Gregory. Gregory was aware of the danger, and recorded that all his advisors except Matilda counselled him against travelling to Trebur.
Henry had other plans, however. He decided to descend into Italy and intercept Gregory, who was thus delayed. The German dukes held a council by themselves and informed the King that he had to submit to the Pope or be replaced. Henry's predecessors dealt easily with troublesome pontiffs - they simply deposed them, and the excommunicated Lombard bishops rejoiced at this prospect. When Matilda heard about Henry's approach, she urged Gregory to take refuge in the Castle of Canossa, her family's eponymous stronghold. Gregory took her advice. It soon became clear that the intention behind Henry's walk to Canossa was to show penance. By 25 January 1077, the King stood barefoot in the snow before the gates of Matilda's castle, accompanied by his mother-in-law, Margravine Adelaide of Susa. He remained there, humbled, until 28 January, when Matilda convinced the Pope to see him. Matilda and Adelaide brokered a deal between the men. Henry was taken back into the Church, with the margravines acting as sponsors and formally swearing to the agreement.
In 1079, Matilda gave the Pope all her domains, in open defiance of Henry IV's claims both as the overlord of some of those domains, and as her close relative. Two years later the fortunes of Papacy and Empire turned again: in 1080 Henry IV summoned a council in Brixen, which deposed Gregory VII. The following year the Emperor decided to travel again to Italy to reinstate his overlordship over his territories. He also declared Matilda, on account of her 1079 donation to the Church, forfeit and be banned from the Empire; although this wasn't enough to eliminate her as a source of trouble, for she retained substantial allodial holdings. On 15 October 1080 near Volta Mantovana the Imperial troops (with Guibert of Ravenna as the newly elected Antipope Clement III) defeated the troops loyal to Gregory VII and controlled by Matilda. This was the first serious military defeat of Matilda (Battle of Volta Mantovana).
Matilda, however, didn't surrender. While Gregory VII was forced into exile, she, retaining control over all the western passes in the Apennines, could force Henry IV to approach Rome via Ravenna; even with this route open, the Emperor would find it hard to besiege Rome with a hostile territory at his back. In December 1080 the citizens of Lucca, then the capital of Tuscany, had revolted and driven out her ally Bishop Anselm. She is believed to have commissioned the renowned Ponte della Maddalena where the Via Francigena crosses the river Serchio at Borgo a Mozzano just north of Lucca.
Matilda remained Pope Gregory VII's chief intermediary for communication with northern Europe even as he lost control of Rome and was holed up in the Castel Sant'Angelo. After Henry caught hold of the Pope's seal, Matilda wrote to supporters in Germany only to trust papal messages that came through her.
Henry IV's control of Rome enabled him to enthrone Antipope Clement III, who, in turn, crowned him Emperor. After this, Henry IV returned to Germany, leaving it to his allies to attempt Matilda's dispossession. These attempts floundered after Matilda (with help of the city of Bologna) defeated them at Sorbara near Modena on 2 July 1084.
Gregory VII died in 1085, and Matilda's forces, with those of Prince Jordan I of Capua (her off and on again enemy), took to the field in support of a new pope, Victor III. In 1087, Matilda led an expedition to Rome in an attempt to install Victor, but the strength of the imperial counterattack soon convinced the pope to withdraw from the city.
In 1088 Matilda was facing a new attempt at invasion by Henry IV, and decided to pre-empt it by means of a political marriage. In 1089 Matilda (in her early forties) married Welf V, who was probably fifteen to seventeen years old. Welf was heir to the Duchy of Bavaria. He was also a member of the Welf dynasty: the Welfs/Guelphs were important papal supporters from the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries in their conflict with the German emperors (see Guelphs and Ghibellines). Matilda and Welf's wedding was part of a network of alliances approved by the new pope, Urban II, in order to effectively counter Henry IV.
Cosmas of Prague (writing in the early twelfth century), included a letter in his "Chronica Boemorum", which he claimed that Matilda sent to her future husband, but which is now thought to be spurious:
After this, Matilda sent an army of thousands to the border of Lombardy to escort her bridegroom, welcomed him with honors, and after the marriage (mid-1089), she organized 120 days of wedding festivities, with such splendor that any other medieval ruler's pale in comparison.
Cosmas also reports that for two nights after the wedding, Welf V, fearing witchcraft, refused to share the marital bed. The third day, Matilda appeared naked on a table especially prepared on sawhorses, and told him that "everything is in front of you and there is no hidden malice". But the Duke was dumbfounded; Matilda, furious, slapped him and spat in his face, taunting him: "Get out of here, monster, you don't deserve our kingdom, you vile thing, viler than a worm or a rotten seaweed, don't let me see you again, or you'll die a miserable death...". Matilda and her young husband separated a few years later (1095); they had no children.
Later Matilda allied with the two sons of Henry IV, Conrad and Henry, who rebelled against their father. This forced Henry to return to Italy, where he chased Matilda into the mountains. He was humbled before Canossa, this time in a military defeat in October 1092, from which his influence in Italy never recovered.
After several victories, including one against the Saxons, Henry IV prepared in 1090 his third descent to Italy, in order to inflict the final defeat on the Church. His route was the usual one, Brenner and Verona, along the border of Matilda's possessions, which began outside the cities' gates. The opposing armies would meet near Mantua. Matilda secured the loyalty of the townspeople by exempting them from some taxes, such as "teloneo" and "ripatico", and with the promise of Lombard franchise, entailing the rights to hunt, fish and cut wood on both banks of the Tartaro river.
The Mantua people stood by Matilda until the so-called "Holy Thursday betrayal", when the townspeople, won over by additional concessions from Henry, who had meanwhile besieged the city, sided with him. In 1092 Matilda escaped to the Reggiano Apennines and her most inexpugnable strongholds. Since the times of Adalbert Atto the power of the Canossa family had been based on a network of castles, fortresses and fortified villages in the Val d'Enza, forming a complex polygonal defense that had always resisted all attack from the Apennines. After several bloody battles with mutual defeats, the powerful imperial army was surrounded.
In spite of its fearful power, the Imperial army was defeated by Matilda's liegemen. Among them were small landowners and holders of fortified villages, which remained completely loyal to the Canossas even against the Holy Roman Emperor. Their familiarity with the territory, their quick communications and maneuvering to all the high places of the Val d'Enza gave them victory over Henry's might. It seems that Matilda personally participated, with a handful of chosen faithful men, to the battle, galvanizing the allies with the cry of Just War. The Imperial army was taken as in a vice in the meandering mountain creek. The overall import of Henry's rout was more than a military defeat. The Emperor realized it was impossible to penetrate those places, wholly different from the plains of the Po Valley or of Saxe. There he faced not boundaries drawn by the rivers of Central Europe, but steep trails, ravines, inaccessible places protecting Matilda's fortresses, and high tower houses, whence the defenders could unload on anyone approaching missiles of all kinds: spears, arrows, perhaps even boiling oil, javelins, stones.
After Matilda's victory several cities, such as Milan, Cremona, Lodi and Piacenza, sided with her to free themselves of Imperial rule. In 1093 the Emperor's eldest son, Conrad, supported by the Pope, Matilda and a group of Lombard cities, was crowned King of Italy. Matilda freed and even gave refuge to Henry IV's wife, Eupraxia of Kiev, who, at the urging of Pope Urban II, made a public confession before the church Council of Piacenza. She accused her husband of imprisoning her in Verona after forcing her to participate in orgies, and, according to some later accounts, of attempting a black mass on her naked body. Thanks to these scandals and division within the Imperial family, the prestige and power of Henry IV was increasingly weakened.
In 1095, Henry attempted to reverse his fortunes by seizing Matilda's castle of Nogara, but the countess's arrival at the head of an army forced him to retreat. In 1097, Henry withdrew from Italy altogether, after which Matilda reigned virtually unchallenged, although she did continue to launch military operations to restore her authority and regain control of the towns that had remained loyal to the emperor. With the assistance of the French armies heading off to the First Crusade, she was finally able to restore Urban to Rome. She ordered or led successful expeditions against Ferrara (1101), Parma (1104), Prato (1107) and Mantua (1114).
Henry IV died now defeated in 1106; and after the deposition and death of Conrad (1101), his second son and new Holy Roman Emperor, Henry V, began to turn the fight against the Church and Italy. This time the attitude of Matilda against the imperial house had to change and she accepted the will of the Emperor. In 1111, on his way back to Germany, Henry V met her at the Castle of Bianello, near Reggio Emilia. Matilda confirmed him the inheritance rights over the fiefs that Henry IV disputed her, thus ending a fight that had lasted over twenty years. Henry V gave Matilda a new title: between 6 and 11 May 1111, the Emperor crowned Matilda as Imperial Vicar and Vice-Queen of Italy. This episode was the decisive step towards the Concordat of Worms.
By legend Matilda of Canossa is said to have founded one hundred churches. Documents and local legend identify well over one hundred churches, monasteries, hospices, and bridges built or restored between the Alps and Rome by Matilda and her mother, Beatrice. Today, churches and monasteries in the regions of Lombardy, Emilia Romagna, Tuscany, and even the Veneto attribute their foundation to her. Built originally with hospices for travelers attached, these churches created a network that united the supporters of the Gregorian reform of the Roman Church which Matilda supported. This network also provided protection for pilgrims, merchants and travelers assisting the Renaissance in culture that occurred in the centuries after Matilda's death.
Most of these churches continue today to be vital centers of their communities. They include rural churches located along the Po and Arno rivers, and their tributaries; churches built along the Apennine mountain passes which Matilda's family controlled and those along the ancient highways of the via Emilia, the via Cassia, the via Aurelia and the via Francigena. Among these are monuments listed by UNESCO as among the heritage of our world, including churches in Florence, Ferrara, Lucca, Mantua, Modena, Pisa, Verona and Volterra. Her cultural legacy is enormous throughout Northern Italy.
Some churches traditionally said to have been founded by Matilda include:
It seems that even the foundation of the Church of San Salvaro in Legnago (Verona) was made by Matilda.
Matilda's death from gout in 1115 at Bondeno di Roncore marked the end of an era in Italian politics. It is widely reported that she bequeathed her allodial property to the Pope. Unaccountably, however, this donation was never officially recognized in Rome and no record exists of it. Henry V had promised some of the cities in her territory that he would appoint no successor after he deposed her. In her place the leading citizens of these cities took control, and the era of the city-states in northern Italy began.
Matilda was at first buried in the Abbey of San Benedetto in Polirone, located in the town of San Benedetto Po; then, in 1633, at the behest of Pope Urban VIII, her body was moved to Rome and placed in Castel Sant'Angelo. Finally, in 1645 her remains were definitely deposited in the Vatican, where they now lie in St. Peter's Basilica. She is one of only six women who have the honor of being buried in the Basilica, the others being Queen Christina of Sweden, Maria Clementina Sobieska (wife of James Francis Edward Stuart), St. Petronilla, Queen Charlotte of Cyprus and Agnesina Colonna Caetani.
A memorial tomb for Matilda, commissioned by Pope Urban VIII and designed by Gianlorenzo Bernini, marks her burial place in St Peter's and is often called the "Honor and Glory of Italy".
After her death, an aura of legend came to surround Matilda. Church historians gave her the character of a semi-nun, solely dedicated to contemplation and faith. Some argue, instead, that she was a woman of strong passions of both spiritual and carnal nature (indicated by her supposed affairs with Popes Gregory VII and Urban II).
She has been posited by some critics as the origin of the mysterious "Matilda" who appears to Dante gathering flowers in the earthly paradise in Dante's "Purgatorio".
The story of Matilda and Henry IV is the main plot device in Luigi Pirandello's play "Enrico IV". She is the main historical character in Kathleen McGowan's novel "The Book of Love" (Simon & Schuster, 2009).
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History of Israel
The Land of Israel, also known as the Holy Land or Palestine, is the birthplace of the Jewish people, the place where the final form of the Hebrew Bible is thought to have been compiled, and the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity. It contains sites sacred to Judaism, Samaritanism, Christianity, Islam, Druze and the Bahá'í Faith. The region has come under the sway of various empires and, as a result, has hosted a wide variety of ethnicities. However, the land was predominantly Jewish (who are themselves an outgrowth of the earlier Canaanites) from roughly 1,000 years before the Common Era (BCE) until the 3rd century of the Common Era (CE). The adoption of Christianity by the Roman Empire in the 4th century led to a Greco-Roman Christian majority which lasted not just until the 7th century when the area was conquered by the Arab Muslim Empires, but for another full six centuries. It gradually became predominantly Muslim after the end of the Crusader period (1099-1291), during which it was the focal point of conflict between Christianity and Islam. From the 13th century it was mainly Muslim with Arabic as the dominant language and was first part of the Syrian province of the Mamluk Sultanate and after 1516 part of the Ottoman Empire until the British conquest in 1917-18.
A Jewish national movement, Zionism, emerged in the late-19th century (partially in response to growing antisemitism), as part of which Aliyah (Jewish return from diaspora) increased. During World War I, the British government publicly committed to create a Jewish National Home and was granted a Mandate to rule Palestine by the League of Nations for this purpose. A rival Arab nationalism also claimed rights over the former Ottoman territories and sought to prevent Jewish migration into Palestine, leading to growing Arab–Jewish tensions. Israeli independence in 1948 was accompanied by an exodus of Arabs from Israel, the Arab–Israeli conflict and a subsequent Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries to Israel. About 43% of the world's Jews live in Israel today, the largest Jewish community in the world.
Since about 1970, the United States has become the principal ally of Israel. In 1979, an uneasy Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty was signed, based on the Camp David Accords. In 1993, Israel signed Oslo I Accord with the Palestine Liberation Organization, followed by establishment of the Palestinian National Authority and in 1994 Israel–Jordan peace treaty was signed. Despite efforts to finalize the peace agreement, the conflict continues to play a major role in Israeli and international political, social and economic life.
The economy of Israel was initially primarily democratic socialist and the country dominated by social democratic parties until the 1970s. Since then the Israeli economy has gradually moved to capitalism and a free market economy, partially retaining the social welfare system.
The periodisation is subject to the progress of research, to regional, national, and ideological interpretation, as well as personal preference of the individual researcher. For an overview of a mainstream periodisation system for the wider region, see List of archaeological periods (Levant).
Between 2.6 and 0.9 million years ago, at least four episodes of hominine dispersal from Africa to the Levant are known, each culturally distinct. The oldest evidence of early humans in the territory of modern Israel, dating to 1.5 million years ago, was found in Ubeidiya near the Sea of Galilee. The flint tool artefacts have been discovered at Yiron, the oldest stone tools found anywhere outside Africa. Other groups include 1.4 million years old Acheulean industry, the Bizat Ruhama group and Gesher Bnot Yaakov.
In the Carmel mountain range at el-Tabun, and Es Skhul, Neanderthal and early modern human remains were found, including the skeleton of a Neanderthal female, named Tabun I, which is regarded as one of the most important human fossils ever found. The excavation at el-Tabun produced the longest stratigraphic record in the region, spanning 600,000 or more years of human activity, from the Lower Paleolithic to the present day, representing roughly a million years of human evolution. Other notable Paleolithic sites include caves Qesem and Manot. The oldest fossils of anatomically modern humans found outside Africa are the Skhul and Qafzeh hominids, who lived in northern Israel 120,000 years ago. Around 10th millennium BCE, the Natufian culture existed in the area.
During the 2nd millennium BCE, Canaan, part of which later became known as Israel, was dominated by the New Kingdom of Egypt from c.1550 to c. 1180.
The earliest recorded battle in history took place in 1457 BCE, at Megiddo (known in Greek as Armageddon), between Canaanite forces and those of Pharoh Thutmose III. The Canaanites left no written history, but Thutmose's scribe, Tjaneni recorded the battle.
The first record of the name Israel (as "") occurs in the Merneptah stele, erected for Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah (son of Ramses II) c. 1209 BCE, "Israel is laid waste and his seed is not." William G. Dever sees this "Israel" in the central highlands as a cultural and probably political entity, more an ethnic group rather than an organized state.
Ancestors of the Israelites may have included Semites native to Canaan and the Sea Peoples. McNutt says, "It is probably safe to assume that sometime during Iron Age I a population began to identify itself as 'Israelite'", differentiating itself from the Canaanites through such markers as the prohibition of intermarriage, an emphasis on family history and genealogy, and religion.
The archeological evidence indicates a society of village-like centres, but with more limited resources and a small population. Villages had populations of up to 300 or 400, which lived by farming and herding, and were largely self-sufficient; economic interchange was prevalent. Writing was known and available for recording, even in small sites.
The first use of grapheme-based writing originated in the area, probably among Canaanite peoples resident in Egypt. This evolved into the Phoenician alphabet from which all modern alphabetical writing systems are descended. The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet was one of the first to develop and evidence of its use exists from about 1000 BCE (see the Gezer calendar), the language spoken was probably Biblical Hebrew.
Monotheism, the belief in a single all-powerful law-giving God is thought to have evolved among the Hebrew speakers gradually, over the next few centuries, from a number of separate cults, leading to the first versions of the religion now known as Judaism.
The Hebrew Bible describes constant warfare between the Israelites and the Philistines whose capital was Gaza. The Phillistines were Greek refugee-settlers who inhabited the southern Levantine coast. The Bible states that King David founded a dynasty of kings and that his son Solomon built a temple. Both David and Solomon are widely referenced in Jewish, Christian and Islamic texts. Standard Biblical chronology suggests that around 930 BCE, following the death of Solomon, the kingdom split into a southern Kingdom of Judah and a northern Kingdom of Israel. The Bible's Books of Kings state that soon after the split Pharoh "Shishaq" invaded the country plundering Jerusalem. An inscription over a gate at Karnak in Egypt recounts such an invasion by Pharoh Sheshonq I.
The archeological evidence for this period is extremely sparse, leading some scholars to suggest that this section of the Hebrew Bible, which includes texts written two centuries later, exaggerates the importance of David and Solomon. The earliest references to the "House of David" have been found in two inscriptions, on the Tel Dan Stele and the Mesha Stele; the latter is a Moabite stele, now in the Louvre, which describes an 840 BCE invasion of Moab by Omri, king of Israel. Jehu, son of Omri, is referenced by Assyrian records (now in the British Museum). Modern archeological findings show that Omri's capital city, Samaria, was large and Finkelstein has suggested that the Biblical account of David and Solomon are an attempt by later Judean rulers to ascribe Israel's successes to their dynasty.
In 854 BCE, according to Assyrian records (the Kurkh Monoliths) an alliance between Ahab of Israel and Ben Hadad II of Aram Damascus managed to repulse the incursions of the Assyrians, with a victory at the Battle of Qarqar. This is not included in the Bible which describes conflict between Ahab and Ben Hadad. Around 750 BCE, the Kingdom of Israel was destroyed by Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III. The Philistine kingdom was also destroyed. The Assyrians sent most of the population of the northern Israelite kingdom into exile, thus creating the "Lost Tribes of Israel". The Samaritans claim to be descended from survivors of the Assyrian conquest. An Israelite revolt (724–722 BCE) was crushed after the siege and capture of Samaria by the Assyrian king Sargon II.
Modern scholars believe that refugees from the destruction of Israel moved to Judah, massively expanding Jerusalem and leading to construction of the Siloam Tunnel during the rule of King Hezekiah (ruled 715–686 BCE). The tunnel could provide water during a siege and its construction is described in the Bible. A Hebrew plaque left by the construction team still exists.
Sargon's son, Sennacherib, tried and failed to conquer Judah, during Hezekiah's reign. Assyrian records say that Sennacherib levelled 46 walled cities and besieged Jerusalem, leaving after receiving extensive tribute. The Bible also refers to tribute, and suggests that Hezekiah was aided by Taharqa, king of Kush (now Sudan), in repulsing the Assyrians. The Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt were Nubian Pharohs and they probably defeated the Assyrians. Sennacherib had a 12 meter by 5-metre frieze erected in his palace in Nineveh (now in Iraq) depicting his victory at Lachish, the second largest city in Judah.
The Bible describes a tradition of religious men ("prophets") exercising some form of free speech and criticizing rulers. The most famous of these was Isaiah, who witnessed the Assyrian invasion and warned of its consequences.
Under King Josiah (ruler from 641 – 619), the book of Deuteronomy was either rediscovered or written. The Book of Joshua and the accounts of the kingship of David and Solomon in the book of Kings are believed to have the same author. The books are known as Deuteronomist and considered to be a key step in the emergence of Monotheism in Judah. They emerged at a time that Assyria was weakened by the emergence of Babylon and may be a committing to text of pre-writing verbal traditions.
In 586 BCE King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon conquered Judah. According to the Hebrew Bible, he destroyed Solomon's Temple and exiled the Jews to Babylon. The Phillistines were also driven into exile. The defeat of Judah was recorded by the Babylonians (see the Babylonian Chronicles). Babylonian and Biblical sources suggest that the Judean king, Jehoiachin, switched allegiances between the Egyptians and the Babylonians and that invasion was a punishment for allying with Babylon's principal rival, Egypt. The exiled Jews may have been restricted to the elite. Jehoiachin was eventually released by the Babylonians. Tablets which seem to describe his rations were found in the ruins of Babylon (see Jehoiachin's Rations Tablets). According to both the Bible and the Talmud, the Judean royal family (the Davidic line) continued as head of Babylonian Jewry, called the "Rosh Galut" (head of exile). Arab and Jewish sources show that the "Rosh Galut" continued to exist (in what is now Iraq) for another 1,500 years, ending in the eleventh century.
In 538 BCE, Cyrus the Great of Persia conquered Babylon and took over its empire. Cyrus issued a proclamation granting subjugated nations (including the people of Judah) religious freedom (for the original text see the Cyrus Cylinder). According to the Hebrew Bible 50,000 Judeans, led by Zerubabel, returned to Judah and rebuilt the temple. A second group of 5,000, led by Ezra and Nehemiah, returned to Judah in 456 BCE although non-Jews wrote to Cyrus to try to prevent their return. Modern scholars believe that the final Hebrew versions of the Torah and Books of Kings date from this period, that the returning Israelites adopted an Aramaic script (also known as the Ashuri alphabet), which they brought back from Babylon; this is the current Hebrew script. The Hebrew calendar closely resembles the Babylonian calendar and probably dates from this period.
The Persians also conquered Egypt, posting a Judean military garrison on Elephantine Island near Aswan. In the early 20th century 175 papyrus documents were discovered, recording activity in this community, including the "Passover Papyrus", a letter instructing the garrison on how to correctly conduct the Passover feast.
In 333 BCE, the Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great defeated Persia and conquered the region. After Alexander's death, his generals fought over the territory he had conquered and Judah became the frontier between the Seleucid Empire and Ptolemaic Egypt, eventually becoming part of the Seleucid Empire in 200 BCE at the battle of Panium (fought near Banias on the Golan Heights). The first translation of the Hebrew Bible, the Greek Septuagint was made in 3rd Century BCE Alexandria, during the rule of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, for the Library of Alexandria.
In the 2nd century BCE, Seleucid ruler Antiochus IV Epiphanes tried to eradicate Judaism in favour of Hellenistic religion. This provoked the 174–135 BCE Maccabean Revolt led by Judas Maccabeus (whose victory is celebrated in the Jewish festival of Hanukkah). The Books of the Maccabees describe the uprising and the end of Greek rule, these books were not added to the sacred Jewish canon and as a result the Hebrew originals were lost (Greek translations survived).
A Jewish party called the Hasideans opposed both Hellenism "and" the revolt, but eventually gave their support to the Maccabees. Modern interpretations see the initial stages of the uprising as a civil war between Hellenised and orthodox forms of Judaism.
The Hasmonean dynasty of Jewish priest-kings ruled Judea with the Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes as the principal Jewish social movements. As part of the struggle against Hellenistic civilization, the Pharisee leader Simeon ben Shetach established the first schools based around meeting houses. This led to Rabbinical Judaism. Justice was administered by the Sanhedrin, which was a Rabbincal assembly and law court whose leader was known as the Nasi. The Nasi's religious authority gradually superseded that of the Temple's high priest, who under the Hasmoneans was the king himself.
The Hasmoneans continually extended their control over much of the region. In 125 BCE the Hasmonean ethnarch John Hyrcanus subjugated Edom and forcibly converted its population to Judaism.
Hyrcanus' son Alexander Jannaeus established good relations with the Roman Republic, however there was growing tension between Pharisees and Sadducees and a conflict over the succession to Janneus, in which the warring parties invited foreign intervention on their behalf.
In 64 BCE the Roman general Pompey conquered Syria and intervened in the Hasmonean civil war in Jerusalem, restoring Hyrcanus II as High Priest and making Judea a Roman vassal kingdom. During the siege of Alexandria in 47 BCE, the lives of Julius Caesar and his protégé Cleopatra were saved by 3,000 Jewish troops sent by Hyrcanus II and commanded by Antipater, whose descendants Caesar made kings of Judea.
From 37 BCE to 6 CE, the Herodian dynasty, Jewish-Roman client kings, descended from Antipater, ruled Judea. Herod the Great considerably enlarged the temple (see Herod's Temple), making it one of the largest religious structures in the world. At this time, Jews formed as much as 10% of the population of the entire Roman Empire, with large communities in North Africa and Arabia. Despite the fame of the temple, Rabbinical Judaism, led by Hillel the Elder, began to assume popular prominence over the Temple priesthood. The Romans gave the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem permission not to display an effigy of the emperor, the only religious structure in the Roman Empire that was exempt. Special dispensation was granted for Jewish citizens of the Roman Empire to pay a tax to the temple.
Augustus made Judea a Roman province in 6 CE, deposing the last Jewish king, Herod Archelaus, and appointing a Roman governor. There was a small revolt against Roman taxation led by Judas of Galilee and over the next decades tensions grew between the Greco-Roman and Judean population centered on attempts to place effigies of the Emperor Caligula in Synagogues and in the Jewish temple.
Jesus was born in the last years of Herod's rule, probably in the Judean city of Bethlehem. Jesus is thought to have been a Galilean Jewish reformer (from Nazareth), and was executed in Jerusalem by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate between 25 and 35 CE. All his key followers, the Twelve Apostles, were Jews including Paul the Apostle (5–67 CE) who took critical steps towards creating a new religion, defining Jesus as the "Son of God". In the year 50 CE, the Council of Jerusalem led by Paul, decided to abandon the Jewish requirement of circumcision and the Torah, creating a form of Judaism highly accessible to non-Jews and with a more universal notion of God. Another Jewish follower, Peter is believed to have become the first Pope.
In 64 CE, the Temple High Priest Joshua ben Gamla introduced a religious requirement for Jewish boys to learn to read from the age of six. Over the next few hundred years this requirement became steadily more ingrained in Jewish tradition.
In 66 CE, the Jews of Judea rose in revolt against Rome, naming their new state as "Israel". The events were described by the Jewish leader and historian Josephus, including the defence of Jotapata, the siege of Jerusalem (69–70 CE) and the desperate last stand at Masada under Eleazar ben Yair (72–73 CE).
Josephus estimated that over a million people died in the siege of Jerusalem. The Temple and most of Jerusalem was destroyed. During the Jewish revolt, most Christians, at this time a sub-sect of Judaism, removed themselves from Judea. The rabbinical/Pharisee movement led by Yochanan ben Zakai, who opposed the Sadducee temple priesthood, made peace with Rome and survived. After the war Jews continued to be taxed in the Fiscus Judaicus, which was used to fund a temple to Jupiter. An arch commemorating the victory was erected in Rome and still exists.
Tensions and attacks on Jews around the Roman Empire led to a massive Jewish uprising against Rome from 115 to 117. Jews in Libya, Egypt, Cyprus and Mesopotamia fought against Rome. This conflict was accompanied by large-scale massacres of both sides. Cyprus was so severely depopulated that new settlers were imported and Jews banned from living there.
In 131, the Emperor Hadrian renamed Jerusalem "Aelia Capitolina" and constructed a Temple of Jupiter on the site of the former Jewish temple. Jews were banned from living in Jerusalem itself (a ban that persisted until the Arab conquest), and the Roman province, until then known as Iudaea Province, was renamed Palaestina, no other revolt led to a province being renamed. The names "Palestine" (in English) and "Filistin" (in Arabic) are derived from this.
From 132 to 136, the Jewish leader Simon Bar Kokhba led another major revolt against the Romans, again renaming the country "Israel" (see Bar Kokhba Revolt coinage). The Bar Kochba revolt probably caused more trouble for the Romans than the better documented revolt of 70. Christians refused to participate in the revolt and from this point the Jews regarded Christianity as a separate religion. The revolt was eventually crushed by Emperor Hadrian himself. During the Bar Kokhba revolt a rabbinical assembly decided which books could be regarded as part of the Hebrew Bible: the Jewish apocrypha and Christian books were excluded. As a result, the original text of some Hebrew texts, including the Books of Maccabees were lost (Greek translations survived).
A rabbi of this period, Simeon bar Yochai, is regarded as the author of the Zohar, the foundational text for Kabbalistic thought. However, modern scholars believe it was written in Medieval Spain.
After suppressing the Bar Kochba revolt, the Romans exiled the Jews of Judea, but not of Galilee and permitted a hereditary Rabbinical Patriarch (from the House of Hillel, based in Galilee), called the "Nasi" to represent the Jews in dealings with the Romans. The most famous of these was Judah haNasi, who is credited with compiling the final version of the Mishnah (a massive body of Jewish religious texts interpreting the Bible) and with strengthening the educational demands of Judaism by requiring that illiterate Jews be treated as outcasts. As a result, many illiterate Jews may have converted to Christianity. Jewish seminaries, such as those at Shefaram and Bet Shearim, continued to produce scholars and the best of these became members of the Sanhedrin, which was located first at Sepphoris and later at Tiberias. Before the Bar Kochba uprising, an estimated 2/3 of the population of Galilee and 1/3 of the coastal region were Jewish. In the Galillee, many synagogues have been found dating from this period. The burial site of the Sanhedrin leaders was discovered in 1936.
Early in the 4th century, the Emperor Constantine made Constantinople the capital of the East Roman Empire and made Christianity an accepted religion. His mother, Helena made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem (326–328) and led the construction of the Church of the Nativity (birthplace of Jesus in Bethlehem), the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (burial site of Jesus in Jerusalem) and other key churches that still exist. The name Jerusalem was restored to Aelia Capitolina and it became a Christian city. Jews were still banned from living in Jerusalem, but were allowed to visit and worship at the site of the ruined temple. Over the course of the next century Christians worked to eradicate "paganism", leading to the destruction of the classical Roman traditions and eradication of its temples. By the end of the 4th Century, anyone caught worshipping "pagan" gods was executed and their property confiscated.
In 351–2, another Jewish revolt in the Galilee erupted against a corrupt Roman governor. In 362, the last pagan Roman Emperor, Julian the Apostate, announced plans to rebuild the Jewish Temple. He died while fighting the Persians in 363 and the project was discontinued.
In 380 Emperor Theodosius I, the last Emperor of a united Roman Empire, made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire.
The Roman Empire split in 390 CE and the region became part of the (Christian) East Roman Empire, known as the Byzantine Empire. Byzantine Christianity was dominated by the (Greek) Eastern Orthodox Church whose massive land ownership has extended into the present. In the 5th century, the Western Roman Empire collapsed leading to Christian migration into the Roman province of Palaestina Prima and development of a Christian majority. Jews numbered 10–15% of the population, concentrated largely in the Galilee. Judaism was the only non-Christian religion tolerated, but restrictions on Jews slowly increased to include a ban on building new places of worship, holding public office or owning slaves. In 425, following the death of the last Nasi, Gamliel VI, the Sanhedrin was officially abolished and the title of Nasi banned. Several Samaritan Revolts erupted in this period, resulting in the decrease of Samaritan community from about a million to a near extinction. Sacred Jewish texts written in Palestine at this time are the Gemara (400), the Jerusalem Talmud (500) and the Passover Haggadah.
In 495 Mar-Zutra II (the Exilarch), set up an independent Jewish city-state in what is now Iraq. It lasted seven years and after its fall, his son Mar-Zutra III moved to Tiberias where he became head of the local religious academy in 520.
The Jewish Menorah, which the Romans took when the temple was destroyed, was reportedly taken to Carthage by the Vandals after the sacking of Rome in 455. According to the Byzantine historian, Procopius, the Byzantine army recovered it in 533 and brought it to Constantinople.
In 611, Khosrow II, ruler of Sassanid Persia invaded the Byzantine Empire. He was helped by Jewish fighters recruited by Benjamin of Tiberias and captured Jerusalem in 614. The "True Cross" was captured by the Persians. The Jewish Himyarite Kingdom in Yemen may also have provided support. Nehemiah ben Hushiel was made governor of Jerusalem. Christian historians of the period claimed the Jews massacred Christians in the city, but there is no archeological evidence of destruction, leading modern historians to question their accounts. In 628, Kavad II (son of Kosrow), returned Palestine and the True Cross to the Byzantines and signed a peace treaty with them. Following the Byzantine re-entry, Heraclius massacred the Jewish population of Gallilee and Jerusalem and renewed the ban on Jews entering Jerusalem. Benjamin of Tiberias was converted to Christianity.
According to Muslim tradition, on the last night of his life in 620, Muhammed was taken on a journey from Mecca to the "farthest mosque", whose location many consider to be the Temple Mount, returning the same night.
In about 635, an Arab army led by Muawiyah I conquered Palestine and the entire Levant, making it a province of the new Medina-based Arab Empire. The Byzantine ban on Jews living in Jerusalem came to an end and Palestine gradually came to be dominated politically and socially by Muslims, though the dominant religion of the country down to the Crusades may still have been Christian.
In 661, Muawiyah was crowned Caliph in Jerusalem, becoming the first of the (Damascus-based) Umayyad dynasty. In 691, Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik (685–705) constructed the Dome of the Rock shrine on the Temple Mount (where the Jewish temple had been located). A second building, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, was also erected on the Temple Mount in 705. Both buildings were rebuilt in the 10th century following a series of earthquakes.
Jews consider the Temple Mount (Muslim name Noble Sanctuary) to contain the Foundation Stone (see also Holy of Holies), which is the holiest site in Judaism. Jews believe it is the site where Abraham tried to sacrifice his son, Isaac, while Muslims believe that Abraham tried to sacrifice his son, Ishmael, in Mecca.
A new city, Ramlah, was built as the Muslim capital of Jund Filastin, (the name given to the province). In 750, Arab discrimination against Non-Arab Muslims led to the Abbasid Revolution and the Umayyads were replaced by the Abbasid Caliphs who built a new city, Baghdad, to be their capital.
During the 8th century, the Caliph Umar II introduced a law requiring Jews and Christians to wear identifying clothing: Jews were required to wear yellow stars round their neck and on their hats. Christians had to wear Blue. Clothing regulations were not always enforced, but did arise during repressive periods and were sometimes designed to humiliate and persecute non-Muslims. A poll tax was imposed on all non-Muslims by all Islamic rulers and failure to pay could result in imprisonment or worse. Non-Muslims were banned from travelling unless they could show a tax receipt. There were also bans on construction of new places of worship and repair of existing places of worship. The system of requiring Jews to wear yellow stars was subsequently adopted also in parts of Christian Europe.
In 982, Caliph Al-Aziz Billah of the Cairo-based Fatimid dynasty conquered the region. The Fatimids were followers of Isma'ilism, a branch of Shia Islam and claimed descent from Fatima, Mohammed's daughter. Around the year 1,010 the Church of Holy Sepulchre (believed to be Jesus burial site), was destroyed by Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim, who relented ten years later and paid for it to be rebuilt. In 1020 al-Hakim claimed divine status and the newly formed Druze religion gave him the status of a messiah.
Between the 7th and 11th centuries, Jewish scribes, called the Masoretes and located in Galilee and Jerusalem, established the Masoretic Text, the final text of the Hebrew Bible.
In 1099, the First Crusade took Jerusalem and established a Catholic kingdom, known as the Kingdom of Jerusalem. During the conquest, both Muslims and Jews were indiscriminately massacred or sold into slavery. Jews encountered as the Crusaders travelled across Europe were given a choice of conversion or murder, and almost always chose martyrdom. The carnage continued when the Crusaders reached the Holy Land. Ashkenazi orthodox Jews still recite a prayer in memory of the death and destruction caused by the Crusades.
Around 1180, Raynald of Châtillon, ruler of Transjordan, caused increasing conflict with the Ayyubid Sultan Saladin (Salah-al-Din), leading to the defeat of the Crusaders in the 1187 Battle of Hattin (above Tiberias). Saladin was able to peacefully take Jerusalem and conquered most of the former Kingdom of Jerusalem. Saladin's court physician was Maimonides, a refugee from Almohad (Muslim) persecution in Córdoba, Spain, where all non-Muslim religions had been banned. This was the end of the Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain and Maimonides possessed extensive knowledge of Greek and Arab medicine. His religious writings (in Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic) are still studied by Orthodox Jews. Maimonides was buried in Tiberias. A Crusader city-state at Acre survived for another century.
The Christian world's response to the loss of Jerusalem came in the Third Crusade of 1190. After lengthy battles and negotiations, Richard the Lionheart and Saladin concluded the Treaty of Jaffa in 1192 whereby Christians were granted free passage to make pilgrimages to the holy sites, while Jerusalem remained under Muslim rule. In 1229, Jerusalem peacefully reverted into Christian control as part of a treaty between Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II and Ayyubid sultan al-Kamil that ended the Sixth Crusade. In 1244, Jerusalem was sacked by the Khwarezmian Tatars who decimated the city's Christian population, drove out the Jews and razed the walls, rendering the city defenseless once again. The Khwarezmian Tatars were driven out by the Ayyubids in 1247. In 1258, the Mongols destroyed Baghdad, killing hundreds of thousands. For the next 30 years, the area was the frontier between Mongol invaders (occasional Crusader allies) and the Mamluks of Egypt. The conflict impoverished the country and severely reduced the population. Sultan Qutuz of Egypt eventually defeated the Mongols in the Battle of Ain Jalut ("Goliath's spring" near Ein Harod), ending the Mongol advances, and his successors eliminated the Crusader states. The last Crusader state, the Kingdom of Acre, fell in 1291, ending the Crusades.
The Mamluks ruled Palestine until 1516, regarding it as part of Syria. In Hebron, Baibars banned Jews from worshipping at the Cave of the Patriarchs (the second-holiest site in Judaism); the ban remained in place until its conquest by Israel 700 years later. The Egyptian Mamluk sultan Al-Ashraf Khalil conquered the last outposts of Crusader rule in 1291.
The Mamluks, continuing the policy of the Ayyubids, made the strategic decision to destroy the coastal area and to bring desolation to many of its cities, from Tyre in the north to Gaza in the south. Ports were destroyed and various materials were dumped to make them inoperable. The goal was to prevent attacks from the sea, given the fear of the return of the Crusaders. This had a long-term effect on those areas, which remained sparsely populated for centuries. The activity in that time concentrated more inland.
The collapse of the Crusades was followed by increased persecution and expulsions of Jews in Europe. Expulsions began in England (1290) and were followed by France (1306). During the 14th century Jews were blamed for the Black Death in Europe and the communities of Belgium, Holland, Switzerland and Germany were massacred or expelled (Black Death Jewish persecutions). The largest massacres of Jews took place in Spain where some tens of thousands were killed and about half the Jews in the country were forcibly converted. By the end of the 14th century, significant European Jewish communities only existed in Spain, Italy and Eastern Europe.
In January 1492, the last Muslim state was defeated in Spain and six months later the Jews of Spain (the largest community in the world) were required to convert or leave without their property. 100,000 converted with many continuing to secretly practice Judaism, for which the Catholic church's inquisition (led by Torquemada) now mandated a sentence of death by public burning. 175,000 left Spain. On the day set as the last day for Jews to legally reside in Spain, Columbus sailed to America. In return for a large payment, about 100,000 Spanish Jews were allowed into Portugal, however five years later, their children were seized and they were given the choice of conversion or departing without them. Most converted but continued to practice in secret. The economic success of the converts in Spain and Portugal and suspicion of their sincerity led to laws restricting the rights of Christians of Jewish origin. Escaping Jews were often maltreated by those shipping them and refused entry to various ports around the Mediterranean by communities afraid of being swamped. Expulsions also took place in Italy, affecting survivors of the original expulsion.
Many secret Jews chose to move to the New World, where they were temporarily able to practice Judaism freely (see History of the Jews in Latin America). Other Spanish Jews moved to North Africa, Poland and the Ottoman Empire, especially Thessaloniki (now in Greece) which became the world's largest Jewish city. Some headed for Israel, which was also controlled by the Ottomans. In Italy, Jews living in Venice were required to live in a ghetto, a practice which spread to the papal states (see Cum nimis absurdum) and was adopted across Catholic Europe. Jews outside the Ghetto often had to wear a yellow star. Secretly practicing Jews could not revert to Judaism inside Europe as this carried a death sentence. The last compulsory Ghetto was administered by the Vatican in Rome and abolished in the 1880s.
In 1523, David Reubeni tried to persuade Emperor Charles V to participate in a plan to raise a Jewish army to conquer Judea and set up a Jewish kingdom, using Jewish warriors from India and Ethiopia. He managed to meet with a number of royal leaders but was eventually executed by the inquisition.
Under the Mamluks, the area was a province of Bilad a-Sham (Syria). It was conquered by Turkish Sultan Selim I in 1516–17, becoming a part of the province of Ottoman Syria for the next four centuries, first as the Damascus Eyalet and later as the Syria Vilayet (following the Tanzimat reorganization of 1864).
The Ottoman Sultans encouraged Jews fleeing the inquisition in Catholic Europe to settle in the Ottoman Empire. Suleiman the Magneficent's personal physician was Moses Hamon, an inquisition survivor. Jewish businesswomen dominated communication between the Harem and the outside world (see Esther Handali). Between 1535 and 1538 Suleiman the Magnificent (ruled 1520 – 1566) built the current city walls of Jerusalem; Jerusalem had been without walls since the early 13th century. The construction followed the historical outline of the city, but left out a key section of the City of David (today part of Silwan) and what is now known as Mount Zion.
In 1558 Selim II (1566–1574), successor to Suleiman, whose wife Nurbanu Sultan was Jewish, gave control of Tiberias to Doña Gracia Mendes Nasi, one of the richest women in Europe and an escapee from the inquisition. She encouraged Jewish refugees to settle in the area and established a Hebrew printing press. Safed became a centre for study of the Kabbalah. Doña Nasi's nephew, Joseph Nasi, was made governor of Tiberias and he encouraged Jewish settlement from Italy.
Jewish population was concentrated in Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed and Tiberias, known in Jewish tradition as the Four Holy Cities. Further migration occurred during the Khmelnytsky Uprising in Ukraine, which was accompanied by brutal massacres of tens of thousands of Jews.
In 1660, a Druze revolt led to the destruction of Safed and Tiberias. In 1663 Sabbatai Zevi settled in Jerusalem, and was proclaimed as the Jewish messiah by Nathan of Gaza. He acquired a large number of followers before going to Istanbul in 1666, where Sultan Suleiman II forced him to convert to Islam. Many of his followers converted, forming a sect that still exists in Turkey, known as the Dönmeh. In the late 18th century a local Arab "sheikh" Zahir al-Umar created a "de facto" independent Emirate in the Galilee. Ottoman attempts to subdue the Sheikh failed, but after Zahir's death the Ottomans restored their rule in the area.
In 1799 Napoleon briefly occupied the country and planned a proclamation inviting Jews to create a state. The proclamation was shelved following his defeat at Acre. In 1831, Muhammad Ali of Egypt, an Ottoman ruler who left the Empire and tried to modernize Egypt, conquered Ottoman Syria and tried to revive and resettle much of its regions. His conscription policies led to a popular Arab revolt in 1834, resulting in major casualties for the local Arab peasants, and massacres of Christian and Jewish communities by the rebels. Following the revolt, Muhammad Pasha, the son of Muhammad Ali, expelled nearly 10,000 of the local peasants to Egypt, while bringing loyal Egyptian peasants and discharged soldiers to settle the coastline of Ottoman Syria. Northern Jordan Valley was settled by his Sudanese troops.
In 1838 there was another revolt by the Druze. In 1839 Moses Montefiore met with Muhammed Pasha in Egypt and signed an agreement to establish 100–200 Jewish villages in the Damascus Eyalet of Ottoman Syria, but in 1840 the Egyptians withdrew before the deal was implemented, returning the area to Ottoman governorship. In 1844, Jews constituted the largest population group in Jerusalem. By 1896 Jews constituted an absolute majority in Jerusalem, but the overall population in Palestine was 88% Muslim and 9% Christian.
During the 19th century, Jews in Western Europe were increasingly granted citizenship and equality before the law; however, in Eastern Europe, they faced growing persecution and legal restrictions, including widespread pogroms in which thousands were murdered, raped or lost their property. Half the world's Jews lived in the Russian Empire, where they were severely persecuted and restricted to living in the Pale of Settlement. National groups in the Empire, such as the Poles, Lithuanians and Ukrainians were agitating for independence and often regarded the Jews as undesirable aliens. The Jews were usually the only non-Christian minority and spoke a distinct language (Yiddish). An independent Jewish national movement first began to emerge in the Russian Empire and the millions of Jews who were fleeing the country (mostly to United States) carried the seeds of this nationalism wherever they went.
In 1870, an agricultural school, the Mikveh Israel, was founded near Jaffa by the Alliance Israelite Universelle, a French Jewish association. In 1878, "Russian" Jewish emigrants established the village of Petah Tikva, followed by Rishon LeZion in 1882. "Russian" Jews established the Bilu and Hovevei Zion ("Lovers of Zion") movements to assist settlers and these created communities that, unlike the traditional Ashkenazi-Jewish communities, sought to be economically self-reliant. Existing Ashkenazi-Jewish communities were concentrated in the Four Holy Cities, extremely poor and relied on donations (halukka) from groups abroad. The new settlements were small agricultural communities, heavily funded by the French Baron, Edmond James de Rothschild, who sought to establish economic enterprises. In Jaffa, a vibrant commercial community developed in which Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews inter-mingled. Many early migrants left due to difficulty finding work. Despite the difficulties, more settlements arose and the community grew.
The new migration was accompanied by a revival of the Hebrew language and attracted Jews of all kinds; religious, secular, nationalists and left-wing socialists. Socialists aimed to reclaim the land by becoming peasants or workers and forming collectives. In Zionist history, the different waves of Jewish settlement are known as "aliyah". Pogroms in the Dnieper Ukraine of the Russian Empire inspired some of the earliest ideas propagating the idea of emigration to Palestine. After pogroms broke out in 1881, as remedial measures also set new restrictions on Russian Jews, 1.98 million emigrated from the Russian Empire, 1.5 million to the United States and a small number to Palestine, both forming the prospective new centers of Jewish life, though there was strong opposition to the latter option. During the First Aliyah, between 1882 and 1903, approximately 35,000 Jews moved to Palestine. After the Ottoman conquest of the central region of their country, from 1881 onwards Yemenite Jews were enabled by new transportation facilities and greater access to knowledge of the outside world, to emigrate to Palestine, often driven by Messianism. By 1890, Jews were a majority in Jerusalem, although the country as a whole was populated mainly by Muslim and Christian Arabs.
In 1896 Theodor Herzl published "Der Judenstaat" ("The Jewish State"), in which he asserted that the solution to growing antisemitism in Europe (the so-called "Jewish Question") was to establish a Jewish state. In 1897, the Zionist Organisation was founded and the First Zionist Congress proclaimed its aim "to establish a home for the Jewish people in Palestine secured under public law." However, Zionism was regarded with suspicion by the Ottoman rulers and was unable to make major progress.
Between 1904 and 1914, around 40,000 Jews settled in the area now known as Israel (the Second Aliyah). In 1908 the Zionist Organisation set up the Palestine Bureau (also known as the "Eretz Israel Office") in Jaffa and began to adopt a systematic Jewish settlement policy. Migrants were mainly from Russia (which then included part of Poland), escaping persecution. The first Kibbutz, Degania, was founded by nine Russian socialists in 1909. In 1909 residents of Jaffa established the first entirely Hebrew-speaking city, Ahuzat Bayit (later renamed Tel Aviv). Hebrew newspapers and books were published, Hebrew schools, Jewish political parties and workers organizations were established.
During World War I, most Jews supported the Germans because they were fighting the Russians who were regarded as the Jews' main enemy. In Britain, the government sought Jewish support for the war effort for a variety of reasons including an antisemitic perception of "Jewish power" in the Ottoman Empire's Young Turks movement which was based in Thessaloniki, the most Jewish city in Europe (40% of the 160,000 population were Jewish). The British also hoped to secure American Jewish support for US intervention on Britain's behalf.
There was already sympathy for the aims of Zionism in the British government, including the Prime Minister Lloyd George. Over 14,000 Jews were expelled by the Ottoman military commander from the Jaffa area in 1914-1915, due to suspicions they were subjects of Russia, an enemy, or Zionists wishing to detach Palestine from the Ottoman Empire, and when the entire population, including Muslims, of both Jaffa and Tel Aviv was subject to an expulsion order in April 1917, the affected Jews could not return until the British conquest. Shortly after the British Army drove the Turks out of Southern Syria, and the British foreign minister, Arthur Balfour, sent a public letter to the British Lord Rothschild, a leading member of his party and leader of the Jewish community. The letter subsequently became known as the Balfour Declaration of 1917. It stated that the British Government "view[ed] with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people". The declaration provided the British government with a pretext for claiming and governing the country. New Middle Eastern boundaries were decided by an agreement between British and French bureaucrats.
A Jewish Legion composed largely of Zionist volunteers organized by Ze'ev Jabotinsky and Joseph Trumpeldor participated in the British invasion. It also participated in the failed Gallipoli Campaign. The Nili Zionist spy network provided the British with details of Ottoman plans and troop concentrations.
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Harvey Mudd College
Harvey Mudd College (HMC) is a private residential undergraduate science and engineering college in Claremont, California. It is one of the institutions of the contiguous Claremont Colleges which share adjoining campus grounds. Harvey Mudd College shares university resources such as libraries, dining halls, health services and campus security with the other Claremont Colleges, although each college is independently managed, with their own faculty, board of trustees, endowment, and admissions procedures. Students at Harvey Mudd College may take classes (acceptable for academic credit at Harvey Mudd College) at the other four undergraduate Claremont colleges. The Bachelor of Science diploma received at graduation is issued by Harvey Mudd College.
The college is named after Harvey Seeley Mudd, one of the initial investors in the Cyprus Mines Corporation. Although involved in planning of the new institution, Mudd died before it opened. The college was funded by Mudd's friends and family, and named in his honor.
HMC offers four-year degrees in chemistry, mathematics, physics, computer science, biology, and engineering, interdisciplinary degrees in mathematical biology, and joint majors in computer science and mathematics; or in biology and chemistry. Students may also elect an Individual Program of Study (IPS) or an off-campus major offered by any of the other Claremont Colleges, provided one also completes a minor in one of the technical fields that Harvey Mudd offers as a major.
In 2018, the "Chronicle of Higher Education" reported that, in response to student "complaints first to mental-health counselors and then to outside evaluators", the college was "considering how to ease pressure on students without sacrificing rigor."
For the class of 2023, the college received 4,045 applications and admitted 553 applicants (a 13.7% acceptance rate). Of the 224 freshmen who enrolled, the middle 50% of SAT scores were 780–800 in mathematics and 710–770 in critical reading, while the ACT Composite range was 33–35.
Harvey Mudd, along with Wake Forest University, long held out as the last four-year colleges or universities in the U.S. to accept only SAT and not ACT test scores for admission. In August 2007, at the beginning of the application process for the class of 2012, HMC began accepting ACT results, a year after Wake Forest abandoned its former SAT-only policy.
In 2016, Harvey Mudd was for the second year in a row the most expensive college in the United States, with the total annual cost of attendance (tuition, fees, and room and board) being $69,717. About 70% of freshmen receive financial aid.
The official names for the dormitories of Harvey Mudd College are (listed in order of construction):
Until the addition of the Linde and Sontag dorms, Atwood and Case dorms were occasionally referred to as New Dorm and New Dorm II; Mildred E. Mudd Hall and Marks Hall are almost invariably referred to as East dorm and South dorm.
During the construction of Case Dorm some students decided as a prank to move all of the survey stakes exactly six inches in one direction.
South Dorm is in the northwest corner of the quad. "East" was the first dorm, but it wasn't until "West" was built west of it that it was actually referred to as "East". Then "North" was built, directly north of "East". When the fourth dorm (Marks) was built, there was one corner of the quad available (the northwest) and one directional name, "South", remaining. To this day "South" dorm is the northernmost HMC dorm.
The fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth dorms built are Atwood, Case, Linde, Sontag, and Drinkward, respectively. They were initially referred to as "the colonies" by some students, a reference to the fact that they were newer and at the farthest end of the campus; these dorms are now more commonly referred to as "the outer dorms." The college had initially purchased an apartment building adjacent to the newer dorms to house additional students, but it was demolished to make room for Sontag.
Since any HMC student, regardless of class year, can live in any of the dormitories, several of the dorms have accumulated long-standing traditions and so-called 'personalities'.
A student-led organization, "Increasing Harvey Mudd's Traditional Practices" (IHTP), works to revive college traditions that have slowly faded over the years, and also starts new traditions that the group hopes to see take root on campus. It hosts annual events such as the 5-Class Competition, Friday Nooners, Wednesday Nighters, Frosh/Soph Games, and the Thomas-Garrett Affair.
Athletes from Harvey Mudd compete alongside athletes from Claremont McKenna College and Scripps College as the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Stags and Athenas. The teams participate in NCAA Division III in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. The mascot for the men's teams is Stanley the Stag, and the women's teams are the Athenas. Their colors are cardinal and gold.
According to the Division III Fall Learfield Director's Cup Standings for the 2016-2017 year, CMS ranks 12th among all Division III programs, and first among SCIAC colleges.
There are 21 men's and women's teams.
Men's sports
Women's sports
The other sports combination of the Claremont Colleges, and CMS' primary rival, is the team made up of Pomona College and Pitzer College known as the Pomona-Pitzer Sagehens (PP).
The original buildings of campus, designed by Edward Durell Stone and completed in 1955, features "knobbly concrete squares that students of Harvey Mudd affectionately call “warts” and use as hooks for skateboards." The school's unofficial mascot "Wally Wart" is an anthropomorphic concrete wart.
In 2013, "Travel and Leisure" named the college as one of "America's ugliest college campuses" and noted that while Stone regarded his design as a "Modernist masterpiece" the result was "layering drab, slab-sided buildings with Beaux-Arts decoration."
The California Institute of Technology, another school known for its strength in the natural sciences and engineering, is located away from Harvey Mudd College. From time to time, Mudders have been known to amuse themselves by pranking Caltech. For example, in 1986, students from Mudd stole a memorial cannon from Fleming House at Caltech (originally from the National Guard) by dressing as maintenance people and carting it off on a flatbed truck for "cleaning". Harvey Mudd eventually returned the cannon after Caltech threatened to take legal action. In 2006, MIT replicated the prank and moved the same cannon to their campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Harvey Mudd maintains the highest rate of science and engineering Ph.D. production among all undergraduate colleges and second highest (Caltech ranks first and MIT third) compared to all universities and colleges, according to a 2008 report by the National Science Foundation.
"Washington Monthly" ranked Harvey Mudd 2nd in 2019 among 214 liberal arts colleges in the U.S. based on its contribution to the public good, as measured by social mobility, research, and promoting public service."Money" magazine ranked Harvey Mudd 136th out of 744 in its "Best Colleges For Your Money 2019" report.
In "U.S. News & World Report"'s 2020 "America's Best Colleges" report, Harvey Mudd College is tied for the 23rd best U.S. liberal arts college, is 2nd among undergraduate engineering schools in the U.S. whose highest degree is a Master's, and is ranked as tied for 6th "most Innovative School" among liberal arts colleges. "Forbes" in 2019 rated it 23rd in its "America's Top Colleges" ranking of 650 military academies, national universities and liberal arts colleges.
Notable Harvey Mudd College alumni include:
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Heaven
Heaven, or the heavens, is a common religious cosmological or transcendent supernatural place where beings such as gods, angels, spirits, saints, or venerated ancestors are said to originate, be enthroned, or live. According to the beliefs of some religions, heavenly beings can descend to Earth or incarnate and earthly beings can ascend to Heaven in the afterlife or, in exceptional cases, enter Heaven alive.
Heaven is often described as a "highest place", the holiest place, a Paradise, in contrast to hell or the Underworld or the "low places" and universally or conditionally accessible by earthly beings according to various standards of divinity, goodness, piety, faith, or other virtues or right beliefs or simply divine will. Some believe in the possibility of a heaven on Earth in a "world to come".
Another belief is in an axis mundi or world tree which connects the heavens, the terrestrial world, and the underworld. In Indian religions, heaven is considered as "Svarga loka", and the soul is again subjected to rebirth in different living forms according to its "karma". This cycle can be broken after a soul achieves "Moksha" or "Nirvana". Any place of existence, either of humans, souls or deities, outside the tangible world (Heaven, Hell, or other) is referred to as the "otherworld".
The modern English word "heaven" is derived from the earlier (Middle English) "heven" (attested 1159); this in turn was developed from the previous Old English form "heofon". By about 1000, "heofon" was being used in reference to the Christianized "place where God dwells", but originally, it had signified "sky, firmament" (e.g. in "Beowulf", c. 725). The English term has cognates in the other Germanic languages: Old Saxon "heƀan" "sky, heaven" (hence also Middle Low German "heven" "sky"), Old Icelandic "himinn", Gothic "himins"; and those with a variant final "-l": Old Frisian "himel, himul" "sky, heaven", Old Saxon and Old High German "himil", Old Saxon and Middle Low German "hemmel", Old Dutch and Dutch "hemel", and modern German "Himmel". All of these have been derived from a reconstructed Proto-Germanic form *"hemina-". or "*hemō".
The further derivation of this form is uncertain. A connection to Proto-Indo-European "*ḱem-" "cover, shroud", via a reconstructed "*k̑emen-" or "*k̑ōmen-" "stone, heaven", has been proposed. Others endorse the derivation from a Proto-Indo-European root "*h₂éḱmō" "stone" and, possibly, "heavenly vault" at the origin of this word, which then would have as cognates Ancient Greek ἄκμων (ákmōn "anvil, pestle; meteorite"), Persian آسمان ("âsemân, âsmân" "stone, sling-stone; sky, heaven") and Sanskrit अश्मन् ("aśman" "stone, rock, sling-stone; thunderbolt; the firmament"). In the latter case English "hammer" would be another cognate to the word.
The ancient Mesopotamians regarded the sky as a series of domes (usually three, but sometimes seven) covering the flat Earth. Each dome was made of a different kind of precious stone. The lowest dome of heaven was made of jasper and was the home of the stars. The middle dome of heaven was made of "saggilmut" stone and was the abode of the Igigi. The highest and outermost dome of heaven was made of "luludānītu" stone and was personified as An, the god of the sky. The celestial bodies were equated with specific deities as well. The planet Venus was believed to be Inanna, the goddess of love, sex, and war. The Sun was her brother Utu, the god of justice, and the Moon was their father Nanna.
In ancient Near Eastern cultures in general and in Mesopotamia in particular, humans had little to no access to the divine realm. Heaven and Earth were separated by their very nature; humans could see and be affected by elements of the lower heaven, such as stars and storms, but ordinary mortals could not go to Heaven because it was the abode of the gods alone. In the "Epic of Gilgamesh", Gilgamesh says to Enkidu, "Who can go up to heaven, my friend? Only the gods dwell with Shamash forever." Instead, after a person died, his or her soul went to Kur (later known as Irkalla), a dark shadowy underworld, located deep below the surface of the earth.
All souls went to the same afterlife, and a person's actions during life had no impact on how he would be treated in the world to come. Nonetheless, funerary evidence indicates that some people believed that Inanna had the power to bestow special favors upon her devotees in the afterlife. Despite the separation between heaven and earth, humans sought access to the gods through oracles and omens. The gods were believed to live in Heaven, but also in their temples, which were seen as the channels of communication between Earth and Heaven, which allowed mortal access to the gods. The Ekur temple in Nippur was known as the "Dur-an-ki", the "mooring-rope" of heaven and earth. It was widely thought to have been built and established by Enlil himself.
Almost nothing is known of Bronze Age (pre-1200 BC) Canaanite views of heaven, and the archaeological findings at Ugarit (destroyed c. 1200 BC) have not provided information. The 1st century Greek author Philo of Byblos may preserve elements of Iron Age Phoenician religion in his "Sanchuniathon".
The ancient Hittites believed that some deities lived in Heaven, while others lived in remote places on Earth, such as mountains, where humans had little access. In the Middle Hittite myths, Heaven is the abode of the gods. In the Song of Kumarbi, Alalu was king in Heaven for nine years before giving birth to his son, Anu. Anu was himself overthrown by his son, Kumarbi.
As in other ancient Near Eastern cultures, in the Hebrew Bible, the universe is commonly divided into two realms: heaven ("šāmayim") and earth ("’ereṣ"). Sometimes a third realm is added: either "sea" (, ), "water under the earth" (, ), or sometimes a vague "land of the dead" that is never described in depth (, , ). The structure of heaven itself is never fully described in the Hebrew Bible, but the fact that the Hebrew word "šāmayim" is plural has been interpreted by scholars as an indication that the ancient Israelites envisioned the heavens as having multiple layers, much like the ancient Mesopotamians. This reading is also supported by the use of the phrase "heaven of heavens" in verses such as , , and and .
In line with the typical view of most Near Eastern cultures, the Hebrew Bible depicts Heaven as a place that is inaccessible to humans. Although some prophets are occasionally granted temporary visionary access to heaven, such as in , and , and , they hear only God's deliberations concerning the Earth and learn nothing of what Heaven is like. There is almost no mention in the Hebrew Bible of Heaven as a possible afterlife destination for human beings, who are instead described as "resting" in Sheol (, , ). The only two possible exceptions to this are Enoch, who is described in as having been "taken" by God, and the prophet Elijah, who is described in as having ascended to Heaven in a chariot of fire. According to Michael B. Hundley, the text in both of these instances is ambiguous regarding the significance of the actions being described and in neither of these cases does the text explain what happened to the subject afterwards.
The God of the Israelites is described as ruling both Heaven and Earth ( , ). Other passages, such as state that even the vastness of Heaven cannot contain God's majesty. A number of passages throughout the Hebrew Bible indicate that Heaven and Earth will one day come to an end (, , , , , , and and ). This view is paralleled in other ancient Near Eastern cultures, which also regarded Heaven and Earth as vulnerable and subject to dissolution. However, the Hebrew Bible differs from other ancient Near Eastern cultures in that it portrays the God of Israel as independent of creation and unthreatened by its potential destruction. Because most of the Hebrew Bible concerns the God of Israel's relationship with his people, most of the events described in it take place on Earth, not in Heaven. The Deuteronomistic source, Deuteronomistic History, and Priestly source all portray the Temple in Jerusalem as the sole channel of communication between Earth and Heaven.
During the period of the Second Temple ( 515 BC – 70 AD), the Hebrew people lived under the rule of first the Persian Achaemenid Empire, then the Greek kingdoms of the Diadochi, and finally the Roman Empire. Their culture was profoundly influenced by those of the peoples who ruled them. Consequently, their views on existence after death were profoundly shaped by the ideas of the Persians, Greeks, and Romans. The idea of the immortality of the soul is derived from Greek philosophy and the idea of the resurrection of the dead is derived from Persian cosmology. By the early first century AD, these two seemingly incompatible ideas were often conflated by Hebrew thinkers. The Hebrews also inherited from the Persians, Greeks, and Romans the idea that the human soul originates in the divine realm and seeks to return there. The idea that a human soul belongs in Heaven and that Earth is merely a temporary abode in which the soul is tested to prove its worthiness became increasingly popular during the Hellenistic period (323 – 31 BC). Gradually, some Hebrews began to adopt the idea of Heaven as the eternal home of the righteous dead.
Descriptions of Heaven in the New Testament are more fully developed than those in the Old Testament, but are still generally vague. As in the Old Testament, in the New Testament God is described as the ruler of Heaven and Earth, but his power over the Earth is challenged by Satan. Sayings of Jesus recorded in the Gospels of Mark and Luke speak of the "Kingdom of God" (; ), while the Gospel of Matthew more commonly uses the term "Kingdom of Heaven" (; ). Both phrases have exactly the same meaning, but the author of the Gospel of Matthew changed the name "Kingdom of God" to "Kingdom of Heaven" in most instances because it was the more acceptable phrase in his own cultural and religious context in the late first century.
Modern scholars agree that the Kingdom of God was an essential part of the teachings of the historical Jesus. In spite of this, none of the gospels ever record Jesus as having explained exactly what the phrase "Kingdom of God" means. The most likely explanation for this apparent omission is that the Kingdom of God was a commonly understood concept that required no explanation. Jews in Judea during the early first century believed that God reigns eternally in Heaven, but many also believed that God would eventually establish his kingdom on earth as well. This belief is referenced in the first petition of the Lord's Prayer, taught by Jesus to his disciples and recorded in both and : "Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."
Because God's Kingdom was believed to be superior to any human kingdom, this meant that God would necessarily drive out the Romans, who ruled Judea, and establish his own direct rule over the Jewish people. In the teachings of the historical Jesus, people are expected to prepare for the coming of the Kingdom of God by living moral lives. Jesus's commands for his followers to adopt lifestyles of moral perfectionism are found in many passages throughout the Synoptic Gospels, particularly in the Sermon on the Mount in . Jesus also taught that, in the Kingdom of Heaven, there would be a reversal of roles in which "the last will be first and the first will be last" (, , , and ). This teaching recurs throughout the recorded teachings of Jesus, including in the admonition to be like a child in , , and , the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus in , the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard in , the Parable of the Great Banquet in , and the Parable of the Prodigal Son in .
Traditionally, Christianity has taught that Heaven is the location of the throne of God as well as the holy angels, although this is in varying degrees considered metaphorical. In traditional Christianity, it is considered a state or condition of existence (rather than a particular place somewhere in the cosmos) of the supreme fulfillment of theosis in the beatific vision of the Godhead. In most forms of Christianity, Heaven is also understood as the abode for the redeemed dead in the afterlife, usually a temporary stage before the resurrection of the dead and the saints' return to the New Earth.
The resurrected Jesus is said to have ascended to Heaven where he now sits at the Right Hand of God and will return to Earth in the Second Coming. Various people have been said to have entered Heaven while still alive, including Enoch, Elijah and Jesus himself, after his resurrection. According to Roman Catholic teaching, Mary, mother of Jesus, is also said to have been assumed into Heaven and is titled the Queen of Heaven.
In the 2nd century AD, Irenaeus of Lyons recorded a belief that, in accordance with , those who in the afterlife see the Saviour are in different mansions, some dwelling in the heavens, others in paradise and others in "the city".
While the word used in all these writings, in particular the New Testament Greek word οὐρανός ("ouranos"), applies primarily to the sky, it is also used metaphorically of the dwelling place of God and the blessed. Similarly, though the English word "heaven" still keeps its original physical meaning when used, for instance, in allusions to the stars as "lights shining through from heaven", and in phrases such as heavenly body to mean an astronomical object, the heaven or happiness that Christianity looks forward to is, according to Pope John Paul II, "neither an abstraction nor a physical place in the clouds, but a living, personal relationship with the Holy Trinity. It is our meeting with the Father which takes place in the risen Christ through the communion of the Holy Spirit."
While the concept of Heaven ("malkuth hashamaim" מלכות השמים, the Kingdom of Heaven) is much discussed in Christian thought, the Jewish concept of the afterlife, sometimes known as "olam haba", the World-to-come, is not discussed so often. The Torah has little to say on the subject of survival after death, but by the time of the rabbis two ideas had made inroads among the Jews: one, which is probably derived from Greek thought, is that of the immortal soul which returns to its creator after death; the other, which is thought to be of Persian origin, is that of resurrection of the dead.
Jewish writings refer to a "new earth" as the abode of mankind following the resurrection of the dead. Originally, the two ideas of immortality and resurrection were different but in rabbinic thought they are combined: the soul departs from the body at death but is returned to it at the resurrection. This idea is linked to another rabbinic teaching, that men's good and bad actions are rewarded and punished not in this life but after death, whether immediately or at the subsequent resurrection. Around 1 CE, the Pharisees are said to have maintained belief in resurrection but the Sadducees are said to have denied it (Matt. 22:23).
The Mishnah has many sayings about the World to Come, for example, "Rabbi Yaakov said: This world is like a lobby before the World to Come; prepare yourself in the lobby so that you may enter the banquet hall."
Judaism holds that the righteous of all nations have a share in the World-to-come.
According to Nicholas de Lange, Judaism offers no clear teaching about the destiny which lies in wait for the individual after death and its attitude to life after death has been expressed as follows: "For the future is inscrutable, and the accepted sources of knowledge, whether experience, or reason, or revelation, offer no clear guidance about what is to come. The only certainty is that each man must die – beyond that we can only guess."
According to Tracey R. Rich of the website "Judaism 101", Judaism, unlike other world-religions, is not focused on the quest of getting into heaven but on life and how to live it.
Similar to Jewish traditions such as the Talmud, the Qur'an and Hadith frequently mention the existence of seven "samāwāt" (سماوات), the plural of "samāʾ" (سماء), meaning 'heaven, sky, celestial sphere', and cognate with Hebrew "shamāyim" (שמים). Some of the verses in the Qur'an mentioning the "samaawat" are , , . Sidrat al-Muntaha, a large enigmatic Lote tree, marks the end of the seventh heaven and the utmost extremity for all of God's creatures and heavenly knowledge.
One interpretation of "heavens" is that all the stars and galaxies (including the Milky Way) are all part of the "first heaven", and "beyond that six still bigger worlds are there," which have yet to be discovered by scientists.
According to Shi'ite sources, Ali mentioned the names of the seven heavens as below:
Still an afterlife destination of the righteous is conceived in Islam as "Jannah" ( "Garden [of Eden]" translated as "paradise"). Regarding Eden or paradise the Quran says, "The parable of the Garden which the righteous are promised: Beneath it flow rivers; perpetual is the fruits thereof and the shade therein. Such is the end of the righteous; and the end of the unbelievers is the Hellfire." Islam rejects the concept of original sin, and Muslims believe that all human beings are born pure. Children automatically go to paradise when they die, regardless of the religion of their parents.
Paradise is described primarily in physical terms as a place where every wish is immediately fulfilled when asked. Islamic texts describe immortal life in Jannah as happy, without negative emotions. Those who dwell in Jannah are said to wear costly apparel, partake in exquisite banquets, and recline on couches inlaid with gold or precious stones. Inhabitants will rejoice in the company of their parents, spouses, and children. In Islam if one's good deeds outweigh one's sins then one may gain entrance to paradise. Conversely, if one's sins outweigh their good deeds they are sent to hell. The more good deeds one has performed the higher the level of Jannah one is directed to.
Verses which describe paradise include: , , , , .
The Quran refer to Jannah with different names: "Al-Firdaws", "Jannātu-′Adn" ("Garden of Eden" or "Everlasting Gardens"), "Jannatu-n-Na'īm" ("Garden of Delight"), "Jannatu-l-Ma'wa" ("Garden of Refuge"), "Dāru-s-Salām" ("Abode of Peace"), "Dāru-l-Muqāma" ("Abode of Permanent Stay"), "al-Muqāmu-l-Amin" ("The Secure Station") and "Jannātu-l-Khuld" ("Garden of Immortality"). In the Hadiths, these are the different regions in paradise.
According to the Ahmadiyya view, much of the imagery presented in the Quran regarding Heaven, but also Hell, is in fact metaphorical. They propound the verse which describes, according to them, how the life to come after death is very different from the life here on Earth. The Quran says: According to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder of Ahmadiyya sect in Islam, the soul will give birth to another rarer entity and will resemble the life on this earth in the sense that this entity will bear a similar relationship to the soul, as the soul bears relationship with the human existence on earth. On earth, if a person leads a righteous life and submits to the will of God, his or her tastes become attuned to enjoying spiritual pleasures as opposed to carnal desires. With this, an "embryonic soul" begins to take shape. Different tastes are said to be born in which a person given to carnal passions finds no enjoyment. For example, sacrifice of one's own's rights over that of other's becomes enjoyable, or that forgiveness becomes second nature. In such a state a person finds contentment and Peace at heart and at this stage, according to Ahmadiyya beliefs, it can be said that a soul within the soul has begun to take shape.
The Bahá'í Faith regards the conventional description of heaven (and hell) as a specific place as symbolic. The Bahá'í writings describe heaven as a "spiritual condition" where closeness to God is defined as heaven; conversely hell is seen as a state of remoteness from God. Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Bahá'í Faith, has stated that the nature of the life of the soul in the afterlife is beyond comprehension in the physical plane, but has stated that the soul will retain its consciousness and individuality and remember its physical life; the soul will be able to recognize other souls and communicate with them.
For Bahá'ís, entry into the next life has the potential to bring great joy. Bahá'u'lláh likened death to the process of birth. He explains: "The world beyond is as different from this world as this world is different from that of the child while still in the womb of its mother." The analogy to the womb in many ways summarizes the Bahá'í view of earthly existence: just as the womb constitutes an important place for a person's initial physical development, the physical world provides for the development of the individual soul. Accordingly, Bahá'ís view life as a preparatory stage, where one can develop and perfect those qualities which will be needed in the next life. The key to spiritual progress is to follow the path outlined by the current Manifestation of God, which Bahá'ís believe is currently Bahá'u'lláh. Bahá'u'lláh wrote, "Know thou, of a truth, that if the soul of man hath walked in the ways of God, it will, assuredly return and be gathered to the glory of the Beloved."
The Bahá'í teachings state that there exists a hierarchy of souls in the afterlife, where the merits of each soul determines their place in the hierarchy, and that souls lower in the hierarchy cannot completely understand the station of those above. Each soul can continue to progress in the afterlife, but the soul's development is not entirely dependent on its own conscious efforts, the nature of which we are not aware, but also augmented by the grace of God, the prayers of others, and good deeds performed by others on Earth in the name of that person.
In the native Chinese Confucian traditions, heaven (Tian) is an important concept, where the ancestors reside and from which emperors drew their mandate to rule in their dynastic propaganda, for example.
Heaven is a key concept in Chinese mythology, philosophies and religions, and is on one end of the spectrum a synonym of "Shangdi" ("Supreme Deity") and on the other naturalistic end, a synonym for nature and the sky. The Chinese term for "heaven", "Tian" (天), derives from the name of the supreme deity of the Zhou Dynasty. After their conquest of the Shang Dynasty in 1122 BC, the Zhou people considered their supreme deity "Tian" to be identical with the Shang supreme deity "Shangdi". The Zhou people attributed heaven with anthropomorphic attributes, evidenced in the etymology of the Chinese character for heaven or sky, which originally depicted a person with a large cranium. heaven is said to see, hear and watch over all men. heaven is affected by man's doings, and having personality, is happy and angry with them. Heaven blesses those who please it and sends calamities upon those who offend it. Heaven was also believed to transcend all other spirits and gods, with Confucius asserting, "He who offends against Heaven has none to whom he can pray."
Other philosophers born around the time of Confucius such as Mozi took an even more theistic view of heaven, believing that heaven is the divine ruler, just as the Son of Heaven (the King of Zhou) is the earthly ruler. Mozi believed that spirits and minor gods exist, but their function is merely to carry out the will of heaven, watching for evil-doers and punishing them. Thus they function
as angels of heaven and do not detract from its monotheistic government of the world. With such a high monotheism, it is not surprising that Mohism championed a concept called "universal love" ("jian'ai", 兼愛), which taught that heaven loves all people equally and that each person should similarly love all human beings without distinguishing between his own relatives and those of others. In Mozi's "Will of Heaven" (天志), he writes:
Mozi criticized the Confucians of his own time for not following the teachings of Confucius. By the time of the later Han Dynasty, however, under the influence of Xunzi, the Chinese concept of heaven and Confucianism itself had become mostly naturalistic, though some Confucians argued that heaven was where ancestors reside. Worship of heaven in China continued with the erection of shrines, the last and greatest being the Temple of Heaven in Beijing, and the offering of prayers. The ruler of China in every Chinese dynasty would perform annual sacrificial rituals to heaven, usually by slaughtering two healthy bulls as a sacrifice.
In Buddhism there are several heavens, all of which are still part of "samsara" (illusionary reality). Those who accumulate good karma may be reborn in one of them. However, their stay in heaven is not eternal—eventually they will use up their good karma and will undergo rebirth into another realm, as a human, animal or other being. Because heaven is temporary and part of "samsara", Buddhists focus more on escaping the cycle of rebirth and reaching enlightenment ("nirvana"). Nirvana is not a heaven but a mental state.
According to Buddhist cosmology the universe is impermanent and beings transmigrate through a number of existential "planes" in which this human world is only one "realm" or "path". These are traditionally envisioned as a vertical continuum with the heavens existing above the human realm, and the realms of the animals, hungry ghosts and hell beings existing beneath it. According to Jan Chozen Bays in her book, "Jizo: Guardian of Children, Travelers, and Other Voyagers", the realm of the "asura" is a later refinement of the heavenly realm and was inserted between the human realm and the heavens. One important Buddhist heaven is the "Trāyastriṃśa", which resembles Olympus of Greek mythology.
In the Mahayana world view, there are also pure lands which lie outside this continuum and are created by the Buddhas upon attaining enlightenment. Rebirth in the pure land of Amitabha is seen as an assurance of Buddhahood, for once reborn there, beings do not fall back into cyclical existence unless they choose to do so to save other beings, the goal of Buddhism being the obtainment of enlightenment and freeing oneself and others from the birth–death cycle.
The Tibetan word "Bardo" means literally "intermediate state". In Sanskrit the concept has the name "antarabhāva".
The lists below are classified from highest to lowest of the heavenly worlds.
Brahmāloka
Here the denizens are Brahmās, and the ruler is Mahābrahmā
After developing the four Brahmavihāras, King Makhādeva rebirths here after death. The monk Tissa and Brāhmana Jānussoni were also reborn here.
The lifespan of a Brahmās is not stated but is not eternal.
Parinirmita-vaśavartin (Pali: Paranimmita-vasavatti)
The heaven of devas "with power over (others') creations". These devas do not create pleasing forms that they desire for themselves, but their desires are fulfilled by the acts of other devas who wish for their favor. The ruler of this world is called Vaśavartin (Pāli: Vasavatti), who has longer life, greater beauty, more power and happiness and more delightful sense-objects than the other devas of his world. This world is also the home of the devaputra (being of divine race) called Māra, who endeavors to keep all beings of the Kāmadhātu in the grip of sensual pleasures. Māra is also sometimes called Vaśavartin, but in general these two dwellers in this world are kept distinct. The beings of this world are tall and live for 9,216,000,000 years (Sarvāstivāda tradition).
Nirmāṇarati (Pali: Nimmānaratī)
The world of devas "delighting in their creations". The devas of this world are capable of making any appearance to please themselves. The lord of this world is called Sunirmita (Pāli Sunimmita); his wife is the rebirth of Visākhā, formerly the chief upāsikā (female lay devotee) of the Buddha. The beings of this world are tall and live for 2,304,000,000 years (Sarvāstivāda tradition).
The world of the "joyful" devas. This world is best known for being the world in which a Bodhisattva lives before being reborn in the world of humans. Until a few thousand years ago, the Bodhisattva of this world was Śvetaketu (Pāli: Setaketu), who was reborn as Siddhārtha, who would become the Buddha Śākyamuni; since then the Bodhisattva has been Nātha (or Nāthadeva) who will be reborn as Ajita and will become the Buddha Maitreya (Pāli Metteyya). While this Bodhisattva is the foremost of the dwellers in , the ruler of this world is another deva called (Pāli: Santusita). The beings of this world are tall and live for 576,000,000 years (Sarvāstivāda tradition). Anāthapindika, a Kosālan householder and benefactor to the Buddha's order was reborn here.
Yāma
The denizens here have a lifespan of 144,000,000 years.
Trāyastriṃśa (Pali: Tāvatimsa)
The ruler of this heaven is Indra or Shakra, and the realm is also called Trayatrimia.
Each denizen addresses other denizens as the title "mārisa".
The governing hall of this heaven is called Sudhamma Hall.
This heaven has a garden Nandanavana with damsels, as its most magnificent sight.
Ajita the Licchavi army general was reborn here. Gopika the Sākyan girl was reborn as a male god in this realm.
Any Buddhist reborn in this realm can outshine any of the previously dwelling denizens because of the extra merit acquired for following the Buddha's teachings.
The denizens here have a lifespan of 36,000,000 years.
Cātummahārājika
The heaven "of the Four Great Kings". Its rulers are the four Great Kings of the name, , , , and their leader . The devas who guide the Sun and Moon are also considered part of this world, as are the retinues of the four kings, composed of (dwarfs), Gandharva गन्धर्वs (fairies), Nāgas (snakes) and (goblins). The beings of this world are tall and live for 9,000,000 years (Sarvāstivāda tradition) or 90,000 years (Vibhajyavāda tradition).
The Form Realm
The First Dhyana, the Second Dhyana, the Third Dhyana and the Fourth Dhyana.
The Six Desire Heavens
The cause for birth in the Six Desire Heavens are the ten virtuous actions.
The Heaven of the Comfort from Others’ Transformations
The Heaven of Bliss by Transformation
The Tushita Heaven
The Suyama Heaven
The Trayastrimsha Heaven
The Heaven of the Four Kings
Ou Yi Zhixu explains that the Shurangama sutra only emphasizes avoidance of deviant sexual desire, but one would naturally need to abide by the 10 good conducts to be born in these heavens.
Tibetan ltierature classifies the heavenly worlds into 5 major types:
Attaining heaven is not the final pursuit in Hinduism as heaven itself is ephemeral and related to physical body. Only being tied by the bhoot-tatvas, heaven cannot be perfect either and is just another name for pleasurable and mundane material life. According to Hindu cosmology, above the earthly plane, are other planes: (1) Bhuva Loka, (2) Swarga Loka, meaning Good Kingdom, is the general name for heaven in Hinduism, a heavenly paradise of pleasure, where most of the Hindu Devatas (Deva) reside along with the king of Devas, Indra, and beatified mortals. Some other planes are Mahar Loka, Jana Loka, Tapa Loka and Satya Loka. Since heavenly abodes are also tied to the cycle of birth and death, any dweller of heaven or hell will again be recycled to a different plane and in a different form per the karma and "maya" i.e. the illusion of Samsara. This cycle is broken only by self-realization by the Jivatma. This self-realization is Moksha (Turiya, Kaivalya).
The concept of moksha is unique to Hinduism and is unparalleled. Moksha stands for liberation from the cycle of birth and death and final communion with Brahman. With moksha, a liberated soul attains the stature and oneness with Brahman or Paramatma. Different schools such as Vedanta, Mimansa, Sankhya, Nyaya, Vaisheshika, and Yoga offer subtle differences in the concept of Brahman, obvious Universe, its genesis and regular destruction, Jivatma, Nature (Prakriti) and also the right way in attaining perfect bliss or moksha.
In the Vaishnava traditions the highest heaven is Vaikuntha, which exists above the six heavenly lokas and outside of the mahat-tattva or mundane world. It's where eternally liberated souls who have attained moksha reside in eternal sublime beauty with Lakshmi and Narayana (a manifestation of Vishnu).
In the Nasadiya Sukta, the heavens/sky Vyoman is mentioned as a place from which an overseeing entity surveys what has been created. However, the Nasadiya Sukta questions the omniscience of this overseer.
The shape of the Universe as described in Jainism is shown alongside. Unlike the current convention of using North direction as the top of map, this uses South as the top. The shape is similar to a part of human form standing upright.
The "Deva Loka" (heavens) are at the symbolic "chest", where all souls enjoying the positive karmic effects reside. The heavenly beings are referred to as "devas" (masculine form) and "devis" (feminine form). According to Jainism, there is not one heavenly abode, but several layers to reward appropriately the souls of varying degree of karmic merits. Similarly, beneath the "waist" are the "Narka Loka" (hell). Human, animal, insect, plant and microscopic life forms reside on the middle.
The pure souls (who reached Siddha status) reside at the very south end (top) of the Universe. They are referred to in Tamil literature as தென்புலத்தார் (Kural 43).
As per Sikh thought, heaven and hell are not places for living hereafter, they are part of spiritual topography of man and do not exist otherwise. They refer to good and evil stages of life respectively and can be lived now and here during our earthly existence. For example, Bhagat Kabir rejects the otherworldly heaven in Guru Granth Sahib and says that one can experience heaven on this Earth by doing company of holy people.
The Nahua people such as the Aztecs, Chichimecs and the Toltecs believed that the heavens were constructed and separated into 13 levels. Each level had from one to many Lords living in and ruling these heavens. Most important of these heavens was Omeyocan (Place of Two). The Thirteen Heavens were ruled by Ometeotl, the dual Lord, creator of the Dual-Genesis who, as male, takes the name Ometecuhtli (Two Lord), and as female is named Omecihuatl (Two Lady).
In the creation myths of Polynesian mythology are found various concepts of the heavens and the underworld. These differ from one island to another. What they share is the view of the universe as an egg or coconut that is divided between the world of humans (earth), the upper world of heavenly gods, and the underworld. Each of these is subdivided in a manner reminiscent of Dante's Divine Comedy, but the number of divisions and their names differs from one Polynesian culture to another.
In Māori mythology, the heavens are divided into a number of realms. Different tribes number the heaven differently, with as few as two and as many as fourteen levels. One of the more common versions divides heaven thus:
The Māori believe these heavens are supported by pillars. Other Polynesian peoples see them being supported by gods (as in Hawaii). In one Tahitian legend, heaven is supported by an octopus.
The Polynesian conception of the universe and its division is nicely illustrated by a famous drawing made by a Tuomotuan chief in 1869. Here, the nine heavens are further divided into left and right, and each stage is associated with a stage in the evolution of the earth that is portrayed below. The lowest division represents a period when the heavens hung low over the earth, which was inhabited by animals that were not known to the islanders. In the third division is shown the first murder, the first burials, and the first canoes, built by Rata. In the fourth division, the first coconut tree and other significant plants are born.
It is believed in Theosophy of Helena Blavatsky that each religion (including Theosophy) has its own individual heaven in various regions of the upper astral plane that fits the description of that heaven that is given in each religion, which a soul that has been good in their previous life on Earth will go to. The area of the upper astral plane of Earth in the upper atmosphere where the various heavens are located is called "Summerland" (Theosophists believe hell is located in the lower astral plane of Earth which extends downward from the surface of the earth down to its center). However, Theosophists believe that the soul is recalled back to Earth after an average of about 1400 years by the "Lords of Karma" to incarnate again. The final heaven that souls go to billions of years in the future after they finish their cycle of incarnations is called "Devachan".
Anarchist Emma Goldman expressed this view when she wrote, "Consciously or unconsciously, most theists see in gods and devils, heaven and hell; reward and punishment, a whip to lash the people into obedience, meekness and contentment."
Some have argued that a belief in a reward after death is poor motivation for moral behavior while alive. Sam Harris wrote, "It is rather more noble to help people purely out of concern for their suffering than it is to help them because you think the Creator of the Universe wants you to do it, or will reward you for doing it, or will punish you for not doing it. The problem with this linkage between religion and morality is that it gives people bad reasons to help other human beings when good reasons are available."
In "Inside the Neolithic Mind" (2005), Lewis-Williams and Pearce argue that many cultures around the world and through history neurally perceive a tiered structure of heaven, along with similarly structured circles of hell. The reports match so similarly across time and space that Lewis-Williams and Pearce argue for a neuroscientific explanation, accepting the percepts as real neural activations and subjective percepts during particular altered states of consciousness.
Many people who come close to death and have near-death experiences report meeting relatives or entering "the Light" in an otherworldly dimension, which shares similarities with the religious concept of heaven. Even though there are also reports of distressing experiences and negative life-reviews, which share some similarities with the concept of hell, the positive experience of meeting or entering "the Light" is reported as an immensely intense feeling of a state of love, peace and joy beyond human comprehension. Together with this intensely positive-feeling state, people who have near-death experiences also report that consciousness or a heightened state of awareness seems as if it is at the heart of experiencing a taste of "heaven".
Works of fiction have included numerous different conceptions of Heaven and Hell. The two most famous descriptions of Heaven are given in Dante Alighieri's "Paradiso" (of the "Divine Comedy") and John Milton's "Paradise Lost".
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History of Libya
Libya's history covers its rich mix of ethnic groups added to the indigenous Berber nomad tribes. Berbers have been present throughout the entire history of the country, from Berber in Somalia to Timbuktu in Mali, since th era of Numidians. For most of its history, Libya has been subjected to varying degrees of scholar control, from Europe, Asia, and Africa. The modern history of independent Libya, as reflected in the many revolutions denoted under many moons began before Romantic time or Justinian scribing.
The history of Libya comprises six distinct perspectives: Ancient Libya, the Roman era, the Islamic era, Ottoman rule, Italian rule, and the Modern era.
Tens of thousands of years ago, the Sahara Desert, which now covers roughly 90% of Libya, was lush with green vegetation. It was home to lakes, forests, diverse wildlife and a temperate Mediterranean climate. Archaeological evidence indicates that the coastal plain was inhabited by Neolithic peoples from as early as 8000 BCE. These peoples were perhaps drawn by the climate, which enabled their culture to grow, subsisting on the domestication of cattle and the cultivation of crops.
Rock paintings at Wadi Mathendous and the mountainous region of Jebel Acacus are the best sources of information about prehistoric Libya, and the pastoralist culture that settled there. The paintings reveal that the Libyan Sahara contained rivers, grassy plateaus and an abundance of wildlife such as giraffes, elephants and crocodiles.
The onset of the Piora Oscillation's intense aridification resulted in the "green Sahara" rapidly transforming into the Sahara Desert. Dispersal in Africa from the Atlantic coast to the Siwa Oasis in Egypt seems to have followed, due to climatic changes which caused increasing desertification.
The African ancestors of the Berber people are assumed to have spread into the area by the Late Bronze Age. The earliest known name of such a tribe is that of the Garamantes, who were based in Germa, southern Libya. The Garamantes were a Saharan people of Berber origin who used an elaborate underground irrigation system; they were probably present as tribal people in the Fezzan by about 1000 BCE, and were a local power in the Sahara between 500 BCE and 500 CE. By the time of contact with the Phoenicians, the first of the Semitic civilizations to arrive in Libya from the East, the Lebu, Garamantes, Berbers and other tribes that lived in the Sahara were already well established.
The Phoenicians were some of the first to establish coastal trading posts in Libya, when the merchants of Tyre (in present-day Lebanon) developed commercial relations with the various Berber tribes and made treaties with them to ensure their cooperation in the exploitation of raw materials. By the 5th century BCE, the greatest of the Phoenician colonies, Carthage, had extended its hegemony across much of North Africa, where a distinctive civilization, known as Punic, came into being. Punic settlements on the Libyan coast included Oea (later Tripoli), Libdah (later Leptis Magna) and Sabratha. These cities were in an area that was later called Tripolis, or "Three Cities", from which Libya's modern capital Tripoli takes its name.
In 630 BCE, the Ancient Greeks colonized Eastern Libya and founded the city of Cyrene. Within 200 years, four more important Greek cities were established in the area that became known as Cyrenaica: Barce (later Marj); Euhesperides (later Berenice, present-day Benghazi); Taucheira (later Arsinoe, present-day Taucheria); Balagrae (later Bayda and Beda Littoria under Italian occupation, present-day Bayda); and Apollonia (later Susa), the port of Cyrene. Together with Cyrene, they were known as the Pentapolis (Five Cities). Cyrene became one of the greatest intellectual and artistic centers of the Greek world, and was famous for its medical school, learned academies, and architecture. The Greeks of the Pentapolis resisted encroachments by the Ancient Egyptians from the East, as well as by the Carthaginians from the West.
In 525 BCE the Persian army of Cambyses II overran Cyrenaica, which for the next two centuries remained under Persian or Egyptian rule. Alexander was greeted by the Greeks when he entered Cyrenaica in 331 BCE, and Eastern Libya again fell under the control of the Greeks, this time as part of the Ptolemaic Kingdom. Later, a federation of the Pentapolis was formed that was customarily ruled by a king drawn from the Ptolemaic royal house.
After the fall of Carthage the Romans did not occupy immediately Tripolitania (the region around Tripoli), but left it under control of the Berber kings of Numidia, until the coastal cities asked and obtained its protection. Ptolemy Apion, the last Greek ruler, bequeathed Cyrenaica to Rome, which formally annexed the region in 74 BCE and joined it to Crete as a Roman province. During the Roman civil wars Tripolitania (still not formally annexed) and Cyrenaica sustained Pompey and Marc Antony against respectively Caesar and Octavian. The Romans completed the conquest of the region under Augustus, occupying northern Fezzan ("Fasania") with Cornelius Balbus Minor. As part of the Africa Nova province, Tripolitania was prosperous, and reached a golden age in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, when the city of Leptis Magna, home to the Severan dynasty, was at its height. On the other side, Cyrenaica's first Christian communities were established by the time of the Emperor Claudius but was heavily devastated during the Kitos War and almost depopulated of Greeks and Jews alike, and, although repopulated by Trajan with military colonies, from then started its decadence.
Regardless, for more than 400 years Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were part of a cosmopolitan state whose citizens shared a common language, legal system, and Roman identity. Roman ruins like those of Leptis Magna and Sabratha, extant in present-day Libya, attest to the vitality of the region, where populous cities and even smaller towns enjoyed the amenities of urban life—the forum, markets, public entertainments, and baths—found in every corner of the Roman Empire. Merchants and artisans from many parts of the Roman world established themselves in North Africa, but the character of the cities of Tripolitania remained decidedly Punic and, in Cyrenaica, Greek. Tripolitania was a major exporter of olive oil, as well as a center for the trade of ivory and wild animals conveyed to the coast by the Garamantes, while Cyrenaica remained an important source of wines, drugs, and horses. The bulk of the population in the countryside consisted of Berber farmers, who in the west were thoroughly "romanized" in language and customs. Until the 10th century the African Romance remained in use in some Tripolitanian areas, mainly near the Tunisian border.
The decline of the Roman Empire saw the classical cities fall into ruin, a process hastened by the Vandals' destructive sweep though North Africa in the 5th century. The region's prosperity had shrunk under Vandal domination, and the old Roman political and social order, disrupted by the Vandals, could not be restored. In outlying areas neglected by the Vandals, the inhabitants had sought the protection of tribal chieftains and, having grown accustomed to their autonomy, resisted re-assimilation into the imperial system.
When the Empire returned (now as East Romans) as part of Justinian's reconquests of the 6th century, efforts were made to strengthen the old cities, but it was only a last gasp before they collapsed into disuse. Cyrenaica, which had remained an outpost of the Byzantine Empire during the Vandal period, also took on the characteristics of an armed camp. Unpopular Byzantine governors imposed burdensome taxation to meet military costs, while the towns and public services—including the water system—were left to decay. Byzantine rule in Africa did prolong the Roman ideal of imperial unity there for another century and a half however, and prevented the ascendancy of the Berber nomads in the coastal region. By the beginning of the 7th century, Byzantine control over the region was weak, Berber rebellions were becoming more frequent, and there was little to oppose Muslim invasion.
Tenuous Byzantine control over Libya was restricted to a few poorly defended coastal strongholds, and as such, the Arab horsemen who first crossed into the Pentapolis of Cyrenaica in September 643 CE encountered little resistance. Under the command of 'Amr ibn al-'As, the armies of Islam conquered Cyrenaica, and renamed the Pentapolis, Barqa. They took also Tripoli, but after destroying the Roman walls of the city and getting a tribute they withdrew. In 647 an army of 40,000 Arabs, led by Abdullah ibn Saad, the foster-brother of Caliph Uthman, penetrated deep into Western Libya and took Tripoli from the Byzantines definitively. From Barqa, the Fezzan (Libya's Southern region) was conquered by Uqba ibn Nafi in 663 and Berber resistance was overcome. During the following centuries Libya came under the rule of several Islamic dynasties, under various levels of autonomy from Ummayad, Abbasid and Fatimid caliphates of the time. Arab rule was easily imposed in the coastal farming areas and on the towns, which prospered again under Arab patronage. Townsmen valued the security that permitted them to practice their commerce and trade in peace, while the Punicized farmers recognized their affinity with the Semitic Arabs to whom they looked to protect their lands. In Cyrenaica, Monophysite adherents of the Coptic Church had welcomed the Muslim Arabs as liberators from Byzantine oppression. The Berber tribes of the hinterland accepted Islam, however they resisted Arab political rule.
For the next several decades, Libya was under the purview of the Ummayad Caliph of Damascus until the Abbasids overthrew the Ummayads in 750, and Libya came under the rule of Baghdad. When Caliph Harun al-Rashid appointed Ibrahim ibn al-Aghlab as his governor of Ifriqiya in 800, Libya enjoyed considerable local autonomy under the Aghlabid dynasty. The Aghlabids were among the most attentive Islamic rulers of Libya; they brought about a measure of order to the region, and restored Roman irrigation systems, which brought prosperity to the area from the agricultural surplus. By the end of the 9th century, the Shiite Fatimids controlled Western Libya from their capital in Mahdia, before they ruled the entire region from their new capital of Cairo in 972 and appointed Bologhine ibn Ziri as governor. During Fatimid rule, Tripoli thrived on the trade in slaves and gold brought from the Sudan and on the sale of wool, leather, and salt shipped from its docks to Italy in exchange for wood and iron goods. Ibn Ziri's Berber Zirid dynasty ultimately broke away from the Shiite Fatimids, and recognised the Sunni Abbasids of Baghdad as rightful Caliphs. In retaliation, the Fatimids brought about the migration of thousands from two troublesome Arab Bedouin tribes, the Banu Sulaym and Banu Hilal to North Africa. This act drastically altered the fabric of the Libyan countryside, and cemented the cultural and linguistic Arabisation of the region. Ibn Khaldun noted that the lands ravaged by Banu Hilal invaders had become completely arid desert.
Zirid rule in Tripolitania was short-lived though, and already in 1001 the Berbers of the Banu Khazrun broke away. Tripolitania remained under their control until 1146, when the region was overtaken by the Normans of Sicily. It was not until 1159 that the Moroccan Almohad leader Abd al-Mu'min reconquered Tripoli from European rule. For the next 50 years, Tripolitania was the scene of numerous battles between the Almohad rulers and insurgents of the Banu Ghaniya. Later, a general of the Almohads, Muhammad ibn Abu Hafs, ruled Libya from 1207 to 1221 before the later establishment of a Tunisian Hafsid dynasty independent from the Almohads. The Hafsids ruled Tripolitania for nearly 300 years, and established significant trade with the city-states of Europe. Hafsid rulers also encouraged art, literature, architecture and scholarship. Ahmad Zarruq was one of the most famous Islamic scholars to settle in Libya, and did so during this time. By the 16th century however, the Hafsids became increasingly caught up in the power struggle between Spain and the Ottoman Empire. After a successful invasion of Tripoli by Habsburg Spain in 1510, and its handover to the Knights of St. John, the Ottoman admiral Sinan Pasha finally took control of Libya in 1551.
After a successful invasion by the in the early 16th century, Charles V entrusted its defense to the Knights of St. John in Malta. Lured by the piracy that spread through the Maghreb coastline, adventurers such as Barbarossa and his successors consolidated Ottoman control in the central Maghreb. The Ottoman Turks conquered Tripoli in 1551 under the command of Sinan Pasha. In the next year his successor Turgut Reis was named the Bey of Tripoli and later Pasha of Tripoli in 1556. As Pasha, he adorned and built up Tripoli, making it one of the most impressive cities along the North African coast. By 1565, administrative authority as regent in Tripoli was vested in a "pasha" appointed directly by the "sultan" in Constantinople. In the 1580s, the rulers of Fezzan gave their allegiance to the sultan, and although Ottoman authority was absent in Cyrenaica, a "bey" was stationed in Benghazi late in the next century to act as agent of the government in Tripoli.
In time, real power came to rest with the pasha's corps of janissaries, a self-governing military guild, and in time the pasha's role was reduced to that of ceremonial head of state. Mutinies and coups were frequent, and in 1611 the "deys" staged a coup against the pasha, and Dey Sulayman Safar was appointed as head of government. For the next hundred years, a series of "deys" effectively ruled Tripolitania, some for only a few weeks, and at various times the dey was also pasha-regent. The regency governed by the dey was autonomous in internal affairs and, although dependent on the sultan for fresh recruits to the corps of janissaries, his government was left to pursue a virtually independent foreign policy as well. The two most important Deys were Mehmed Saqizli (r. 1631–49) and Osman Saqizli (r. 1649–72), both also Pasha, who ruled effectively the region. The latter conquered also Cyrenaica.
Tripoli was the only city of size in Ottoman Libya (then known as Tripolitania Eyalet) at the end of the 17th century and had a population of about 30,000. The bulk of its residents were Moors, as city-dwelling Arabs were then known. Several hundred Turks and renegades formed a governing elite, a large portion of which were "kouloughlis" (lit. sons of servants—offspring of Turkish soldiers and Arab women); they identified with local interests and were respected by locals. Jews and Moriscos were active as merchants and craftsmen and a small number of European traders also frequented the city. European slaves and large numbers of enslaved blacks transported from Sudan were also a feature of everyday life in Tripoli. In 1551, Turgut Reis enslaved almost the entire population of the Maltese island of Gozo, some 6,300 people, sending them to Libya. The most pronounced slavery activity involved the enslavement of black Africans who were brought via trans-Saharan trade routes. Even though the slave trade was officially abolished in Tripoli in 1853, in practice it continued until the 1890s.
Lacking direction from the Ottoman government, Tripoli lapsed into a period of military anarchy during which coup followed coup and few deys survived in office more than a year. One such coup was led by Turkish officer Ahmed Karamanli. The Karamanlis ruled from 1711 until 1835 mainly in Tripolitania, but had influence in Cyrenaica and Fezzan as well by the mid 18th century. Ahmed was a Janissary and popular cavalry officer. He murdered the Ottoman Dey of Tripolitania and seized the throne in 1711. After persuading Sultan Ahmed III to recognize him as governor, Ahmed established himself as pasha and made his post hereditary. Though Tripolitania continued to pay nominal tribute to the Ottoman padishah, it otherwise acted as an independent kingdom. Ahmed greatly expanded his city's economy, particularly through the employment of corsairs (pirates) on crucial Mediterranean shipping routes; nations that wished to protect their ships from the corsairs were forced to pay tribute to the pasha. Ahmad's successors proved to be less capable than himself, however, the region's delicate balance of power allowed the Karamanli to survive several dynastic crises without invasion. The Libyan Civil War of 1791–1795 occurred in those years. In 1793, Turkish officer Ali Benghul deposed Hamet Karamanli and briefly restored Tripolitania to Ottoman rule. However, Hamet's brother Yusuf (r. 1795–1832) reestablished Tripolitania's independence.
In the early 19th century war broke out between the United States and Tripolitania, and a series of battles ensued in what came to be known as the First Barbary War and the Second Barbary War. By 1819, the various treaties of the Napoleonic Wars had forced the Barbary states to give up piracy almost entirely, and Tripolitania's economy began to crumble. As Yusuf weakened, factions sprung up around his three sons; though Yusuf abdicated in 1832 in favor of his son Ali II, civil war soon resulted. Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II sent in troops ostensibly to restore order, but instead deposed and exiled Ali II, marking the end of both the Karamanli dynasty and an independent Tripolitania. Anyway, order was not recovered easily, and the revolt of the Libyan under Abd-El-Gelil and Gûma ben Khalifa lasted until the death of the latter in 1858.
The second period of direct Ottoman rule saw administrative changes, and what seemed as greater order in the governance of the three provinces of Libya. It would not be long before the Scramble for Africa and European colonial interests set their eyes on the marginal Turkish provinces of Libya. Reunification came about through the unlikely route of an invasion (Italo-Turkish War, 1911–1912) and occupation starting from 1911 when Italy simultaneously turned the three regions into colonies.
From 1912 to 1927, the territory of Libya was known as Italian North Africa. From 1927 to 1934, the territory was split into two colonies, Italian Cyrenaica and Italian Tripolitania, run by Italian governors. Some 150,000 Italians settled in Libya, constituting roughly 20% of the total population.
In 1934, Italy adopted the name "Libya" (used by the Greeks for all of North Africa, except Egypt) as the official name of the colony (made up of the three provinces of Cyrenaica, Tripolitania and Fezzan). Idris al-Mahdi as-Senussi (later King Idris I), Emir of Cyrenaica, led Libyan resistance to Italian occupation between the two world wars.
Ilan Pappé estimates that between 1928 and 1932 the Italian military "killed half the Bedouin population (directly or through disease and starvation in camps)." Italian historian Emilio Gentile sets to about 50,000 the number of victims of the repression.
In 1934, the political entity called "Libya" was created by governor Balbo with capital Tripoli. The Italians emphasized infrastructure improvements and public works. In particular, they hugely expanded Libyan railway and road networks from 1934 to 1940, building hundreds of kilometers of new roads and railways and encouraging the establishment of new industries and dozen of new agricultural villages.
During WW2, since June 1940 Libya was at the center of destructive fighting between the Axis and the British empire: the Allies conquered from Italy all of Libya only by February 1943.
From 1943 to 1951, Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were under British administration, while the French controlled Fezzan. In 1944, Idris returned from exile in Cairo but declined to resume permanent residence in Cyrenaica until the removal of some aspects of foreign control in 1947. Under the terms of the 1947 peace treaty with the Allies, Italy relinquished all claims to Libya.
On 21 November 1949, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution stating that Libya should become independent before 1 January 1952. Idris represented Libya in the subsequent UN negotiations. On 24 December 1951, Libya declared its independence as the United Kingdom of Libya, a constitutional and hereditary monarchy under King Idris, Libya's only monarch.
1951 also saw the enactment of the first Libyan Constitution. The Libyan National Assembly drafted the Constitution and passed a resolution accepting it in a meeting held in the city of Benghazi on Sunday, 6th Muharram, Hegiras 1371: 7 October 1951. Mohamed Abulas’ad El-Alem, President of the National Assembly and the two Vice-Presidents of the National Assembly, Omar Faiek Shennib and Abu Baker Ahmed Abu Baker executed and submitted the Constitution to King Idris following which it was published in the Official Gazette of Libya.
The enactment of the Libyan Constitution was significant in that it was the first piece of legislation to formally entrench the rights of Libyan citizens following the post-war creation of the Libyan nation state. Following on from the intense UN debates during which Idris had argued that the creation of a single Libyan state would be of benefit to the regions of Tripolitania, Fezzan, and Cyrenaica, the Libyan government was keen to formulate a constitution which contained many of the entrenched rights common to European and North American nation states. Though not creating a secular state – Article 5 proclaims Islam the religion of the State – the Libyan Constitution did formally set out rights such as equality before the law as well as equal civil and political rights, equal opportunities, and an equal responsibility for public duties and obligations, "without distinction of religion, belief, race, language, wealth, kinship or political or social opinions" (Article 11).
During this period, Britain was involved in extensive engineering projects in Libya and was also the country's biggest supplier of arms. The United States also maintained the large Wheelus Air Base in Libya.
On 1 September 1969, a small group of military officers led by 27-year-old army officer Muammar Gaddafi staged a coup d'état against King Idris, launching the Libyan Revolution. Gaddafi was referred to as the "Brother Leader and Guide of the Revolution" in government statements and the official Libyan press.
On the birthday of Muhammad in 1973, Gaddafi delivered a "Five-Point Address". He announced the suspension of all existing laws and the implementation of Sharia. He said that the country would be purged of the "politically sick". A "people's militia" would "protect the revolution". There would be an administrative revolution, and a cultural revolution. Gaddafi set up an extensive surveillance system. 10 to 20 percent of Libyans worked in surveillance for the Revolutionary committees, which monitored place in government, in factories, and in the education sector. Gaddafi executed dissidents publicly and the executions were often rebroadcast on state television channels. Gaddafi employed his network of diplomats and recruits to assassinate dozens of critical refugees around the world. Amnesty International listed at least 25 assassinations between 1980 and 1987.
In 1977, Libya officially became the "Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya". Gaddafi officially passed power to the General People's Committees and henceforth claimed to be no more than a symbolic figurehead, but domestic and international critics claimed the reforms gave him virtually unlimited power. Dissidents against the new system were not tolerated, with punitive actions including capital punishment authorized by Gaddafi himself. The new ""jamahiriya"" governance structure he established was officially referred to as a form of direct democracy, though the government refused to publish election results. Later that same year, Libya and Egypt fought a four-day border war that came to be known as the Libyan-Egyptian War, both nations agreed to a ceasefire under the mediation of the Algerian president Houari Boumediène. In February 1977, Libya began to provide military supplies to Goukouni Oueddei and the People's Armed Forces in Chad. The Chadian–Libyan conflict began in earnest when Libya's support of rebel forces in northern Chad escalated into an invasion. Much of the country's income from oil, which soared in the 1970s, was spent on arms purchases and on sponsoring dozens of rebels groups around the world. An airstrike failed to kill Gaddafi in 1986. Libya was accused in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland and the 1989 bombing of UTA Flight 772 over Chad and Niger; Libya was finally put under United Nations sanctions in 1992. Gaddafi financed various other groups from anti-nuclear movements to Australian trade unions.
From 1977 onward, per capita income in the country rose to more than US$11,000, the fifth-highest in Africa, while the Human Development Index became the highest in Africa and greater than that of Saudi Arabia. This was achieved without borrowing any foreign loans, keeping Libya debt-free. In addition, the country's literacy rate rose from 10% to 90%, life expectancy rose from 57 to 77 years, employment opportunities were established for migrant workers, and welfare systems were introduced that allowed access to free education, free healthcare, and financial assistance for housing. The Great Manmade River was also built to allow free access to fresh water across large parts of the country. In addition, financial support was provided for university scholarships and employment programs.
Gaddafi doubled the minimum wage, introduced statutory price controls, and implemented compulsory rent reductions of between 30 and 40%. Gaddafi also wanted to combat the strict social restrictions that had been imposed on women by the previous regime, establishing the Revolutionary Women's Formation to encourage reform. In 1970, a law was introduced affirming equality of the sexes and insisting on wage parity. In 1971, Gaddafi sponsored the creation of a Libyan General Women's Federation. In 1972, a law was passed criminalizing the marriage of any females under the age of sixteen and ensuring that a woman's consent was a necessary prerequisite for a marriage.
Gaddafi assumed the honorific title of "King of Kings of Africa" in 2008 as part of his campaign for a United States of Africa. By the early 2010s, in addition to attempting to assume a leadership role in the African Union, Libya was also viewed as having formed closer ties with Italy, one of its former colonial rulers, than any other country in the European Union. The eastern parts of the country have been "ruined" due to Gaddafi's economic theories, according to "The Economist".
After popular movements overturned the rulers of Tunisia and Egypt, its immediate neighbors to the west and east, Libya experienced a full-scale revolt beginning on 17 February 2011. By 20 February, the unrest had spread to Tripoli. In the early hours of 21 February 2011, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, oldest son of Muammar Gaddafi, spoke on Libyan television of his fears that the country would fragment and be replaced by "15 Islamic fundamentalist emirates" if the uprising engulfed the entire state. He admitted that "mistakes had been made" in quelling recent protests and announced plans for a constitutional convention, but warned that the country's economic wealth and recent prosperity was at risk and warned of "rivers of blood" if the protests continued.
On 27 February 2011, the National Transitional Council was established under the stewardship of Mustafa Abdul Jalil, Gaddafi's former justice minister, to administer the areas of Libya under rebel control. This marked the first serious effort to organize the broad-based opposition to the Gaddafi regime. While the council was based in Benghazi, it claimed Tripoli as its capital. Hafiz Ghoga, a human rights lawyer, later assumed the role of spokesman for the council. On 10 March 2011, France became the first state to officially recognise the council as the legitimate representative of the Libyan people.
By early March 2011, some parts of Libya had tipped out of Gaddafi's control, coming under the control of a coalition of opposition forces, including soldiers who decided to support the rebels. Eastern Libya, centred on the port city of Benghazi, was said to be firmly in the hands of the opposition, while Tripoli and its environs remained in dispute. Pro-Gaddafi forces were able to respond militarily to rebel pushes in Western Libya and launched a counterattack along the coast toward Benghazi, the "de facto" centre of the uprising. The town of Zawiya, from Tripoli, was bombarded by air force planes and army tanks and seized by Jamahiriya troops, "exercising a level of brutality not yet seen in the conflict."
In several public appearances, Gaddafi threatened to destroy the protest movement, and Al Jazeera and other agencies reported his government was arming pro-Gaddafi militiamen to kill protesters and defectors against the regime in Tripoli. Organs of the United Nations, including United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the United Nations Human Rights Council, condemned the crackdown as violating international law, with the latter body expelling Libya outright in an unprecedented action urged by Libya's own delegation to the UN. The United States imposed economic sanctions against Libya, followed shortly by Australia, Canada and the United Nations Security Council, which also voted to refer Gaddafi and other government officials to the International Criminal Court for investigation.
On 17 March 2011 the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1973 with a 10–0 vote and five abstentions. The resolution sanctioned the establishment of a no-fly zone and the use of "all means necessary" to protect civilians within Libya.
Shortly afterwards, Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa stated that "Libya has decided an immediate ceasefire and an immediate halt to all military operations".
On 19 March, the first Allied act to secure the no-fly zone began when French military jets entered Libyan airspace on a reconnaissance mission heralding attacks on enemy targets. Allied military action to enforce the ceasefire commenced the same day when a French aircraft opened fire and destroyed a vehicle on the ground. French jets also destroyed five tanks belonging to the Gaddafi regime. The United States and United Kingdom launched attacks on over 20 "integrated air defense systems" using more than 110 Tomahawk cruise missiles during operations Odyssey Dawn and Ellamy.
On 27 June 2011, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Gaddafi, alleging that Gaddafi had been personally involved in planning and implementing "a policy of widespread and systematic attacks against civilians and demonstrators and dissidents".
By 22 August 2011, rebel fighters had entered Tripoli and occupied Green Square, which they renamed to its original name, Martyrs' Square in honour of those killed during the Italian occupation. Meanwhile, Gaddafi asserted that he was still in Libya and would not concede power to the rebels.
On 16 September 2011, the U.N. General Assembly approved a request from the National Transitional Council to accredit envoys of the country's interim controlling body as Tripoli's sole representatives at the UN, effectively recognising the National Transitional Council as the legitimate holder of that country's UN seat.
The National Transitional Council had been plagued by internal divisions during its tenure as Libya's interim governing authority. It postponed the formation of a caretaker, or "interim" government on several occasions during the period prior to the death of Muammar Gaddafi in his hometown of Sirte on 20 October 2011. Mustafa Abdul Jalil led the National Transitional Council and was generally considered to be the principal leadership figure. Mahmoud Jibril served as the NTC's "de facto" head of government from 5 March 2011 through the end of the war, but he announced he would resign after Libya was declared to have been "liberated" from Gaddafi's rule.
The "liberation" of Libya was celebrated on 23 October 2011, and Jibril announced that consultations were under way to form an interim government within one month, followed by elections for a constitutional assembly within eight months and parliamentary and presidential elections to be held within a year after that. He stepped down as expected the same day and was succeeded by Ali Tarhouni. At least 30,000 Libyans died in the civil war.
After the Libyan Civil War, the National Transitional Council (NTC) has been responsible for the transition of the administration of the governing of Libya. The "liberation" of Libya was celebrated on 23 October 2011. Then Jibril announced that consultations were under way to form an interim government within one month, followed by elections for a constitutional assembly within eight months and parliamentary and presidential elections to be held within a year after that. He stepped down as expected the same day and was succeeded by Ali Tarhouni.
On 24 November, Tarhouni was replaced by Abdurrahim El-Keib. El-Keib formed a provisional government, filling it with independent or CNT politicians, including women.
After the fall of Gaddhafi, Libya has been faced with internal struggles. A protest started against the new regime of NTC. The loyalists of Gaddhafi rebelled and fought with the new Libyan army.
Because the Constitutional Declaration allowed a multi-party system, the political parties, like Democratic Party, Party of Reform and Development, National Gathering for Freedom, Justice and Development appeared. The Islamist movement started. To stop it, the CNT (NTC) government denied power to parties based on religion, tribal and ethnic bases.
On 7 July 2012, Libyans voted in their first parliamentary elections since the end of Gaddafi's rule. The election, in which more than 100 political parties registered, formed an interim 200-member national assembly. This will replace the unelected National Transitional Council, name a prime minister, and form a committee to draft a constitution. The vote was postponed several times to resolve logistical and technical problems, and to give more time to register to vote, and to investigate candidates.
On 8 August 2012, the National Transitional Council officially handed power to the wholly elected General National Congress, which is tasked with the formation of an interim government and the drafting of a new Libyan Constitution to be approved in a general referendum.
On 25 August 2012, in what "appears to be the most blatant sectarian attack" since the end of the civil war, unnamed organized assailants bulldozed a Sufi mosque with graves, in broad daylight in the center of the Libyan capital Tripoli. It was the second such razing of a Sufi site in two days.
On 7 October 2012, Libya's Prime Minister-elect Mustafa A.G. Abushagur stepped down after failing a second time to win parliamentary approval for a new cabinet. On 14 October 2012, the General National Congress elected former GNC member and human rights lawyer Ali Zeidan as prime minister-designate.
Libyan Constitutional Assembly elections took place in Libya on 20 February 2014.
Ali Zidan was ousted by the parliament committee and fled from Libya on 14 March 2014 after rogue oil tanker Morning Glory left the rebel port of Sidra, Libya with Libyan oil that had been confiscated by the rebels. Ali Zeidan had promised to stop the departure, but failed.
On 30 March 2014 General National Congress voted to replace itself with new House of Representatives.
Abdullah al-Thani served as the prime minister since 11 March 2014 in interim capacity. He resigned on 13 April 2014, after he and his family were victims of a "traitorous attack" but continued to remain prime minister since there was no replacement.Ahmed Maiteeq was elected Prime Minister of Libya in May 2014 but his election as prime minister took place under disputed circumstances, Libyan Supreme Court ruled on 9 June that Maiteeq's appointment was illegal and Maiteeq resigned the same day.
, the parliament building was reported to heve been stormed by troops loyal to General Khalifa Haftar, reportedly including the Zintan Brigade, in what the Libyan government described as an attempted coup.
House of Representatives elections were held in Libya on 25 June 2014.
On 14 July, the United States Support Mission in Libya evacuated its staff after 13 people were killed in clashes in Tripoli and Benghazi. The fighting, between government forces and rival militia groups, also forced Tripoli International Airport to close. A militia, including members of the Libya Revolutionaries Operations Room (LROR), tried to seize control of the airport from the Zintan militia, which has controlled it since Gaddafi was toppled. Both militias are believed to be on the official payroll. In addition Misrata Airport was closed, due to its dependence on Tripoli International Airport for its operations. Government spokesman, Ahmed Lamine, stated that approximately 90% of the planes stationed at Tripoli International Airport were destroyed or made inoperable in the attack, and that the government may make an appeal for international forces to assist in reestablishing security.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=13812
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History of Afghanistan
The history of Afghanistan, (' ', ' ') as a state began in 1747 with its establishment by Ahmad Shah Durrani. The written recorded history of the land presently constituting Afghanistan can be traced back to around 500 BCE when the area was under the Achaemenid Empire, although evidence indicates that an advanced degree of urbanized culture has existed in the land since between 3000 and 2000 BCE. Bactria dates back to 2500 BC. The Indus Valley Civilisation stretched up to large parts of Afghanistan in the north. Alexander the Great and his Macedonian army arrived at what is now Afghanistan in 330 BCE after the fall of the Achmaemenid Empire during the Battle of Gaugamela. Since then, many empires have risen from Afghanistan, including the Greco-Bactrians, Kushans, Hephthalites, Saffarids, Samanids, Ghaznavids, Ghurids, Khaljis, Timurids, Mughals, Hotakis and Durranis.
Afghanistan (meaning "land of the Afghans" or "Afghan land") has been a strategically important location throughout history. The land served as "a gateway to India, impinging on the ancient Silk Road, which carried trade from the Mediterranean to China". Sitting on many trade and migration routes, Afghanistan may be called the 'Central Asian roundabout' since routes converge from the Middle East, from the Indus Valley through the passes over the Hindu Kush, from the Far East via the Tarim Basin, and from the adjacent Eurasian Steppe.
The Iranian languages were developed by one branch of these people; the Pashto language spoken today in Afghanistan is one of the Eastern Iranian languages. Elena E. Kuz'mina argues that the tents of Iranian-speaking nomads of Afghanistan developed from the light surface houses of the Eurasian steppe belt in the Bronze Age.
The Arab invasions influenced the culture of Afghanistan, and its pre-Islamic period of Zoroastrian, Macedonian, Buddhist and Hindu past has long vanished.
Mirwais Hotak followed by Ahmad Shah Durrani unified Afghan tribes and founded the last Afghan Empire in the early 18th century CE. Afghanistan is inhabited by many and diverse peoples: the Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Turkmen, Aimak, Pashayi, Baloch, Pamiris, Nuristanis, and others.
Excavations of prehistoric sites by Louis Dupree and others at Darra-e Kur in 1966 where 800 stone implements were recovered along with a fragment of Neanderthal right temporal bone, suggest that early humans were living in what is now Afghanistan at least 52,000 years ago. A cave called Kara Kamar contained Upper Paleolithic blades Carbon-14 dated at 34,000 years old. Farming communities in Afghanistan were among the earliest in the world. Artifacts indicate that the indigenous people were small farmers and herdsmen, very probably grouped into tribes, with small local kingdoms rising and falling through the ages. Urbanization may have begun as early as 3000 BCE. Zoroastrianism predominated as the religion in the area; even the modern Afghan solar calendar shows the influence of Zoroastrianism in the names of the months. Other religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism flourished later, leaving a major mark in the region. Gandhara is the name of an ancient kingdom from the Vedic period and its capital city located between the Hindukush and Sulaiman Mountains (mountains of Solomon), although Kandahar in modern times and the ancient Gandhara are not geographically identical.
Early inhabitants, around 3000 BCE were likely to have been connected through culture and trade to neighboring civilizations like Jiroft and Tappeh Sialk and the Indus Valley Civilization. Urban civilization may have begun as early as 3000 BCE and it is possible that the early city of Mundigak (near Kandahar) was a colony of the nearby Indus Valley Civilization. The first known people were Indo-Iranians, but their date of arrival has been estimated widely from as early as about 3000 BCE to 1500 BCE. (For further detail see Indo-Aryan migration.)
The Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) was a Bronze Age civilization (3300-1300 BCE; mature period 2600–1900 BCE) extending from present-day northwest Pakistan to present-day northwest India and present-day northeast Afghanistan. An Indus Valley site has been found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in northern Afghanistan. Apart from Shortughai, Mundigak is another known site. There are several other smaller IVC sites to be found in Afghanistan as well.
The Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex became prominent in the southwest region between 2200 and 1700 BCE (approximately). The city of Balkh (Bactra) was founded about this time (c. 2000–1500 BCE). It is possible that the BMAC may have been an Indo-European culture, perhaps the Proto-Indo-Aryans. But the standard model holds the arrival of Indo-Aryans to have been in the Late Harappan which gave rise to the Vedic civilization of the Early Iron Age.
There have been many different opinions about the extent of the Median kingdom. For instance, according to Ernst Herzfeld, it was a powerful empire, which stretched from central Anatolia to Bactria, to around the borders of nowadays India. On the other side, Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg insists that there is no real evidence about the very existence of the Median empire and that it was an unstable state formation. Nevertheless, the region of nowadays Afghanistan came under Median rule for a short time.
Afghanistan fell to the Achaemenid Empire after it was conquered by Darius I of Persia. The area was divided into several provinces called satrapies, which were each ruled by a governor, or satrap. These ancient satrapies included: Aria: The region of Aria was separated by mountain ranges from the Paropamisadae in the east, Parthia in the west and Margiana and Hyrcania in the north, while a desert separated it from Carmania and Drangiana in the south. It is described in a very detailed manner by Ptolemy and Strabo and corresponds, according to that, almost to the Herat Province of today's Afghanistan; Arachosia, corresponds to the modern-day Kandahar, Lashkar Gah, and Quetta. Arachosia bordered Drangiana to the west, Paropamisadae (i.e. Gandahara) to the north and to the east, and Gedrosia to the south. The inhabitants of Arachosia were Iranian peoples, referred to as Arachosians or Arachoti. It is assumed that they were called "Paktyans" by ethnicity, and that name may have been in reference to the ethnic "Paṣtun" (Pashtun) tribes; Bactriana was the area north of the Hindu Kush, west of the Pamirs and south of the Tian Shan, with the Amu Darya flowing west through the center (Balkh); Sattagydia was the easternmost regions of the Achaemenid Empire, part of its Seventh tax district according to Herodotus, along with Gandārae, Dadicae and Aparytae. It is believed to have been situated east of the Sulaiman Mountains up to the Indus River in the basin around Bannu.[ (Ghazni); and Gandhara which corresponds to modern day Kabul, Jalalabad, and Peshawar.
Alexander the Great arrived in the area of Afghanistan in 330 BCE after defeating Darius III of Persia a year earlier at the Battle of Gaugamela. His army faced very strong resistance in the Afghan tribal areas where he is said to have commented that Afghanistan is "easy to march into, hard to march out of." Although his expedition through Afghanistan was brief, Alexander left behind a Hellenic cultural influence that lasted several centuries. Several great cities were built in the region named "Alexandria," including: Alexandria-of-the-Arians (modern-day Herat); Alexandria-on-the-Tarnak (near Kandahar); Alexandria-ad-Caucasum (near Begram, at Bordj-i-Abdullah); and finally, Alexandria-Eschate (near Kojend), in the north. After Alexander's death, his loosely connected empire was divided. Seleucus, a Macedonian officer during Alexander's campaign, declared himself ruler of his own Seleucid Empire, which also included present-day Afghanistan.
The Greco-Bactrian Kingdom was a Hellenistic kingdom, founded when Diodotus I, the satrap of Bactria (and probably the surrounding provinces) seceded from the Seleucid Empire around 250 BCE.
The Greco-Bactria Kingdom continued until c. 130 BCE, when Eucratides I's son, King Heliocles I, was defeated and driven out of Bactria by the Yuezhi tribes from the east. The Yeuzhi now had complete occupation of Bactria. It is thought that Eucratides' dynasty continued to rule in Kabul and Alexandria of the Caucasus until 70 BCE when King Hermaeus was also defeated by the Yuezhi.
One of Demetrius I's successors, Menander I, brought the Indo-Greek Kingdom (now isolated from the rest of the Hellenistic world after the fall of Bactria) to its height between 165–130 BCE, expanding the kingdom in Afghanistan and Pakistan to even larger proportions than Demetrius. After Menander's death, the Indo-Greeks steadily declined and the last Indo-Greek kings (Strato II and Strato III) were defeated in c. 10 CE. The Indo-Greek Kingdom was succeeded by the Indo-Scythians.
The territory fell to the Mauryan Empire, which was led by Chandragupta Maurya. The Mauryas introduced Hinduism and Buddhism to the region, and were planning to capture more territory of Central Asia until they faced local Greco-Bactrian forces. Seleucus is said to have reached a peace treaty with Chandragupta by giving control of the territory south of the Hindu Kush to the Mauryas upon intermarriage and 500 elephants.
Having consolidated power in the northwest, Chandragupta pushed east towards the Nanda Empire. Afghanistan's significant ancient tangible and intangible Buddhist heritage is recorded through wide-ranging archeological finds, including religious and artistic remnants. Buddhist doctrines are reported to have reached as far as Balkh even during the life of the Buddha (563 BCE to 483 BCE), as recorded by Husang Tsang.
The Indo-Scythians were descended from the Sakas (Scythians) who migrated from southern Siberia to Pakistan and Arachosia from the middle of the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century BCE. They displaced the Indo-Greeks and ruled a kingdom that stretched from Gandhara to Mathura. The power of the Saka rulers started to decline in the 2nd century CE after the Scythians were defeated by the south Indian Emperor Gautamiputra Satakarni of the Satavahana dynasty. Later the Saka kingdom was completely destroyed by Chandragupta II of the Gupta Empire from eastern India in the 4th century.
The Indo-Parthian Kingdom was ruled by the Gondopharid dynasty, named after its eponymous first ruler Gondophares. They ruled parts of present-day Afghanistan, Pakistan, and northwestern India, during or slightly before the 1st century AD. For most of their history, the leading Gondopharid kings held Taxila (in the present Punjab province of Pakistan) as their residence, but during their last few years of existence the capital shifted between Kabul and Peshawar. These kings have traditionally been referred to as Indo-Parthians, as their coinage was often inspired by the Arsacid dynasty, but they probably belonged to a wider groups of Iranic tribes who lived east of Parthia proper, and there is no evidence that all the kings who assumed the title "Gondophares", which means ”Holder of Glory”, were even related. Christian writings claim that the Apostle Saint Thomas – an architect and skilled carpenter – had a long sojourn in the court of king Gondophares, had built a palace for the king at Taxila and had also ordained leaders for the Church before leaving for the Indus Valley in a chariot, for sailing out to eventually reach Malabar Coast.
The Kushan Empire expanded out of Bactria (Central Asia) into the northwest of the subcontinent under the leadership of their first emperor, Kujula Kadphises, about the middle of the 1st century CE. They came from an Indo-European language speaking Central Asian tribe called the Yuezhi, a branch of which was known as the Kushans. By the time of his grandson, Kanishka the Great, the empire spread to encompass much of Afghanistan, and then the northern parts of the Indian subcontinent at least as far as Saketa and Sarnath near Varanasi (Benares).
Emperor Kanishka was a great patron of Buddhism; however, as Kushans expanded southward, the deities of their later coinage came to reflect its new Hindu majority.
They played an important role in the establishment of Buddhism in the Indian subcontinent and its spread to Central Asia and China.
Historian Vincent Smith said about Kanishka:
The empire linked the Indian Ocean maritime trade with the commerce of the Silk Road through the Indus valley, encouraging long-distance trade, particularly between China and Rome. The Kushans brought new trends to the budding and blossoming Gandhara Art, which reached its peak during Kushan Rule.
H.G. Rowlinson commented:
By the 3rd century, their empire in India was disintegrating and their last known great emperor was Vasudeva I.
After the Kushan Empire's rule was ended by Sassanids— officially known as the Empire of Iranians— was the last kingdom of the Persian Empire before the rise of Islam. Named after the House of Sasan, it ruled from 224 BC to 651 AD. In the east around 325, Shapur II regained the upper hand against the Kushano-Sasanian Kingdom and took control of large territories in areas now known as Afghanistan and Pakistan. Much of modern-day Afghanistan became part of the Sasanian Empire, since Shapur I extended his authority eastwards into Afghanistan and the previously autonomous Kushans were obliged to accept his suzerainty.
From around 370, however, towards the end of the reign of Shapur II, the Sassanids lost the control of Bactria to invaders from the north. These were the Kidarites, the Hephthalites, the Alchon Huns, and the Nezaks: The four Huna tribes to rule Afghanistan. These invaders initially issued coins based on Sasanian designs.
The Hunas were peoples who were of a group of Central Asian tribes. Four of the Huna tribe conquered and ruled Afghanistan: the Kidarites, Hepthalites, Alchon Huns and the Nezaks.
The Kidarites were a nomadic clan, the first of the four Huna people in Afghanistan. They are supposed to have originated in Western China and arrived in Bactria with the great migrations of the second half of the 4th century.
The Alchons are one of the four Huna people that ruled in Afghanistan. A group of Central Asian tribes, Hunas or Huna, via the Khyber Pass, entered India at the end of the 5th or early 6th century and successfully occupied areas as far as Eran and Kausambi, greatly weakening the Gupta Empire. The 6th-century Roman historian Procopius of Caesarea (Book I. ch. 3), related the Huns of Europe with the Hephthalites or "White Huns" who subjugated the Sassanids and invaded northwestern India, stating that they were of the same stock, "in fact as well as in name", although he contrasted the Huns with the Hephthalites, in that the Hephthalites were sedentary, white-skinned, and possessed "not ugly" features.
Song Yun and Hui Zheng, who visited the chief of the Hephthalite nomads at his summer residence in Badakshan and later in Gandhara, observed that they had no belief in the Buddhist law and served a large number of divinities."
The Hephthalites (or Ephthalites), also known as the White Huns and one of the four Huna people in Afghanistan, were a nomadic confederation in Central Asia during the late antiquity period. The White Huns established themselves in modern-day Afghanistan by the first half of the 5th century. Led by the Hun military leader Toramana, they overran the northern region of Pakistan and North India. Toramana's son Mihirakula, a Saivite Hindu, moved up to near Pataliputra to the east and Gwalior to central India. Hiuen Tsiang narrates Mihirakula's merciless persecution of Buddhists and destruction of monasteries, though the description is disputed as far as the authenticity is concerned. The Huns were defeated by the Indian kings Yasodharman of Malwa and Narasimhagupta in the 6th century. Some of them were driven out of India and others were assimilated in the Indian society.
The Nezaks are one of the four Huna people that ruled in Afghanistan.
From the Middle Ages to around 1750, Afghanistan was part of Iran. Two of the four main capitals of Khorasan (Balkh and Herat) are now located in Afghanistan. The countries of Kandahar, Ghazni and Kabul formed the frontier region between Khorasan and the Indus. This land, inhabited by the Afghan tribes (i.e. ancestors of Pashtuns), was called Afghanistan, which loosely covered a wide area between the Hindu Kush and the Indus River, principally around the Sulaiman Mountains. The earliest record of the name ""Afghan"" (""Abgân"") being mentioned is by Shapur I of the Sassanid Empire during the 3rd century CE which is later recorded in the form of ""Avagānā"" by the Vedic astronomer Varāha Mihira in his 6th century CE Brihat-samhita. It was used to refer to a common legendary ancestor known as ""Afghana"", grandson of King Saul of Israel. Hiven Tsiang, a Chinese pilgrim, visiting the Afghanistan area several times between 630 and 644 CE also speaks about them. Ancestors of many of today's Turkic-speaking Afghans settled in the Hindu Kush area and began to assimilate much of the culture and language of the Pashtun tribes already present there. Among these were the Khalaj people which are known today as Ghilzai.
The Kabul Shahi dynasties ruled the Kabul Valley and Gandhara from the decline of the Kushan Empire in the 3rd century to the early 9th century. The Shahis are generally split up into two eras: the Buddhist Shahis and the Hindu Shahis, with the change-over thought to have occurred sometime around 870. The kingdom was known as the Kabul Shahan or Ratbelshahan from 565–670, when the capitals were located in Kapisa and Kabul, and later Udabhandapura, also known as Hund for its new capital.
The Hindu Shahis under Rajput ruler Jayapala, is known for his struggles in defending his kingdom against the Ghaznavids in the modern-day eastern Afghanistan region. Jayapala saw a danger in the consolidation of the Ghaznavids and invaded their capital city of Ghazni both in the reign of Sebuktigin and in that of his son Mahmud, which initiated the Muslim Ghaznavid and Hindu Shahi struggles. Sebuktigin, however, defeated him, and he was forced to pay an indemnity. Jayapala defaulted on the payment and took to the battlefield once more. Jayapala however, lost control of the entire region between the Kabul Valley and Indus River.
Before his struggle began Jaipal had raised a large army of Punjabi Hindus. When Jaipal went to the Punjab region, his army was raised to 100,000 horsemen and an innumerable host of foot soldiers. According to Ferishta:
However, the army was hopeless in battle against the western forces, particularly against the young Mahmud of Ghazni. In the year 1001, soon after Sultan Mahmud came to power and was occupied with the Qarakhanids north of the Hindu Kush, Jaipal attacked Ghazni once more and upon suffering yet another defeat by the powerful Ghaznavid forces, near present-day Peshawar. After the Battle of Peshawar, he committed suicide because his subjects thought he had brought disaster and disgrace to the Shahi dynasty.
Jayapala was succeeded by his son Anandapala, who along with other succeeding generations of the Shahiya dynasty took part in various campaigns against the advancing Ghaznavids but were unsuccessful. The Hindu rulers eventually exiled themselves to the Kashmir Siwalik Hills.
In 642 CE, Rashidun Arabs had conquered most of West Asia from the Sassanids and Byzantines, and from the western city of Herat they introduced the religion of Islam as they entered new cities. Afghanistan at that period had a number of different independent rulers, depending on the area. Ancestors of Abū Ḥanīfa, including his father, were from the Kabul region.
The early Arab forces did not fully explore Afghanistan due to attacks by the mountain tribes. Much of the eastern parts of the country remained independent, as part of the Hindu Shahi kingdoms of Kabul and Gandhara, which lasted that way until the forces of the Muslim Saffarid dynasty followed by the Ghaznavids conquered them.
The Ghaznavid dynasty ruled from the city of Ghazni in eastern Afghanistan. From 997 to his death in 1030, Mahmud of Ghazni turned the former provincial city of Ghazni into the wealthy capital of an extensive empire which covered most of today's Afghanistan, eastern Iran, and Pakistan. Mahmud consolidated the conquests of his predecessors and the city of Ghazni became a great cultural centre as well as a base for frequent forays into the Indian subcontinent. The Nasher Khans became princes of the Kharoti until the Soviet invasion.
The Ghaznavid dynasty was defeated in 1148 by the Ghurids from Ghor, but the Ghaznavid Sultans continued to live in Ghazni as the 'Nasher' until the early 20th century. They did not regain their once vast power until about 500 years later when the Ghilzai Hotakis rose to power. Various princes and Seljuk rulers attempted to rule parts of the country until the Shah Muhammad II of the Khwarezmid Empire conquered all of Persia in 1205 CE. By 1219, the empire had fallen to the Mongols, led by Genghis Khan.
The Mongol invasion resulted in massive destruction of several cities, including Bamiyan, Herat, and Balkh, and the despoliation of fertile agricultural areas. Large numbers of the inhabitants were also slaughtered. Most major cities north of the Hindu Kush became part of the Mongol Empire. The Afghan tribal areas south of the Hindu Kush were usually either allied with the Khalji dynasty of northern India or independent.
Timur (Tamerlane), incorporated much of the area into his own vast Timurid Empire. The city of Herat became one of the capitals of his empire, and his grandson Pir Muhammad held the seat of Kandahar. Timur rebuilt most of Afghanistan's infrastructure which was destroyed by his early ancestor. The area was progressing under his rule. Timurid rule began declining in the early 16th century with the rise of a new ruler in Kabul, Babur.
Timur, a descendant of Genghis Khan, created a vast new empire across Russia and Persia which he ruled from his capital in Samarkand in present-day Uzbekistan. Timur captured Herat in 1381 and his son, Shah Rukh moved the capital of the Timurid empire to Herat in 1405. The Timurids, a Turkic people, brought the Turkic nomadic culture of Central Asia within the orbit of Persian civilisation, establishing Herat as one of the most cultured and refined cities in the world. This fusion of Central Asian and Persian culture was a major legacy for the future Afghanistan. Under the rule of Shah Rukh the city served as the focal point of the Timurid Renaissance, whose glory matched Florence of the Italian Renaissance as the center of a cultural rebirth. A century later, the emperor Babur, a descendant of Timur, visited Herat and wrote, "the whole habitable world had not such a town as Herat." For the next 300 years the eastern Afghan tribes periodically invaded India creating vast Indo-Afghan empires. In 1500 CE, Babur was driven out of his home in the Ferghana valley. By the 16th century western Afghanistan again reverted to Persian rule under the Safavid dynasty.
In 1504, Babur, a descendant of Timur, arrived from present-day Uzbekistan and moved to the city of Kabul. He began exploring new territories in the region, with Kabul serving as his military headquarters. Instead of looking towards the powerful Safavids towards the Persian west, Babur was more focused on the Indian subcontinent. In 1526, he left with his army to capture the seat of the Delhi Sultanate, which at that point was possessed by the Afghan Lodi dynasty of India. After defeating Ibrahim Lodi and his army, Babur turned (Old) Delhi into the capital of his newly established Mughal Empire.
From the 16th century to the 17th century CE, Afghanistan was divided into three major areas. The north was ruled by the Khanate of Bukhara, the west was under the rule of the Iranian Shia Safavids, and the eastern section was under the Sunni Mughals of northern India, who under Akbar established in Kabul one of the original twelve subahs (imperial top-level provinces), bordering Lahore, Multan and Kashmir (added to Kabul in 1596, later split-off) and short-lived Balkh Subah and Badakhshan Subah (only 1646–47). The Kandahar region in the south served as a buffer zone between the Mughals (who shortly established a Qandahar subah 1638–1648) and Persia's Safavids, with the native Afghans often switching support from one side to the other. Babur explored a number of cities in the region before his campaign into India. In the city of Kandahar, his personal epigraphy can be found in the Chilzina rock mountain. Like in the rest of the territories that used to make part of the Indian Mughal Empire, Afghanistan holds tombs, palaces, and forts built by the Mughals.
In 1704, the Safavid Shah Husayn appointed George XI ("Gurgīn Khān"), a ruthless Georgian subject, to govern their easternmost territories in the Greater Kandahar region. One of Gurgīn's main objectives was to crush the rebellions started by native Afghans. Under his rule the revolts were successfully suppressed and he ruled Kandahar with uncompromising severity. He began imprisoning and executing the native Afghans, especially those suspected in having taken part in the rebellions. One of those arrested and imprisoned was Mirwais Hotak who belonged to an influential family in Kandahar. Mirwais was sent as a prisoner to the Persian court in Isfahan, but the charges against him were dismissed by the king, so he was sent back to his native land as a free man.
In April 1709, Mirwais along with his militia under Khan Nasher revolted. The uprising began when George XI and his escort were killed after a banquet that had been prepared by Mirwais at his house outside the city. Around four days later, an army of well-trained Georgian troops arrived in the city after hearing of Gurgīn's death, but Mirwais and his Afghan forces successfully held the city against the troops. Between 1710 and 1713, the Afghan forces defeated several large Persian armies that were dispatched from Isfahan by the Safavids, which included Qizilbash and Georgian/Circassian troops.
Southern Afghanistan was made into an independent local Pashtun kingdom. Refusing the title of king, Mirwais was called "Prince of Qandahár and general of the national troops" by his Afghan countrymen. He died of natural causes in November 1715 and was succeeded by his brother Abdul Aziz Hotak. Aziz was killed about two years later by Mirwais' son Mahmud Hotaki, allegedly for planning to give Kandahar's sovereignty back to Persia. Mahmud led an Afghan army into Persia in 1722 and defeated the Safavids at the Battle of Gulnabad. The Afghans captured Isfahan (Safavid capital) and Mahmud briefly became the new Persian Shah. He was known after that as Shah Mahmud.
Mahmud began a short-lived reign of terror against his Persian subjects who defied his rule from the very start, and he was eventually murdered in 1725 by his own cousin, Ashraf Hotaki. Some sources say he died of madness. Ashraf became the new Afghan Shah of Persia soon after Mahmud's death, while the home region of Afghanistan was ruled by Mahmud's younger brother Shah Hussain Hotaki. Ashraf was able to secure peace with the Ottoman Empire in 1727 winning against a superior Ottoman army, but the Russian Empire took advantage of the continuing political unrest and civil strife to seize former Persian territories for themselves, limiting the amount of territory under Shah Mahmud's control.
The short lived Hotaki dynasty was a troubled and violent one from the very start as internecine conflict made it difficult for them to establish permanent control. The dynasty lived under great turmoil due to bloody succession feuds that made their hold on power tenuous. There was a massacre of thousands of civilians in Isfahan; including more than three thousand religious scholars, nobles, and members of the Safavid family. The vast majority of the Persians rejected the Afghan regime which they considered was a usurping power from the very start. Hotaki's rule continued in Afghanistan until 1738 when Shah Hussain was defeated and banished by Nader Shah of Persia.
The Hotakis were eventually removed from power in 1729, after a very short lived reign. They were defeated in the October 1729 by the Iranian military commander Nader Shah, head of the Afsharids, at the Battle of Damghan. He effectively reduced the Hotaki's power to only southern Afghanistan. The last ruler of the Hotaki dynasty, Shah Hussain, ruled southern Afghanistan until 1738 when the Afsharids and the Abdali Pashtuns crushed him at Kandahar.
Nader Shah and his Afsharid Persian army arrived in the town of Kandahar in 1738 and defeated Hussain Hotaki subsequently absorbing all of Afghanistan in his empire and renaming Kandahar as Naderabad. Around this time, a young teenager Ahmad Khan joined Nader Shah's army for his invasion of India.
Nadir Shah was assassinated on 19 June 1747 by several of his Persian officers, and the Afsharid Persian empire fell to pieces. At the same time the 25-year-old Ahmad Khan was busy in Afghanistan calling for a loya jirga ("grand assembly") to select a leader among his people. The Afghans gathered near Kandahar in October 1747 and chose Ahmad Shah from among the challengers, making him their new head of state. After the inauguration or coronation, he became known as Ahmad Shah Durrani. He adopted the title "padshah durr-i dawran" ('King, "pearl of the age") and the Abdali tribe became known as the Durrani tribe after this. Ahmad Shah not only represented the Durranis but he also united all the Pashtun tribes. By 1751, Ahmad Shah Durrani and his Afghan army conquered the entire present-day Afghanistan, Pakistan, and for a short time, the Khorasan and Kohistan provinces of Iran, along with Delhi in India. He defeated the Maratha Empire in 1761 at the Battle of Panipat.
In October 1772, Ahmad Shah retired to his home in Kandahar where he died peacefully and was buried at a site that is now adjacent to the Shrine of the Cloak. He was succeeded by his son, Timur Shah Durrani, who transferred the capital of their Afghan Empire from Kandahar to Kabul. Timur died in 1793 and his son Zaman Shah Durrani took over the reign.
Zaman Shah and his brothers had a weak hold on the legacy left to them by their famous ancestor. They sorted out their differences through a "round robin of expulsions, blindings and executions," which resulted in the deterioration of the Afghan hold over far-flung territories, such as Attock and Kashmir. Durrani's other grandson, Shuja Shah Durrani, fled the wrath of his brother and sought refuge with the Sikhs. Not only had Durrani invaded the Punjab region many times, but had destroyed the holiest shrine of the Sikhs – the Harmandir Sahib in Amritsar, defiling its "sarowar" with the blood of cows and decapitating Baba Deep Singh in 1757. The Sikhs, under Ranjit Singh, eventually wrested a large part of the Kingdom of Kabul (present day Pakistan, but not including Sindh) from the Afghans. In 1837, the Afghan army descended through the Khyber Pass on Sikh forces at Jamrud killed the Sikh general Hari Singh Nalwa but could not capture the fort.
Dost Mohammed Khan gained control in Kabul. Collision between the expanding British and Russian Empires significantly influenced Afghanistan during the 19th century in what was termed "The Great Game". British concern over Russian advances in Central Asia and growing influence in West Asia and Persia in particular culminated in two Anglo-Afghan wars and "The Siege of Herat" 1837–1838, in which the Persians, trying to retake Afghanistan and throw out the British, sent armies into the country and fought the British mostly around and in the city of Herat. The first Anglo-Afghan War (1839–1842) resulted in the destruction of a British army; it is remembered by first-hand account as an example of the ferocity of Afghan resistance to foreign rule. The Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878–1880) was sparked by Amir Shir Ali's refusal to accept a British mission in Kabul. This conflict brought Amir Abdur Rahman, known by some as the "Iron Amir", to the Afghan throne. During his reign (1880–1901), the British and Russians officially established the boundaries of what would become modern Afghanistan. The British retained effective control over Kabul's foreign affairs. Abdur Rahman's reforms of the army, legal system and structure of government were able to give Afghanistan a degree of unity and stability which it had not before known. This, however, came at the cost of strong centralisation, harsh punishments for crime and corruption, and a certain degree of international isolation.
Habibullah Khan, Abdur Rahman's son, came to the throne in 1901 and kept Afghanistan neutral during World War I, despite German encouragement of anti-British feelings and Afghan rebellion along the borders of British India. His policy of neutrality was not universally popular within the country; however, and Habibullah was assassinated in 1919, possibly by family members opposed to British influence. His third son, Amanullah, regained control of Afghanistan's foreign policy after launching the Third Anglo-Afghan War with an attack on India in the same year. During the ensuing conflict, the war-weary British relinquished their control over Afghan foreign affairs by signing the Treaty of Rawalpindi in August 1919. In commemoration of this event, Afghans celebrate 19 August as their Independence Day.
King Amanullah Khan moved to end his country's traditional isolation in the years following the Third Anglo-Afghan war. After quelling the Khost rebellion in 1925, he established diplomatic relations with most major countries and, following a 1927 tour of Europe and Turkey (during which he noted the modernization and secularization advanced by Atatürk), introduced several reforms intended to modernize Afghanistan. A key force behind these reforms was Mahmud Tarzi, Amanullah Khan's Foreign Minister and father-in-law — and an ardent supporter of the education of women. He fought for Article 68 of Afghanistan's first constitution (declared through a Loya Jirga), which made elementary education compulsory. Some of the reforms that were actually put in place, such as the abolition of the traditional Muslim veil for women and the opening of a number of co-educational schools, quickly alienated many tribal and religious leaders, which led to the revolt of the Shinwari in November 1928, marking the beginning of the Afghan Civil War (1928–1929). Although the Shinwari revolt was quelled, a concurrent Saqqawist uprising in the north eventually managed to depose Amanullah, leading to Habibullāh Kalakāni taking control of Kabul.
Prince Mohammed Nadir Khan, cousin of Amanullah Khan, in turn defeated, and executed Habibullah Kalakani in October and November 1929 respectively. He was soon declared King Nadir Khan. He began consolidating power and regenerating the country. He abandoned the reforms of Amanullah Khan in favour of a more gradual approach to modernisation. In 1933, however, he was assassinated in a revenge killing by a student from Kabul.
Mohammad Zahir Shah, Nadir Khan's 19-year-old son, succeeded to the throne and reigned from 1933 to 1973. The Afghan tribal revolts of 1944–1947 saw Zahir Shah's reign being challenged by Zadran, Safi and Mangal tribesmen led by Mazrak Zadran and Salemai among others. Until 1946 Zahir Shah ruled with the assistance of his uncle Sardar Mohammad Hashim Khan, who held the post of Prime Minister and continued the policies of Nadir Khan. In 1946, another of Zahir Shah's uncles, Sardar Shah Mahmud Khan, became Prime Minister and began an experiment allowing greater political freedom, but reversed the policy when it went further than he expected. In 1953, he was replaced as Prime Minister by Mohammed Daoud Khan, the king's cousin and brother-in-law. Daoud looked for a closer relationship with the Soviet Union and a more distant one towards Pakistan. However, disputes with Pakistan led to an economic crisis and he was asked to resign in 1963. From 1963 until 1973, Zahir Shah took a more active role.
In 1964, King Zahir Shah promulgated a liberal constitution providing for a bicameral legislature to which the king appointed one-third of the deputies. The people elected another third, and the remainder were selected indirectly by provincial assemblies. Although Zahir's "experiment in democracy" produced few lasting reforms, it permitted the growth of unofficial extremist parties on both the left and the right. This included the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), which had close ideological ties to the Soviet Union. In 1967, the PDPA split into two major rival factions: the Khalq (Masses) was headed by Nur Muhammad Taraki and Hafizullah Amin who were supported by elements within the military, and the Parcham (Banner) led by Babrak Karmal.
Amid charges of corruption and malfeasance against the royal family and poor economic conditions created by the severe 1971–72 drought, former Prime Minister Mohammad Sardar Daoud Khan seized power in a non-violent coup on July 17, 1973, while Zahir Shah was receiving treatment for eye problems and therapy for lumbago in Italy. Daoud abolished the monarchy, abrogated the 1964 constitution, and declared Afghanistan a republic with himself as its first President and Prime Minister. His attempts to carry out badly needed economic and social reforms met with little success, and the new constitution promulgated in February 1977 failed to quell chronic political instability.
As disillusionment set in, in 1978 a prominent member of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), Mir Akbar Khyber (or "Kaibar"), was killed by the government. The leaders of PDPA apparently feared that Daoud was planning to exterminate them all, especially since most of them were arrested by the government shortly after. Nonetheless, Hafizullah Amin and a number of military wing officers of the PDPA's Khalq faction managed to remain at large and organize a military coup.
On 28 April 1978, the PDPA, led by Nur Mohammad Taraki, Babrak Karmal and Amin Taha overthrew the government of Mohammad Daoud, who was assassinated along with all his family members in a bloody military coup. The coup became known as the Saur Revolution. On 1 May, Taraki became President, Prime Minister and General Secretary of the PDPA. The country was then renamed the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA), and the PDPA regime lasted, in some form or another, until April 1992.
In March 1979, Hafizullah Amin took over as prime minister, retaining the position of field marshal and becoming vice-president of the Supreme Defence Council. Taraki remained President and in control of the Army. On 14 September, Amin overthrew Taraki, who was killed. Amin stated that "the Afghans recognize only crude force." Afghanistan expert Amin Saikal writes: "As his powers grew, so apparently did his craving for personal dictatorship ... and his vision of the revolutionary process based on terror."
Once in power, the PDPA implemented a liberal and Marxist–Leninist agenda. It moved to replace religious and traditional laws with secular and Marxist–Leninist ones. Men were obliged to cut their beards, women could not wear a chador, and mosques were placed off limits. The PDPA made a number of reforms on women's rights, banning forced marriages and giving state recognition of women's right to vote. A prominent example was Anahita Ratebzad, who was a major Marxist leader and a member of the Revolutionary Council. Ratebzad wrote the famous "New Kabul Times" editorial (May 28, 1978) which declared: "Privileges which women, by right, must have are equal education, job security, health services, and free time to rear a healthy generation for building the future of the country ... Educating and enlightening women is now the subject of close government attention." The PDPA also carried out socialist land reforms and moved to promote state atheism. They also prohibited usury. The PDPA invited the Soviet Union to assist in modernizing its economic infrastructure (predominantly its exploration and mining of rare minerals and natural gas). The USSR also sent contractors to build roads, hospitals and schools and to drill water wells; they also trained and equipped the Afghan army. Upon the PDPA's ascension to power, and the establishment of the DRA, the Soviet Union promised monetary aid amounting to at least $1.262 billion.
At the same time, the PDPA imprisoned, tortured or murdered thousands of members of the traditional elite, the religious establishment, and the intelligentsia. The government launched a campaign of violent repression, killing some 10,000 to 27,000 people and imprisoning 14,000 to 20,000 more, mostly at Pul-e-Charkhi prison. In December 1978 the PDPA leadership signed an agreement with the Soviet Union which would allow military support for the PDPA in Afghanistan if needed. The majority of people in the cities including Kabul either welcomed or were ambivalent to these policies. However, the Marxist–Leninist and secular nature of the government as well as its heavy dependence on the Soviet Union made it unpopular with a majority of the Afghan population. Repressions plunged large parts of the country, especially the rural areas, into open revolt against the new Marxist–Leninist government. By spring 1979 unrests had reached 24 out of 28 Afghan provinces including major urban areas. Over half of the Afghan army would either desert or join the insurrection. Most of the government's new policies clashed directly with the traditional Afghan understanding of Islam, making religion one of the only forces capable of unifying the tribally and ethnically divided population against the unpopular new government, and ushering in the advent of Islamist participation in Afghan politics.
To bolster the Parcham faction, the Soviet Union decided to intervene on December 27, 1979, when the Red Army invaded its southern neighbor. Over 100,000 Soviet troops took part in the invasion, which was backed by another 100,000 Afghan military men and supporters of the Parcham faction. In the meantime, Hafizullah Amin was killed and replaced by Babrak Karmal.
In response to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the Carter administration and Reagan administration in the U.S. began arming the Mujahideen, thanks in large part to the efforts of Charlie Wilson and CIA officer Gust Avrakotos. Early reports estimated that $6–20 billion had been spent by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia but more recent reports state that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia provided as much as up to $40 billion in cash and weapons, which included over two thousand FIM-92 Stinger surface-to-air missiles, for building up Islamic groups against the Soviet Union. The U.S. handled most of its support through Pakistan's ISI.
Scholars such as W. Michael Reisman, Charles Norchi and Mohammed Kakar, believe that the Afghans were victims of genocide by the Soviet Union. Soviet forces and their proxies killed between 562,000 and 2 million Afghans and Russian soldiers also engaged in abductions and rapes of Afghan women. About 6 million fled as Afghan refugees to Pakistan and Iran, and from there over 38,000 made it to the United States and many more to the European Union. The Afghan refugees in Iran and Pakistan brought with them verifiable stories of murder, collective rape, torture and depopulation of civilians by the Soviet forces. Faced with mounting international pressure and great number of casualties on both sides, the Soviets withdrew in 1989. Their withdrawal from Afghanistan was seen as an ideological victory in the United States, which had backed some Mujahideen factions through three U.S. presidential administrations to counter Soviet influence in the vicinity of the oil-rich Persian Gulf. The USSR continued to support President Mohammad Najibullah (former head of the Afghan secret service, "KHAD") until 1992.
Pakistan's spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), headed by Hamid Gul at the time, was interested in a trans-national Islamic revolution which would cover Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia. For this purpose the ISI masterminded an attack on Jalalabad in March 1989, for the Mujahideen to establish their own government in Afghanistan, but this failed in three months.
With the crumbling of the Najibullah-regime early in 1992, Afghanistan fell into further disarray and civil war. A U.N.-supported attempt to have the mujahideen parties and armies form a coalition government shattered. Mujahideen did not abide by the mutual pledges and Ahmad Shah Masood forces because of his proximity to Kabul captured the capital before Mujahideen Govt was established. So the elected prime minister and warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, started war on his president and Massod force entrenched in Kabul. This ignited civil war, because the other mujahideen parties wouldn't settle for Hekmatyar ruling alone or sharing actual power with him. Within weeks, the still frail unity of the other mujahideen forces also evaporated, and six militias were fighting each other in and around Kabul.
Subghatullah Mujadady was elected as Afghanistan's elected interim president for two months and then professor Burhanuddin Rabani a well known Kabul university professor and the leader of Jamiat-e-Islami party of Mujahiddin who fought against Russians during the occupation was chosen by all of the Jahadi leaders except Golbuddin Hikmat Yar. Professor Rabani reigned as the official and elected president of Afghanistan by Shurai Mujahiddin Peshawer (Peshawer Mujahiddin Council) from 1992 until 2001 when he officially handed over the presidency post to Hamid Karzai the next US appointed interim president. During Rabbani's presidency some parts of the country including a few provinces in the north such as Mazar e-Sharif, Jawzjan, Faryab, Shuburghan and some parts of Baghlan provinces were ruled by general Abdul Rashid Dostom.
During Rabbani's first five years illegal term before the emergence of the Taliban, the eastern and western provinces and some of the northern provinces such as Badakhshan, Takhar, Kunduz, the main parts of Baghlan Province, and some parts of Kandahar and other southern provinces were under the control of the central government while the other parts of southern provinces did not obey him because of his Tajik ethnicity. During the 9 year presidency of Burhanuddin Rabani, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was directed, funded and supplied by the Pakistani army. Afghanistan analyst Amin Saikal concludes in his book "Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival":
There was no time for the interim government to create working government departments, police units or a system of justice and accountability. Saudi Arabia and Iran also armed and directed Afghan militias. A publication by the George Washington University describes:
Meanwhile, the southern city of Kandahar was a centre of lawlessness, crime and atrocities fuelled by complex Pashtun tribal rivalries. In 1994, the Taliban (a movement originating from Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-run religious schools for Afghan refugees in Pakistan) also developed in Afghanistan as a politico-religious force, reportedly in opposition to the tyranny of the local governor. Mullah Omar started his movement with fewer than 50 armed madrassah students in his hometown of Kandahar. As Gulbuddin Hekmatyar remained unsuccessful in conquering Kabul, Pakistan started supporting the Taliban. Many analysts like Amin Saikal describe the Taliban as developing into a proxy force for Pakistan's regional interests. In 1994 the Taliban took power in several provinces in southern and central Afghanistan.
In 1995 the Hezb-i Islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the Iranian-backed Hezb-i Wahdat as well as Rashid Dostum's Junbish forces were defeated militarily in the capital Kabul by forces of the interim government under Massoud who subsequently tried to initiate a nationwide political process with the goal of national consolidation and democratic elections, also inviting the Taliban to join the process. The Taliban declined.
The Taliban started shelling Kabul in early 1995 but were defeated by forces of the Islamic State government under Ahmad Shah Massoud. Amnesty International, referring to the Taliban offensive, wrote in a 1995 report:
On September 26, 1996, as the Taliban, with military support by Pakistan and financial support by Saudi Arabia, prepared for another major offensive, Massoud ordered a full retreat from Kabul. The Taliban seized Kabul on September 27, 1996, and established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. They imposed on the parts of Afghanistan under their control their political and judicial interpretation of Islam, issuing edicts forbidding women from working outside the home, attending school or leaving their homes unless accompanied by a male relative. Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) said:
After the fall of Kabul to the Taliban on September 27, 1996, Ahmad Shah Massoud and Abdul Rashid Dostum, two former enemies, created the United Front (Northern Alliance) against the Taliban, who were preparing offensives against the remaining areas under the control of Massoud and Dostum. The United Front included beside the dominantly Tajik forces of Massoud and the Uzbek forces of Dostum, Hazara factions and Pashtun forces under the leadership of commanders such as Abdul Haq, Haji Abdul Qadir, Qari Baba or diplomat Abdul Rahim Ghafoorzai. From the Taliban conquest in 1996 until November 2001 the United Front controlled roughly 30% of Afghanistan's population in provinces such as Badakhshan, Kapisa, Takhar and parts of Parwan, Kunar, Nuristan, Laghman, Samangan, Kunduz, Ghōr and Bamyan.
According to a 55-page report by the United Nations, the Taliban, while trying to consolidate control over northern and western Afghanistan, committed systematic massacres against civilians. UN officials stated that there had been "15 massacres" between 1996 and 2001. They also said, that "[t]hese have been highly systematic and they all lead back to the [Taliban] Ministry of Defense or to Mullah Omar himself." The Taliban especially targeted people of Shia religious or Hazara ethnic background. Upon taking Mazar-i-Sharif in 1998, about 4,000 civilians were executed by the Taliban and many more reported tortured. Among those killed in Mazari Sharif were several Iranian diplomats. Others were kidnapped by the Taliban, touching off a hostage crisis that nearly escalated to a full-scale war, with 150,000 Iranian soldiers massed on the Afghan border at one time. It was later admitted that the diplomats were killed by the Taliban, and their bodies were returned to Iran.
The documents also reveal the role of Arab and Pakistani support troops in these killings. Osama Bin Laden's so-called 055 Brigade was responsible for mass-killings of Afghan civilians. The report by the United Nations quotes eyewitnesses in many villages describing Arab fighters carrying long knives used for slitting throats and skinning people.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf – then as Chief of Army Staff – was responsible for sending thousands of Pakistanis to fight alongside the Taliban and Bin Laden against the forces of Massoud. In total there were believed to be 28,000 Pakistani nationals fighting inside Afghanistan. 20,000 were regular Pakistani soldiers either from the Frontier Corps or army and an estimated 8,000 were militants recruited in madrassas filling regular Taliban ranks. The estimated 25,000 Taliban regular force thus comprised more than 8,000 Pakistani nationals. A 1998 document by the U.S. State Department confirms that "20–40 percent of [regular] Taliban soldiers are Pakistani." The document further states that the parents of those Pakistani nationals "know nothing regarding their child's military involvement with the Taliban until their bodies are brought back to Pakistan." A further 3,000 fighter of the regular Taliban army were Arab and Central Asian militants. From 1996 to 2001 the Al Qaeda of Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri became a state within the Taliban state. Bin Laden sent Arab recruits to join the fight against the United Front. Of roughly 45,000 Pakistani, Taliban and Al Qaeda soldiers fighting against the forces of Massoud only 14,000 were Afghan.
According to Human Rights Watch in 1997 Taliban soldiers were summarily executed in and around Mazar-i Sharif by Dostum's Junbish forces. Dostum was defeated by the Taliban in 1998 with the fall of Mazar-i-Sharif. Massoud remained the only leader of the United Front in Afghanistan.
In the areas under his control Ahmad Shah Massoud set up democratic institutions and signed the Women's Rights Charter. Human Rights Watch cites no human rights crimes for the forces under direct control of Massoud for the period from October 1996 until the assassination of Massoud in September 2001. As a consequence many civilians fled to the area of Ahmad Shah Massoud. National Geographic concluded in its documentary "Inside the Taliban":
The Taliban repeatedly offered Massoud a position of power to make him stop his resistance. Massoud declined for he did not fight to obtain a position of power. He said in one interview:
and
Massoud wanted to convince the Taliban to join a political process leading towards democratic elections in a foreseeable future. Massoud stated that:
In early 2001 Massoud employed a new strategy of local military pressure and global political appeals. Resentment was increasingly gathering against Taliban rule from the bottom of Afghan society including the Pashtun areas. Massoud publicized their cause "popular consensus, general elections and democracy" worldwide. At the same time he was very wary not to revive the failed Kabul government of the early 1990s. Already in 1999 he started the training of police forces which he trained specifically to keep order and protect the civilian population in case the United Front would be successful.
In early 2001 Massoud addressed the European Parliament in Brussels asking the international community to provide humanitarian help to the people of Afghanistan. He stated that the Taliban and Al Qaeda had introduced "a very wrong perception of Islam" and that without the support of Pakistan the Taliban would not be able to sustain their military campaign for up to a year.
On 9 September 2001, Ahmad Shah Massoud was assassinated by two Arab suicide attackers inside Afghanistan. Two days later about 3,000 people became victims of the September 11 attacks in the United States, when Afghan-based Al-Qaeda suicide bombers hijacked planes and flew them into four targets in the Northeastern United States. Then US President George W. Bush accused Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as the faces behind the attacks. When the Taliban refused to hand over bin Laden to US authorities and to disband al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, Operation Enduring Freedom was launched in which teams of American and British special forces worked with commanders of the United Front (Northern Alliance) against the Taliban. At the same time the US-led forces were bombing Taliban and al-Qaeda targets everywhere inside Afghanistan with cruise missiles. These actions led to the fall of Mazar-i-Sharif in the north followed by all the other cities, as the Taliban and al-Qaeda crossed over the porous Durand Line border into Pakistan. In December 2001, after the Taliban government was toppled and the new Afghan government under Hamid Karzai was formed, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was established by the UN Security Council to help assist the Karzai administration and provide basic security to the Afghan people. The majority of Afghans supported the American invasion of their country.
While the Taliban began regrouping inside Pakistan, the rebuilding of war-torn Afghanistan kicked off in 2002 (see also War in Afghanistan (2001–present)). The Afghan nation was able to build democratic structures over the years by the creation of an emergency loya jirga to set up the modern Afghan government, and some progress was made in key areas such as governance, economy, health, education, transport, and agriculture. NATO is training the Afghan armed forces as well its national police. ISAF and Afghan troops led many offensives against the Taliban but failed to fully defeat them. By 2009, a Taliban-led shadow government began to form in many parts of the country complete with their own version of mediation court. After U.S. President Barack Obama announced the deployment of another 30,000 soldiers in 2010 for a period of two years, Der Spiegel published images of the US soldiers who killed unarmed Afghan civilians.
In 2009, the United States resettled 328 refugees from Afghanistan. Over five million Afghan refugees were repatriated in the last decade, including many who were forcefully deported from NATO countries. This large return of Afghans may have helped the nation's economy but the country still remains one of the poorest in the world due to the decades of war, lack of foreign investment, ongoing government corruption and the Pakistani-backed Taliban insurgency. The United States also accuses neighboring Iran of providing small level of support to the Taliban insurgents. According to a report by the United Nations, the Taliban and other militants were responsible for 76% of civilian casualties in 2009, 75% in 2010 and 80% in 2011.
In October 2008 U.S. Defense Secretary Gates had asserted that a political settlement with the Taliban was the endgame for the Afghanistan war. "There has to be ultimately – and I'll underscore ultimately – reconciliation as part of a political outcome to this," Gates stated. By 2010 peace efforts began. In early January, Taliban commanders held secret exploratory talks with a United Nations special envoy to discuss peace terms. Regional commanders on the Taliban's leadership council, the Quetta Shura, sought a meeting with the UN special representative in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, and it took place in Dubai on January 8. It was the first such meeting between the UN and senior members of the Taliban. On 26 January 2010, at a major conference in London which brought together some 70 countries and organizations, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said he intends to reach out to the Taliban leadership (including Mullah Omar, Sirajuddin Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar). Supported by NATO, Karzai called on the group's leadership to take part in a loya jirga meeting to initiate peace talks. These steps have resulted in an intensification of bombings, assassinations and ambushes. Some Afghan groups (including the former intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh and opposition leader Dr. Abdullah Abdullah) believe that Karzai plans to appease the insurgents' senior leadership at the cost of the democratic constitution, the democratic process and progress in the field of human rights especially women's rights. Dr. Abdullah stated:
Afghan President Hamid Karzai told world leaders during the London conference that he intends to reach out to the top echelons of the Taliban within a few weeks with a peace initiative. Karzai set the framework for dialogue with Taliban leaders when he called on the group's leadership to take part in a "loya jirga" – or large assembly of elders – to initiate peace talks. Karzai also asked for creation of a new peacemaking organization, to be called the National Council for Peace, Reconciliation and Reintegration. Karzai's top adviser on the reconciliation process with the insurgents said that the country must learn to forgive the Taliban. In March 2010, the Karzai government held preliminary talks with Hezb-i-Islami, who presented a plan which included the withdrawal of all foreign troops by the end of 2010. The Taliban declined to participate, saying "The Islamic Emirate has a clear position. We have said this many, many times. There will be no talks when there are foreign troops on Afghanistan's soil killing innocent Afghans on daily basis." In June 2010 the Afghan Peace Jirga 2010 took place. In September 2010 General David Petraeus commented on the progress of peace talks to date, stating, "The prospect for reconciliation with senior Taliban leaders certainly looms out there...and there have been approaches at (a) very senior level that hold some promise."
After the May 2011 death of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, many prominent Afghan figures began being assassinated, including Mohammed Daud Daud, Ahmad Wali Karzai, Jan Mohammad Khan, Ghulam Haider Hamidi, Burhanuddin Rabbani and others. Also in the same year, the Pakistani-Afghan border skirmishes intensified and many large scale attacks by the Pakistani-based Haqqani network took place across Afghanistan. This led to the United States warning Pakistan of a possible military action against the Haqqanis in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. The U.S. blamed Pakistan's government, mainly Pakistani Army and its ISI spy network as the masterminds behind all of this. U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter, told Radio Pakistan that "The attack that took place in Kabul a few days ago, that was the work of the Haqqani network. There is evidence linking the Haqqani Network to the Pakistan government. This is something that must stop." Other top U.S. officials such as Hillary Clinton and Leon Panetta made similar statements. On October 16, 2011, "Operation Knife Edge" was launched by NATO and Afghan forces against the Haqqani network in south-eastern Afghanistan. Afghan Defense Minister, Abdul Rahim Wardak, explained that the operation will "help eliminate the insurgents before they struck in areas along the troubled frontier". In November 2011, NATO forces attacked Pakistani soldiers in the Pakistan border region. In 2014, Ashraf Ghani was elected to be the president of Afghanistan.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=13813
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History of modern Greece
The history of modern Greece covers the history of Greece from the recognition of its autonomy from the Ottoman Empire by the Great Powers (Great Britain, France, and Russia) in 1828, after the Greek War of Independence, to the present day.
The Byzantine Empire had ruled most of the Greek-speaking world since late Antiquity, but experienced a decline as a result of Muslim Arab and Seljuk Turkish invasions and was fatally weakened by the sacking of Constantinople by the Latin Crusaders in 1204. The establishment of Catholic Latin states on Greek soil, and the struggles of the Orthodox Byzantine Greeks against them, led to the emergence of a distinct Greek national identity. The Byzantine Empire was restored by the Palaiologos dynasty in 1261, but it was a shadow of its former self, and constant civil wars and foreign attacks in the 14th century brought about its terminal decline. As a result, most of Greece gradually became part of the Ottoman Empire in the late 14th and early 15th century, culminating in the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, the conquest of the Duchy of Athens in 1458, and of the Despotate of the Morea in 1460.
Ottoman control was largely absent in the mountainous interior of Greece, and many fled there, often becoming brigands. Otherwise, only the islands of the Aegean and a few coastal fortresses on the mainland, under Venetian and Genoese rule, remained free from Ottoman rule, but by the mid-16th century, the Ottomans had conquered most of them as well. Rhodes fell in 1522, Cyprus in 1571, and the Venetians retained Crete until 1670. The Ionian Islands were only briefly ruled by the Ottomans (Kefalonia from 1479 to 1481 and from 1485 to 1500), and remained primarily under the rule of Venice.
The first large-scale insurrection against Ottoman rule was the Orlov Revolt of the early 1770s, but it was brutally repressed. The same time, however, also marks the start of the Modern Greek Enlightenment, as Greeks who studied in Western Europe brought knowledge and ideas back to their homeland, and as Greek merchants and shipowners increased their wealth. As a result, especially in the aftermath of the French Revolution, liberal and nationalist ideas began to spread across the Greek lands.
In 1821, the Greeks rose up against the Ottoman Empire. Initial successes were followed by infighting, which almost caused the Greek struggle to collapse; nevertheless, the prolongation of the fight forced the Great Powers (Britain, Russia and France) to recognize the claims of the Greek rebels to separate statehood (Treaty of London) and intervene against the Ottomans at the Battle of Navarino. Greece was initially to be an autonomous state under Ottoman suzerainty, but by 1832, in the Treaty of Constantinople, it was recognized as a fully independent kingdom. In the meantime, the 3rd National Assembly of the Greek insurgents called upon Ioannis Kapodistrias, a former foreign minister of Russia, to take over the governance of the fledgling state in 1827.
On his arrival, Kapodistrias launched a major reform and modernisation programme that covered all areas. He re-established military unity by bringing an end to the second phase of the civil war; re-organised the military, which was then able to reconquer territory lost to the Ottoman military during the civil wars; and introduced the first modern quarantine system in Greece, which brought diseases such as typhoid fever, cholera and dysentery under control for the first time since the start of the War of Independence.
Kapodistrias also negotiated with the Great Powers and the Ottoman Empire to establish the borders and degree of independence of the Greek state; signed the peace treaty that ended the War of Independence with the Ottomans; introduced the "phoenix", the first modern Greek currency; organised local administration; and, in an effort to raise the living standards of the population, introduced the cultivation of the potato into Greece.
Furthermore, he tried to undermine the authority of the traditional clans (or dynasties) that he considered the useless legacy of a bygone and obsolete era. However, he underestimated the political and military strength of the "capetanei" (καπεταναίοι – commanders) who had led the revolt against Ottoman Empire in 1821, and who had expected a leadership role in the post-revolution Government. When a dispute between the "capetanei" of Laconia and the appointed governor of the province escalated into an armed conflict, he called in Russian troops to restore order, because much of the army was controlled by "capetanei" who had been part of the rebellion.
George Finlay's 1861 "History of Greek Revolution" records that by 1831 Kapodistrias's government had become hated, chiefly by the independent Maniots, but also by the Roumeliotes and the rich and influential merchant families of Hydra, Spetses and Psara. The customs dues of the inhabitants of Hydra were the chief source of revenue for these municipalities, and they refused to hand these over to Kapodistrias. It appears that Kapodistrias had refused to convene the National Assembly and was ruling as a despot, possibly influenced by his Russian experiences. The municipality of Hydra instructed Admiral Miaoulis and Alexandros Mavrokordatos to go to Poros and seize the Hellenic Navy's fleet there. This Miaoulis did so with the intention of preventing a blockade of the islands, so for a time it seemed as if the National Assembly would be called.
Kapodistrias called on the British and French residents to support him in putting down the rebellion, but this they refused to do. Nonetheless, an Admiral Rikord (or Ricord) took his ships north to Poros. Colonel (later General) Kallergis took a half-trained force of Greek Army regulars and a force of irregulars in support. With less than 200 men, Miaoulis was unable to make much of a fight; Fort Heidek on Bourtzi Island was overrun by the regulars and the brig "Spetses" (once Laskarina Bouboulina's "Agamemnon") sank by Ricord's force. Encircled by the Russians in the harbor and Kallergis' force on land, Poros surrendered. Miaoulis was forced to set charges in the flagship "Hellas" and the corvette "Hydra" to blow them up when he and his handful of followers returned to Hydra. Kallergis' men were enraged by the loss of the ships and sacked Poros, carrying off plunder to Nauplion.
The loss of the best ships in the fleet crippled the Hellenic Navy for many years, but it also weakened Kapodistrias' position. He did finally call the National Assembly, but his other actions triggered more opposition and that led to his downfall.
In 1831, Kapodistrias ordered the imprisonment of Petrobey Mavromichalis, the Bey of the Mani Peninsula, one of the wildest and most rebellious parts of Greece. This was a mortal offence to the Mavromichalis family, and on 9 October 1831 (27 September in the Julian Calendar) Kapodistrias was assassinated by Petros' brother Konstantis and son Georgios on the steps of the church of Saint Spyridon in Nafplio.
Ioannis Kapodistrias was succeeded as Governor by his younger brother, Augustinos Kapodistrias. Augustinos ruled only for six months, during which the country was very much plunged into chaos. Under the protocol signed at the London Conference of 1832 on 7 May 1832 between Bavaria and the protecting Powers, Greece was defined as an independent kingdom, free of Ottoman control, with the Arta-Volos line as its northern frontier. The protocol also dealt with the way in which a Regency was to be managed until Otto of Bavaria reached his majority to assume the throne of Greece. The Ottoman Empire was indemnified in the sum of 40,000,000 piastres for the loss of territory in the new kingdom.
Otto's reign would prove troubled, but he managed to hang on for 30 years before he and his wife, Queen Amalia, left the same way they came, aboard a British warship. During the early years of his reign, a group of Bavarian Regents ruled in his name, and they made themselves very unpopular by trying to impose German ideas of rigid hierarchical government on the Greeks, while keeping most significant state offices away from them. Nevertheless, they laid the foundations of a Greek administration, army, justice system and education system. Otto was sincere in his desire to give Greece good government, but he suffered from two great handicaps: his Roman Catholic faith and his childless marriage to Queen Amalia. This meant he could neither be crowned as King of Greece under the Orthodox rite nor establish a dynasty.
The Bavarian Regents ruled until 1837, when they were recalled at the insistence of Britain and France. Otto thereafter appointed Greek ministers, although Bavarian officials still ran most of the administration and the army. At this time, Greece still had no legislature and no constitution. Discontent grew until the 3 September 1843 Revolution broke out in Athens. Otto agreed to grant a constitution and convened a National Assembly that met in November of the same year. The Greek Constitution of 1844 then created a bicameral parliament consisting of an Assembly ("Vouli") and a Senate ("Gerousia"). Power then passed into the hands of a group of Greek politicians, most of whom who had been commanders in the War of Independence against the Ottomans.
Greek politics in the 19th century was dominated by the "national question." The majority of Greeks continued to live under Ottoman rule, and Greeks dreamed of liberating them all and reconstituting a state embracing all the Greek lands, with Constantinople as its capital. This was called the Great Idea ("Megali Idea"), and it was sustained by almost continuous rebellions against Ottoman rule in Greek-speaking territories, particularly Crete, Thessaly and Macedonia.
When the Crimean War broke out in 1854, Greece saw an opportunity to gain Ottoman-controlled territory that had large Greek populations. Greece, an Orthodox nation, had considerable support in Russia, but the Russian government decided it was too dangerous to help Greece expand its holdings. When the Russians attacked the Ottoman forces, Greece invaded Thessaly and Epirus. To block further Greek moves, the British and French occupied the main Greek port at Piraeus from April 1854 to February 1857. The Greeks, gambling on a Russian victory, incited the large-scale Epirus Revolt of 1854 as well as uprisings in Crete. The revolts failed and Greece made no gains during the Crimean War, which Russia lost.
A new generation of Greek politicians was growing increasingly intolerant of King Otto's continuing interference in government. In 1862, the King dismissed his Prime Minister, the former admiral Constantine Kanaris, the most prominent politician of the period. This provoked a military rebellion, forcing Otto to accept the inevitable and leave the country.
The Greeks then asked Britain to send Queen Victoria's son Prince Alfred as their new king, but this was vetoed by the other Powers. Instead, a young Danish Prince became King George I. George was a very popular choice as a constitutional monarch, and he agreed that his sons would be raised in the Greek Orthodox faith. As a reward to the Greeks for adopting a pro-British King, Britain ceded the Ionian Islands to Greece.
At the urging of Britain and King George, Greece adopted the much more democratic Greek Constitution of 1864. The powers of the King were reduced, the Senate was abolished, and the franchise was extended to all adult males. Approval voting was used in elections, with one urn for each candidate divided into "yes" and "no" portions into which voters dropped lead beads. Nevertheless, Greek politics remained heavily dynastic, as it has always been. Family names such as Zaimis, Rallis and Trikoupis occurred repeatedly as Prime Ministers.
Although parties were centered around the individual leaders, often bearing their names, two broad political tendencies existed: the liberals, led first by Charilaos Trikoupis and later by Eleftherios Venizelos, and the conservatives, led initially by Theodoros Deligiannis and later by Thrasivoulos Zaimis. Trikoupis and Deligiannis dominated Greek politics in the later 19th century, alternating in office. Trikoupis favoured co-operation with Great Britain in foreign affairs, the creation of infrastructure and an indigenous industry, raising protective tariffs and progressive social legislation, while the more populist Deligiannis depended on the promotion of Greek nationalism and the "Megali Idea".
Greece remained a very poor country throughout the 19th century. The country lacked raw materials, infrastructure and capital. Agriculture was mostly at the subsistence level, and the only important export commodities were currants, raisins and tobacco. Some Greeks grew rich as merchants and shipowners, and Piraeus became a major port, but little of this wealth found its way to the Greek peasantry. Greece remained hopelessly in debt to London finance houses.
By the 1890s Greece was virtually bankrupt. Poverty was rife in the rural areas and the islands, and was eased only by large-scale emigration to the United States. There was little education in the rural areas. Nevertheless, there was progress in building communications and infrastructure, and fine public buildings were erected in Athens. Despite the bad financial situation, Athens staged the revival of the Olympic Games in 1896, which proved a great success.
The parliamentary process developed greatly in Greece during the reign of George I. Initially, the royal prerogative in choosing his prime minister remained and contributed to governmental instability, until the introduction of the "dedilomeni" principle of parliamentary confidence in 1875 by the reformist Charilaos Trikoupis. Clientelism and frequent electoral upheavals however remained the norm in Greek politics, and frustrated the country's development.
Corruption and Trikoupis' increased spending (to create necessary infrastructure such as the Corinth Canal) overtaxed the weak Greek economy, forcing the declaration of public insolvency in 1893 and to accept the imposition of an International Financial Control authority to pay off the country's creditors.
Another political issue in 19th-century Greece was the Greek language question. The Greek people spoke a form of Greek called Demotic. Many of the educated elite saw this as a peasant dialect and were determined to restore the glories of Ancient Greek. Government documents and newspapers were consequently published in "Katharevousa" (purified) Greek, a form that few ordinary Greeks could read. Liberals favoured recognising Demotic as the national language, but conservatives and the Orthodox Church resisted all such efforts, to the extent that when the New Testament was translated into Demotic in 1901, riots erupted in Athens and the government fell (the "Evangeliaka"). This issue would continue to plague Greek politics until the 1970s.
All Greeks were united, however, in their determination to liberate the Greek-speaking provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Especially in Crete, the Cretan Revolt (1866–1869) raised nationalist fervour. When war broke out between Russian and the Ottomans in the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), Greek popular sentiment rallied to Russia's side, but Greece was too poor and too concerned about British intervention to enter the war officially. Nevertheless, in 1881, Thessaly and small parts of Epirus were ceded to Greece as part of the Treaty of Berlin.
Greeks in Crete continued to stage regular revolts, and in 1897, the Greek government under Theodoros Deligiannis, bowing to popular pressure, declared war on the Ottomans. In the ensuing Greco-Turkish War of 1897, the badly trained and equipped Greek army was defeated by the Ottomans. Through the intervention of the Great Powers however, Greece lost only a little territory along the border to Turkey, while Crete was established as an autonomous state under Prince George of Greece as the Cretan State.
Nationalist sentiment among Greeks in the Ottoman Empire continued to grow, and by the 1890s there were constant disturbances in Macedonia. Here, the Greeks were in competition not only with the Ottomans, but also with the Bulgarians, in an armed propaganda struggle for the hearts and minds of the ethnically mixed local population, the so-called "Macedonian Struggle".
In July 1908, the Young Turk Revolution broke out in the Ottoman Empire. Taking advantage of the Ottoman internal turmoil, Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina and Bulgaria declared its independence from the Ottoman Empire. On Crete, the local population, led by a young politician named Eleftherios Venizelos, declared "Enosis", Union with Greece, provoking another crisis. The fact that the Greek government, led by Dimitrios Rallis, proved unable to likewise take advantage of the situation and bring Crete into the fold, rankled many Greeks, especially young military officers. These formed a secret society, the "Military League", with the purpose of emulating their Ottoman colleagues to seek governmental reforms.
The resulting Goudi coup on 15 August 1909 marked a watershed in modern Greek history: as the military conspirators were inexperienced in politics, they asked Venizelos, who had impeccable liberal credentials, to come to Greece as their political adviser. Venizelos quickly established himself as a powerful political figure, and his allies won the August 1910 elections. Venizelos became Prime Minister in October 1910, ushering a period of 25 years where his personality would dominate Greek politics.
Venizelos initiated a major reform program, including a new and more liberal constitution and reforms in the spheres of public administration, education and economy. French and British military missions were invited for the army and navy respectively, and arms purchases were made. In the meantime, the Ottoman Empire's weaknesses were revealed by the ongoing Italo-Turkish War in Libya.
Through the spring of 1912, a series of bilateral agreements between the Christian Balkan states (Greece, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Serbia) formed the Balkan League, which in October 1912 declared war on the Ottoman Empire. In the First Balkan War, the Ottomans were defeated on all fronts, and the four allies rushed to grab as much territory as they could. The Greeks occupied Thessaloniki just ahead of the Bulgarians, and also took much of Epirus with Ioannina, as well as Crete and the Aegean Islands.
The Treaty of London (1913) ended the war, but no one was left satisfied, and soon, the four allies fell out over the partition of Macedonia. In June 1913, Bulgaria attacked Greece and Serbia, beginning the Second Balkan War, but was beaten back. The Treaty of Bucharest (1913), which concluded the Second Balkan War, left Greece with southern Epirus, the southern half of Macedonia (known as Greek Macedonia), Crete and the Aegean islands, except for the Dodecanese, which had been occupied by Italy since 1911. These gains nearly doubled Greece's area and population.
In March 1913, an anarchist, Alexandros Schinas, assassinated King George in Thessaloniki, and his son came to the throne as Constantine I. Constantine was the first Greek king born in Greece and the first to be Greek Orthodox by birth. His very name had been chosen in the spirit of romantic Greek nationalism (the "Megali Idea"), evoking the Byzantine emperors of that name. In addition, as the Commander-in-chief of the Greek Army during the Balkan Wars, his popularity was enormous, rivalled only by that of Venizelos, his Prime Minister.
When World War I broke out in 1914, the King and his Prime Minister Venizelos both preferred to maintain a neutral stance, in spite of Greece's treaty of alliance with Serbia, which had been attacked by Austria-Hungary as the first belligerent action of the conflict. But when the Allies asked for Greek help in the Dardanelles campaign of 1915, offering Cyprus in exchange, their diverging views became apparent: Constantine had been educated in Germany, was married to Sophia of Prussia, sister of Kaiser Wilhelm, and was convinced of the Central Powers' victory. Venizelos, on the other hand, was an ardent anglophile, and believed in an Allied victory.
Since Greece, a maritime country, could not oppose the mighty British navy, and citing the need for a respite after two wars, King Constantine favored continued neutrality, while Venizelos actively sought Greek entry in the war on the Allied side. Venizelos resigned, but won the Greek elections of 1915 and again formed the government. When Bulgaria entered the war as a German ally in October 1915, Venizelos invited Allied forces into Greece (the Salonika Front), for which he was again dismissed by Constantine.
In August 1916, after several incidents in which both sides in the war had encroached upon the still theoretically neutral Greek territory, Venizelist officers rose up in Allied-controlled Thessaloniki and Venizelos established a separate government there known as the result of a so-called Movement of National Defence. Constantine was now ruling only in what was Greece before the Balkan Wars ("Old Greece"), and his government was subject to repeated humiliations from the Allies. In November 1916 the French occupied Piraeus, bombarded Athens and forced the Greek fleet to surrender. The royalist troops fired at them, leading to a battle between French and Greek royalist troops. There were also riots against supporters of Venizelos in Athens (the "Noemvriana").
Following the February Revolution in Russia in 1917, the Tsar's support for his cousin Constantine was eliminated, and he was forced to leave the country, without actually abdicating, in June 1917. His second son Alexander became King, while the remaining royal family and the most prominent royalists followed him into exile. Venizelos now led a superficially united Greece into the war on the Allied side, but underneath the surface, the division of Greek society into Venizelists and anti-Venizelists, the so-called National Schism, became more entrenched.
With the end of the war in November 1918, the moribund Ottoman Empire was ready to be carved up among the victors, and Greece now expected the Allies to deliver on their promises. In no small measure through the diplomatic efforts of Venizelos, Greece secured Western Thrace in the Treaty of Neuilly in November 1919 and Eastern Thrace and a zone around Smyrna in western Anatolia (already under Greek administration as the Occupation of İzmir since May 1919) in the Treaty of Sèvres of August 1920. The future of Constantinople was left to be determined. But at the same time, a Turkish National Movement rose in Turkey led by Mustafa Kemal (later Kemal Atatürk), who set up a rival government in Ankara and was engaged in fighting the Greek army.
At this point, the fulfillment of the "Megali Idea" seemed near. Yet so deep was the rift in Greek society that on his return to Greece, an assassination attempt was made on Venizelos by two royalist former officers. Even more surprisingly, Venizelos' Liberal Party lost the Greek elections of November 1920, and in the Greek plebescite of 1920, the Greek people voted for the return of King Constantine from exile after the sudden death of King Alexander.
The United Opposition, which had campaigned on the slogan of an end to the Asia Minor Campaign in Anatolia, instead intensified it. But the royalist restoration had dire consequences: many veteran Venizelist officers were dismissed or left the army, while Italy and France found the return of the hated Constantine a useful pretext for switching their support to Kemal. Finally, in August 1922, the Turkish army shattered the Greek front, and took Smyrna in an operation that led to the disastrous Great Fire of Smyrna.
The Greek army evacuated not only Anatolia, but also Eastern Thrace and the islands of Imbros and Tenedos in accordance with the terms of the Treaty of Lausanne (1923). A population exchange between Greece and Turkey was agreed between the two countries, with over 1.5 million Christians and almost half a million Muslims being uprooted. This catastrophe marked the end of the "Megali Idea", and left Greece financially exhausted, demoralized, and having to house and feed a proportionately huge number of Greek refugees.
The catastrophe deepened the political crisis, with the returning army rising up under Venizelist officers and forcing King Constantine to abdicate again, in September 1922, in favour of his firstborn son, George II. The "Revolutionary Committee" headed by Colonels Stylianos Gonatas (soon to become Prime Minister) and Nikolaos Plastiras engaged in a witch-hunt against the royalists, culminating in the "Trial of the Six".
The Greek election of 1923 was held to form a National Assembly with powers to draft a new constitution. Following a failed royalist Leonardopoulos-Gargalidis coup attempt, the monarchist parties abstained, leading to a landslide for the Liberals and their allies. King George II was asked to leave the country, and on 25 March 1924, Alexandros Papanastasiou proclaimed the Second Hellenic Republic, ratified by the Greek plebiscite of 1924 a month later.
However, the new Republic was built on unstable foundations. The National Schism lived on, as the monarchists, with the exception of Ioannis Metaxas, did not acknowledge the Venizelist-sponsored Republican regime. The army, which had power and provided many of the leading proponents of both sides, became a factor to be reckoned with, prone to intervene in politics.
Greece was diplomatically isolated and vulnerable, as the Corfu incident of 1923 showed, and the economic foundations of the state were in ruins after a decade of war and the sudden increase of the country's population by a quarter. The refugees, however, also brought a new air into Greece. They were impoverished now, but before 1922 many had been entrepreneurs and well-educated. Staunch supporters of Venizelos and the Republic, many would radicalize and play a leading role in the nascent Communist Party of Greece.
In June 1925, General Theodoros Pangalos launched a coup and ruled as a dictator for a year until a counter-coup by another General, Georgios Kondylis, unseated him and restored the Republic. In the meantime, Pangalos managed to embroil Greece in a short-lived war with Bulgaria precipitated by the Incident at Petrich and make unacceptable concessions in Thessaloniki and its hinterland to Yugoslavia in an effort to gain its support for his revanchist policies against Turkey.
In 1928, Venizelos returned from exile. After a landslide victory in the Greek election of 1928, he formed a government. This was the only cabinet of the Second Republic to run its full four-year term, and the work it left behind was considerable. Alongside domestic reforms, Venizelos restored Greece's frayed international relations, even initiating a Greco-Turkish reconciliation with a visit to Ankara and the signing of a Friendship Agreement in 1930.
The Great Depression hit Greece, an already poor country dependent on agricultural exports, particularly hard. Matters were made worse by the closing off of emigration to the United States, the traditional safety valve of rural poverty. High unemployment and consequent social unrest resulted, and the Communist Party of Greece made rapid advances. Venizelos was forced to default on Greece's national debt in 1932, and he fell from office after the Greek elections of 1932. He was succeeded by a monarchist coalition government led by Panagis Tsaldaris of the People's Party.
Two failed Venizelist military coups followed in 1933 and 1935 in an effort to preserve the Republic, but they had the opposite effect. On 10 October 1935, a few months after he suppressed the 1935 Greek coup d'état attempt, Georgios Kondylis, the former Venizelist stalwart, abolished the Republic in another coup, and declared the monarchy restored. The rigged Greek plebiscite of 1935 confirmed the regime change (with an unsurprising 97.88% of votes), and King George II returned.
King George II immediately dismissed Kondylis and appointed Professor Konstantinos Demertzis as interim Prime Minister. Venizelos meanwhile, in exile, urged an end to the conflict over the monarchy in view of the threat to Greece from the rise of Fascist Italy. His successors as Liberal leader, Themistoklis Sophoulis and Georgios Papandreou, agreed, and the restoration of the monarchy was accepted. The Greek elections of 1936 resulted in a hung parliament, with the Communists holding the balance. As no government could be formed, Demertzis continued on. At the same time, a series of deaths left the Greek political scene in disarray: Kondylis died in February, Venizelos in March, Demertzis in April and Tsaldaris in May. The road was now clear for Ioannis Metaxas, who had succeeded Demertzis as interim Prime Minister.
Metaxas, a retired royalist general, believed that an authoritarian government was necessary to prevent social conflict and quell the rising power of the Communists. On 4 August 1936, with the King's support, he suspended parliament and established the 4th of August Regime. The Communists were suppressed and the Liberal leaders went into internal exile. Patterning itself after Benito Mussolini's Fascist Italy, Metaxas' regime promoted various concepts such as the "Third Hellenic Civilization", the Roman salute, a National Organisation of Youth, and introduced measures to gain popular support, such as the Greek Social Insurance Institute (IKA), still the biggest social security institution in Greece.
Despite these efforts, the regime lacked a broad popular base or a mass movement supporting it. The Greek people were generally apathetic, without actively opposing Metaxas. Metaxas also improved the country's defenses in preparation for the forthcoming European war, constructing, among other defensive measures, the "Metaxas Line". Despite his aping of Fascism, and the strong economic ties with resurgent Nazi Germany, Metaxas followed a policy of neutrality, given Greece's traditionally strong ties to Britain, reinforced by King George II's personal anglophilia. In April 1939, the Italian threat suddenly loomed closer when Italy annexed Albania, whereupon Britain publicly guaranteed Greece's borders. Thus, when World War II broke out in September 1939, Greece remained neutral.
Despite this declared neutrality, Greece became a target for Mussolini's expansionist policies. Provocations against Greece included the sinking of the Greek cruiser "Elli" on 15 August 1940. Italian troops crossed the border on 28 October 1940, beginning the Greco-Italian War, but were stopped by a determined Greek defence that ultimately drove them back into Albania.
Metaxas died suddenly in January 1941. His death raised hopes for a liberalization of his regime and the restoration of parliamentary rule, but King George quashed these hopes when he retained the regime's machinery in place. In the meantime, Adolf Hitler was reluctantly forced to divert German troops to rescue Mussolini from defeat, and attacked Greece through Yugoslavia and Bulgaria on 6 April 1941. Despite British assistance, the Germans overran most of the country by the end of May. The King and the government escaped to Crete, where they stayed until the end of the Battle of Crete. They then transferred to Egypt, where a Greek government in exile was established.
The occupied country of Greece was divided in three zones (German, Italian and Bulgarian) and in Athens, a puppet regime was established. The members were either conservatives or nationalists with fascist leanings. The three quisling prime ministers were Georgios Tsolakoglou, the general who had signed the armistice with the Wehrmacht, Konstantinos Logothetopoulos, and Ioannis Rallis, who took office when the German defeat was inevitable and aimed primarily at combating the left-wing Resistance movement. To this end, he created the collaborationist Security Battalions.
Greece suffered terrible privations during World War II as the Germans appropriated most of the country's agricultural production and prevented its fishing fleets from operating. As a result, and because a British blockade initially hindered foreign relief efforts, the Great Greek Famine resulted. Hundreds of thousands of Greeks perished, especially in the winter of 1941–1942. In the mountains of the Greek mainland, in the meantime, several Greek resistance movements sprang up, and by mid-1943, the Axis forces controlled only the main towns and the connecting roads, while a "Free Greece" was set up in the mountains.
The largest resistance group, the National Liberation Front (EAM), was controlled by the Communist Party of Greece, as was the Greek People's Liberation Army (ELAS), led by Aris Velouchiotis, and a civil war soon broke out between it and non-Communist groups such as the National Republican Greek League (EDES) in those areas liberated from the Germans. The exiled government in Cairo was only intermittently in touch with the resistance movement and exercised virtually no influence in the occupied country. Part of this was due to the unpopularity of King George II in Greece itself, but despite efforts by Greek politicians, British support ensured his retention at the head of the Cairo government.
As the German defeat drew nearer, the various Greek political factions convened in Lebanon in May 1944 under British auspices and formed a government of national unity under George Papandreou, in which EAM was represented by six ministers.
German forces withdrew on 12 October 1944, and the government in exile returned to Athens. agreed Tensions between the British-backed Papandreou and the EAM, especially over the issue of disarmament of the various armed groups, led to the resignation of the latter's ministers from the government.
A few days later, on 3 December 1944, a large-scale pro-EAM demonstration in Athens ended in violence and ushered an intense, house-to-house struggle with British and monarchist forces (the "Dekemvriana"). After three weeks, the Communists were defeated: the Varkiza agreement ended the conflict and disarmed ELAS, and an unstable coalition government was formed. The anti-EAM backlash grew into a full-scale "White Terror", which exacerbated tensions.
The Communists boycotted the March 1946 elections, and on the same day, fighting broke out again. By the end of 1946, the Communist Democratic Army of Greece had been formed, pitted against the governmental National Army, which was backed first by Britain and after 1947 by the United States.
Communist successes in 1947–1948 enabled them to move freely over much of mainland Greece, but with extensive reorganization, the deportation of rural populations and American material support, the National Army was slowly able to regain control over most of the countryside. In 1949, the insurgents suffered a major blow, as Yugoslavia closed its borders following the split between Marshal Josip Broz Tito with the Soviet Union. Finally, in August 1949, the National Army under Marshal Alexander Papagos launched an offensive that forced the remaining insurgents to surrender or flee across the northern border into the territory of Greece's northern Communist neighbors.
The civil war resulted in 100,000 killed and caused catastrophic economic disruption. In addition, at least 25,000 Greeks and an unspecified number of Macedonian Slavs were either voluntarily or forcibly evacuated to Eastern bloc countries, while 700,000 became displaced persons inside the country. Many more emigrated to Australia and other countries.
The postwar settlement ended Greece's territorial expansion, which had begun in 1832. The 1947 Treaty of Paris required Italy to hand over the Dodecanese islands to Greece. These were the last majority-Greek-speaking areas to be united with the Greek state, apart from Cyprus which was a British possession until it became independent in 1960. Greece's ethnic homogeneity was increased by the postwar expulsion of 25,000 Albanians from Epirus (see Cham Albanians). The only significant remaining minorities are the Muslims in Western Thrace (about 100,000) and a small Slavic-speaking minority in the north. Greek nationalists continued to claim southern Albania (which they called Northern Epirus), home of a significant Greek population (about 3%-12% in the whole of Albania), and the Turkish-held islands of Imvros and Tenedos, where there were smaller Greek minorities.
After the civil war, Greece sought to join the Western democracies and became a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1952.
Since the Civil war (1946–49) but even more after that, the parties in the parliament were divided in three political concentrations. The political formation Right-Centre-Left, given the exacerbation of political animosity that had preceded dividing the country in the 40s, tended to turn the concurrence of parties into ideological positions.
In the beginning of the 1950s, the forces of the Centre (EPEK) succeeded in gaining the power and under the leadership of the aged general N. Plastiras they governed for about half a four-year term. These were a series of governments having limited manoeuvreability and inadequate influence in the political arena. This government, as well as those that followed, was constantly under the American auspices. The defeat of EPEK in the elections of 1952, apart from increasing the repressive measures that concerned the defeated of the Civil war, also marked the end of the general political position that it represented, namely political consensus and social reconciliation.
The Left, which had been ostracized from the political life of the country, found a way of expression through the constitution of EDA (United Democratic Left) in 1951, which turned out to be a significant pole, yet steadily excluded from the decision making centres. After the disbandment of the Centre as an autonomous political institution, EDA practically expanded its electoral influence to a significant part of the EAM-based Centre-Left.
The 1960s are part of the period 1953–72, during which Greek economy developed rapidly and was structured within the scope of European and worldwide economic developments. One of the main characteristics of that period was the major political event of the country's accession in the European Economic Community, in an attempt to create a common market. The relevant treaty was contracted in 1962.
The developmental strategy adopted by the country was embodied in centrally organized five-year plans; yet their orientation was indistinct. The average annual emigration, which absorbed the excess workforce and contributed to extremely high growth rates, exceeded the annual natural increase in population. The influx of large amounts of foreign private capital was being facilitated and consumption was expanded. These, associated with the rise of tourism, the expansion of shipping activity and with the migrant remittances, had a positive effect on the country's balance of payments.
The peak of development was registered principally in manufacturing, mainly in the textile, chemical and metallurgical industries, the growth rate of which reached 11% during 1965–70. The other large area where obvious economic and social consequences occurred, was that of construction. The policy of αντιπαροχή ("antiparochi", "property-swap"), a Greek invention which entailed the concession of construction land to developers in return for a share in the resulting multi-storey apartment buildings, favoured the creation of a class of small-medium contractors on the one hand and settled the housing system and property status on the other. However, it was also responsible for the demolition of much of the country's traditional and 19th-century neoclassical architecture, and the transformation of Greek cities, and especially Athens, into a "form-less, border-less and placeless urban landscape".
During that decade, youth culture came to the fore in society as a distinct social power with autonomous presence (creation of a new culture in music, fashion etc.) and young people displayed dynamism in the assertion of their social rights. The independence granted to Cyprus, which was mined from the very beginning, constituted the main focus of young activist mobilizations, along with struggles aiming at reforms in education, which were provisionally realized to a certain extent through the educational reform of 1964. The country reckoned on and was influenced by Europe—usually behind time—and by the current trends like never before.
The country descended into a prolonged political crisis, and elections were scheduled for late April 1967. On 21 April 1967 a group of right-wing colonels led by Colonel George Papadopoulos seized power in a coup d'état establishing the Regime of the Colonels. Civil liberties were suppressed, special military courts were established, and political parties were dissolved.
Several thousand suspected communists and political opponents were imprisoned or exiled to remote Greek islands. Alleged US support for the junta is claimed to be the cause of rising anti-americanism in Greece during and following the junta's harsh rule. The junta's early years also saw a marked upturn in the economy, with increased foreign investment and large-scale infrastructure works. The junta was widely condemned abroad, but inside the country, discontent began to increase only after 1970, when the economy slowed down.
Even the armed forces, the regime's foundation, were not immune: In May 1973, a planned coup by the Hellenic Navy was narrowly suppressed, but led to the mutiny of the , whose officers sought political asylum in Italy. In response, junta leader Papadopoulos attempted to steer the regime towards a controlled democratization, abolishing the monarchy and declaring himself President of the Republic.
On 25 November 1973, following the bloody suppression of Athens Polytechnic uprising on the 17th, the hardliner Brigadier Dimitrios Ioannides overthrew Papadopoulos and tried to continue the dictatorship despite the popular unrest the uprising had triggered. Ioannides' attempt in July 1974 to overthrow Archbishop Makarios, the President of Cyprus, brought Greece to the brink of war with Turkey, which invaded Cyprus and occupied part of the island.
Senior Greek military officers then withdrew their support from the junta, which collapsed. Constantine Karamanlis returned from exile in France to establish a government of national unity until elections could be held. Karamanlis worked to defuse the risk of war with Turkey and also legalised the Communist Party, which had been illegal since 1947. His newly organized party, New Democracy (ND), won the elections held in November 1974 by a wide margin, and he became prime minister.
Following the 1974 referendum which resulted in the abolition of the monarchy, a new constitution was approved by parliament on 19 June 1975. Parliament elected Constantine Tsatsos as President of the Republic. In the parliamentary elections of 1977, New Democracy again won a majority of seats. In May 1980, Prime Minister Karamanlis was elected to succeed Tsatsos as President. George Rallis succeeded Karamanlis as Prime Minister.
On 1 January 1981, Greece became the tenth member of the European Community (now the European Union). In parliamentary elections held on 18 October 1981, Greece elected its first socialist government when the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), led by Andreas Papandreou, won 172 of 300 seats. On 29 March 1985, after Prime Minister Papandreou declined to support President Karamanlis for a second term, Supreme Court Justice Christos Sartzetakis was elected president by the Greek parliament.
Greece had two rounds of parliamentary elections in 1989; both produced weak coalition governments with limited mandates. Party leaders withdrew their support in February 1990, and elections were held on 8 April. New Democracy, led by Constantine Mitsotakis, won 150 seats in that election and subsequently gained two others. However, a split between Mitsotakis and his first Foreign Minister, Antonis Samaras, in 1992, led to Samaras' dismissal and the eventual collapse of the ND government. In new elections in September 1993, Papandreou returned to power.
On 17 January 1996, following a protracted illness, Papandreou resigned and was replaced as Prime Minister by former Minister of Trade and Industry Costas Simitis. Within days, the new prime minister had to handle a major Greek-Turkish crisis over the Imia/Kardak islands. Simitis subsequently won re-election in the 1996 and 2000 elections. In 2004, Simitis retired and George Papandreou succeeded him as PASOK leader.
In the March 2004 elections, PASOK was defeated by New Democracy, led by Kostas Karamanlis, the nephew of the former President. The government called early elections in September 2007 (normally, elections would have been held in March 2008), and New Democracy again was the majority party in the Parliament. As a result of that defeat, PASOK undertook a party election for a new leader. In that contest, George Papandreou was reelected as the head of the socialist party in Greece. In the 2009 elections however, PASOK became the majority party in the Parliament and George Papandreou became Prime Minister of Greece. After PASOK lost its majority in the Parliament, ND and PASOK joined the smaller Popular Orthodox Rally in a grand coalition, pledging their parliamentary support for a government of national unity headed by former European Central Bank vice-president Lucas Papademos.
From late 2009, fears of a sovereign debt crisis developed among investors concerning Greece's ability to meet its debt obligations due to strong increase in government debt levels. This led to a crisis of confidence, indicated by a widening of bond yield spreads and risk insurance on credit default swaps compared to other countries, most importantly Germany. Downgrading of Greek government debt to junk bonds created alarm in financial markets.
On 2 May 2010, the Eurozone countries and the International Monetary Fund agreed on a loan for Greece, conditional on the implementation of harsh austerity measures. In October 2011, Eurozone leaders also agreed on a proposal to write off 50% of Greek debt owed to private creditors, increasing the EFSF to about €1 trillion and requiring European banks to achieve 9% capitalization to reduce the risk of contagion to other countries. These austerity measures have proved extremely unpopular with the Greek public, precipitating demonstrations and civil unrest.
There are widespread fears that a Greek default on its debt would have global repercussions, endangering the economies of many other countries in the European Union, threatening the stability of the European currency, the euro, and possibly plunging the world into another recession. It has been speculated that the crisis may force Greece to abandon the euro and bring back its former currency, the drachma. In April 2014, Greece returned to the global bond market as it successfully sold €3 billion worth of five-year government bonds at a yield of 4.95%. According to the IMF, Greece will have real GDP growth of 0.6% in 2014 after 5 years of decline.
Following the May 2012 legislative election where the New Democracy party became the largest party in the Hellenic Parliament, Samaras, leader of ND, was asked by Greek President Karolos Papoulias to try to form a government. However, after a day of hard negotiations with the other parties in Parliament, Samaras officially announced he was giving up the mandate to form a government. The task passed to Alexis Tsipras, leader of the SYRIZA (the second-largest party) who was also unable to form a government. After PASOK also failed to negotiate a successful agreement to form a government, emergency talks with the President ended with a new election being called while Panagiotis Pikrammenos was appointed as Prime Minister in a caretaker government.
Voters once again took to the polls in the widely watched June 2012 election. New Democracy came out on top in a stronger position with 129 seats, compared to 108 in the May election. On 20 June 2012, Samaras successfully formed a coalition with PASOK (now led by former Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos) and DIMAR. The new government would have a majority of 58, with SYRIZA, Independent Greeks (ANEL), Golden Dawn (XA) and the Communist Party (KKE) comprising the opposition. PASOK and DIMAR chose to take a limited role in Samaras' Cabinet, being represented by party officials and independent technocrats instead of MPs.
In wake of the austerity measures adopted by the Samaras government, Greeks voted the anti-austerity, left-wing SYRIZA into office in the January 2015 legislative election into office.Samaras accepted defeat and said that his party had done much to restore the country's finances.
SYRIZA government lost its majority in August 2015,when some of its MPs withdrew their support in favor of the governing coalition. SYRIZA won the September elections, but failed to get an outright majority.Later they formed a coalition with Independent Greeks, a right-wing party.
The party suffered heavy defeats at the 2019 European Parliament election, and prime minister and SYRIZA leader, Alexis Tsipras resigned to organize a snap election. It resulted in a majority for New democracy, and the appointment of Kyriakos Mitsotakis as prime minister.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=13814
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Heracles
Heracles ( ; , "Hēraklês", Glory/Pride of "Hēra", "Hera"), born Alcaeus (, "Alkaios") () or Alcides (, "Alkeidēs") () was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon. He was a great-grandson and half-brother (as they are both sired by the god Zeus) of Perseus. He was the greatest of the Greek heroes, a paragon of masculinity, the ancestor of royal clans who claimed to be Heracleidae (), and a champion of the Olympian order against chthonic monsters. In Rome and the modern West, he is known as Hercules, with whom the later Roman emperors, in particular Commodus and Maximian, often identified themselves. The Romans adopted the Greek version of his life and works essentially unchanged, but added anecdotal detail of their own, some of it linking the hero with the geography of the Central Mediterranean. Details of his cult were adapted to Rome as well.
Many popular stories were told of his life, the most famous being The Twelve Labours of Heracles; Alexandrian poets of the Hellenistic age drew his mythology into a high poetic and tragic atmosphere. His figure, which initially drew on Near Eastern motifs such as the lion-fight, was widely known.
Heracles was the greatest of Hellenic chthonic heroes, but unlike other Greek heroes, no tomb was identified as his. Heracles was both hero and god, as Pindar says "heros theos"; at the same festival sacrifice was made to him, first as a hero, with a chthonic libation, and then as a god, upon an altar: thus he embodies the closest Greek approach to a "demi-god".
The core of the story of Heracles has been identified by Walter Burkert as originating in Neolithic hunter culture and traditions of shamanistic crossings into the netherworld. It is possible that the myths surrounding Heracles were based on the life of a real person or several people whose accomplishments became exaggerated with time. Based on commonalities in the legends of Heracles and Odysseus, author Steven Sora suggested that they were both based on the same historical person, who made his mark prior to recorded history.
Heracles' role as a culture hero, whose death could be a subject of mythic telling (see below), was accepted into the Olympian Pantheon during Classical times. This created an awkwardness in the encounter with Odysseus in the episode of "Odyssey" XI, called the Nekuia, where Odysseus encounters Heracles in Hades:
Ancient critics were aware of the problem of the aside that interrupts the vivid and complete description, in which Heracles recognizes Odysseus and hails him, and modern critics find very good reasons for denying that the verse's beginning, in Fagles' translation "His ghost I mean ..." were part of the original composition: "once people knew of Heracles' admission to Olympus, they would not tolerate his presence in the underworld", remarks Friedrich Solmsen, noting that the interpolated verses represent a compromise between conflicting representations of Heracles.
In Christian circles, a Euhemerist reading of the widespread Heracles cult was attributed to a historical figure who had been offered cult status after his death. Thus Eusebius, "Preparation of the Gospel" (10.12), reported that Clement could offer historical dates for Hercules as a king in Argos: "from the reign of Hercules in Argos to the deification of Hercules himself and of Asclepius there are comprised thirty-eight years, according to Apollodorus the chronicler: and from that point to the deification of Castor and Pollux fifty-three years: and somewhere about this time was the capture of Troy."
Readers with a literalist bent, following Clement's reasoning, have asserted from this remark that, since Heracles ruled over Tiryns in Argos at the same time that Eurystheus ruled over Mycenae, and since at about this time Linus was Heracles' teacher, one can conclude, based on Jerome's date—in his universal history, his "Chronicon"—given to Linus' notoriety in teaching Heracles in 1264 BCE, that Heracles' death and deification occurred 38 years later, in approximately 1226 BCE.
The ancient Greeks celebrated the festival of the "Heracleia", which commemorated the death of Heracles, on the second day of the month of Metageitnion (which would fall in late July or early August). What is believed to be an Egyptian Temple of Heracles in the Bahariya Oasis dates to 21 BCE. A reassessment of Ptolemy's descriptions of the island of Malta attempted to link the site at Ras ir-Raħeb with a temple to Heracles, but the arguments are not conclusive. Several ancient cities were named Heraclea in his honor.
Although the Athenians were among the first to worship Heracles as a god, there were Greek cities that refused to recognize the hero's divine status. There are also several "poleis" that merely provided two separate sanctuaries for Heracles, one recognizing him as a god, the other only as a hero. This ambiguity helped create the Heracles cult especially when historians (e.g. Herodotus) and artists encouraged worship such as the painters during the time of the Peisistratos, who often presented Heracles entering Olympus in their works.
Some sources explained that the cult of Heracles persisted because of the hero's ascent to heaven and his suffering, which became the basis for festivals, ritual, rites, and the organization of mysteries. There is the observation, for example, that sufferings ("pathea") gave rise to the rituals of grief and mourning, which came before the joy in the mysteries in the sequence of cult rituals. Also, like the case of Apollo, the cult of Hercules has been sustained through the years by absorbing local cult figures such as those who share the same nature. He was also constantly invoked as a patron for men, especially the young ones. For example, he was considered the ideal in warfare so he presided over gymnasiums and the "ephebes" or those men undergoing military training.
There were ancient towns and cities that also adopted Heracles as a patron deity, contributing to the spread of his cult. There was the case of the royal house of Macedonia, which claimed lineal descent from the hero primarily for purposes of divine protection and legitimator of actions.
The earliest evidence that show the worship of Heracles in popular cult was in 6th century BCE (121–122 and 160–165) via an ancient inscription from Phaleron.
Extraordinary strength, courage, ingenuity, and sexual prowess with both males and females were among the characteristics commonly attributed to him. Heracles used his wits on several occasions when his strength did not suffice, such as when laboring for the king Augeas of Elis, wrestling the giant Antaeus, or tricking Atlas into taking the sky back onto his shoulders. Together with Hermes he was the patron and protector of gymnasia and palaestrae. His iconographic attributes are the lion skin and the club. These qualities did not prevent him from being regarded as a playful figure who used games to relax from his labors and played a great deal with children. By conquering dangerous archaic forces he is said to have "made the world safe for mankind" and to be its benefactor. Heracles was an extremely passionate and emotional individual, capable of doing both great deeds for his friends (such as wrestling with Thanatos on behalf of Prince Admetus, who had regaled Heracles with his hospitality, or restoring his friend Tyndareus to the throne of Sparta after he was overthrown) and being a terrible enemy who would wreak horrible vengeance on those who crossed him, as Augeas, Neleus, and Laomedon all found out to their cost. There was also a coldness to his character, which was demonstrated by Sophocles' depiction of the hero in "The Trachiniae". Heracles threatened his marriage with his desire to bring two women under the same roof; one of them was his wife Deianeira.
In the works of Euripides involving Heracles, his actions were partly driven by forces outside rational human control. By highlighting the divine causation of his madness, Euripides problematized Heracles' character and status within the civilized context. This aspect is also highlighted in "Hercules Furens" where Seneca linked the hero's madness to an illusion and a consequence of Herakles' refusal to live a simple life, as offered by Amphitryon. It was indicated that he preferred the extravagant violence of the heroic life and that its ghosts eventually manifested in his madness and that the hallucinatory visions defined Herakles' character.
A major factor in the well-known tragedies surrounding Heracles is the hatred that the goddess Hera, wife of Zeus, had for him. A full account of Heracles must render it clear why Heracles was so tormented by Hera, when there were many illegitimate offspring sired by Zeus. Heracles was the son of the affair Zeus had with the mortal woman Alcmene. Zeus made love to her after disguising himself as her husband, Amphitryon, home early from war (Amphitryon did return later the same night, and Alcmene became pregnant with his son at the same time, a case of heteropaternal superfecundation, where a woman carries twins sired by different fathers). Thus, Heracles' very existence proved at least one of Zeus' many illicit affairs, and Hera often conspired against Zeus' mortal offspring as revenge for her husband's infidelities. His twin mortal brother, son of Amphitryon, was Iphicles, father of Heracles' charioteer Iolaus.
On the night the twins Heracles and Iphicles were to be born, Hera, knowing of her husband Zeus' adultery, persuaded Zeus to swear an oath that the child born that night to a member of the House of Perseus would become High King. Hera did this knowing that while Heracles was to be born a descendant of Perseus, so too was Eurystheus. Once the oath was sworn, Hera hurried to Alcmene's dwelling and slowed the birth of the twins Heracles and Iphicles by forcing Ilithyia, goddess of childbirth, to sit crosslegged with her clothing tied in knots, thereby causing the twins to be trapped in the womb. Meanwhile, Hera caused Eurystheus to be born prematurely, making him High King in place of Heracles. She would have permanently delayed Heracles' birth had she not been fooled by Galanthis, Alcmene's servant, who lied to Ilithyia, saying that Alcmene had already delivered the baby. Upon hearing this, she jumped in surprise, loosing the knots and inadvertently allowing Alcmene to give birth to Heracles and Iphicles.
Fear of Hera's revenge led Alcmene to expose the infant Heracles, but he was taken up and brought to Hera by his half-sister Athena, who played an important role as protectress of heroes. Hera did not recognize Heracles and nursed him out of pity. Heracles suckled so strongly that he caused Hera pain, and she pushed him away. Her milk sprayed across the heavens and there formed the Milky Way. But with divine milk, Heracles had acquired supernatural powers. Athena brought the infant back to his mother, and he was subsequently raised by his parents.
The child was originally given the name Alcides by his parents; it was only later that he became known as Heracles. He was renamed Heracles in an unsuccessful attempt to mollify Hera. He and his twin were just eight months old when Hera sent two giant snakes into the children's chamber. Iphicles cried from fear, but his brother grabbed a snake in each hand and strangled them. He was found by his nurse playing with them on his cot as if they were toys. Astonished, Amphitryon sent for the seer Tiresias, who prophesied an unusual future for the boy, saying he would vanquish numerous monsters.
After killing his music tutor Linus with a lyre, he was sent to tend cattle on a mountain by his foster father Amphitryon. Here, according to an allegorical parable, "The Choice of Heracles", invented by the sophist Prodicus (c. 400 BCE) and reported in Xenophon's "Memorabilia" 2.1.21–34, he was visited by two allegorical figures—Vice and Virtue—who offered him a choice between a pleasant and easy life or a severe but glorious life: he chose the latter. This was part of a pattern of "ethicizing" Heracles over the 5th century BCE.
Later in Thebes, Heracles married King Creon's daughter, Megara. In a fit of madness, induced by Hera, Heracles killed his children and Megara. After his madness had been cured with hellebore by Antikyreus, the founder of Antikyra, he realized what he had done and fled to the Oracle of Delphi. Unbeknownst to him, the Oracle was guided by Hera. He was directed to serve King Eurystheus for ten years and perform any task Eurystheus required of him. Eurystheus decided to give Heracles ten labours, but after completing them, Heracles was cheated by Eurystheus when he added two more, resulting in the Twelve Labors of Heracles.
Driven mad by Hera, Heracles slew his own children. To expiate the crime, Heracles was required to carry out ten labours set by his archenemy, Eurystheus, who had become king in Heracles' place. If he succeeded, he would be purified of his sin and, as myth says, he would become a god, and be granted immortality.
Despite the difficulty, Heracles accomplished these tasks, but Eurystheus in the end did not accept the success the hero had with two of the labours: the cleansing of the Augean stables, because Heracles was going to accept pay for the labour; and the killing of the Lernaean Hydra, as Heracles' nephew, Iolaus, had helped him burn the stumps of the multiplying heads.
Eurystheus set two more tasks, fetching the Golden Apples of Hesperides and capturing Cerberus. In the end, with ease, the hero successfully performed each added task, bringing the total number of labours up to the magic number twelve.
Not all versions and writers give the labours in the same order. The "Bibliotheca" (2.5.1–2.5.12) gives the following order:
After completing these tasks, Heracles fell in love with Princess Iole of Oechalia. King Eurytus of Oechalia promised his daughter, Iole, to whoever could beat his sons in an archery contest. Heracles won but Eurytus abandoned his promise. Heracles' advances were spurned by the king and his sons, except for one: Iole's brother Iphitus. Heracles killed the king and his sons—excluding Iphitus—and abducted Iole. Iphitus became Heracles' best friend. However, once again, Hera drove Heracles mad and he threw Iphitus over the city wall to his death. Once again, Heracles purified himself through three years of servitude—this time to Queen Omphale of Lydia.
Omphale was a queen or princess of Lydia. As penalty for a murder, imposed by Xenoclea, the Delphic Oracle, Heracles was to serve as her slave for a year. He was forced to do women's work and to wear women's clothes, while she wore the skin of the Nemean Lion and carried his olive-wood club. After some time, Omphale freed Heracles and married him. Some sources mention a son born to them who is variously named. It was at that time that the cercopes, mischievous wood spirits, stole Heracles' weapons. He punished them by tying them to a stick with their faces pointing downward.
While walking through the wilderness, Heracles was set upon by the Dryopes. In Apollonius of Rhodes' "Argonautica" it is recalled that Heracles had mercilessly slain their king, Theiodamas, over one of the latter's bulls, and made war upon the Dryopes "because they gave no heed to justice in their lives". After the death of their king, the Dryopes gave in and offered him Prince Hylas. He took the youth on as his weapons bearer and beloved. Years later, Heracles and Hylas joined the crew of the "Argo". As Argonauts, they only participated in part of the journey. In Mysia, Hylas was kidnapped by the nymphs of a local spring. Heracles, heartbroken, searched for a long time but Hylas had fallen in love with the nymphs and never showed up again. In other versions, he simply drowned. Either way, the "Argo" set sail without them.
Hesiod's "Theogony" and Aeschylus' "Prometheus Unbound" both tell that Heracles shot and killed the eagle that tortured Prometheus (which was his punishment by Zeus for stealing fire from the gods and giving it to mortals). Heracles freed the Titan from his chains and his torments. Prometheus then made predictions regarding further deeds of Heracles.
On his way back to Mycenae from Iberia, having obtained the Cattle of Geryon as his tenth labour, Heracles came to Liguria in North-Western Italy where he engaged in battle with two giants, Albion and Bergion or Dercynus, sons of Poseidon. The opponents were strong; Hercules was in a difficult position so he prayed to his father Zeus for help. Under the aegis of Zeus, Heracles won the battle. It was this kneeling position of Heracles when he prayed to his father Zeus that gave the name Engonasin (""Εγγόνασιν"", derived from "εν γόνασιν"), meaning "on his knees" or "the Kneeler",
to the constellation known as Heracles' constellation. The story, among others, is described by Dionysius of Halicarnassus.
Before Homer's Trojan War, Heracles had made an expedition to Troy and sacked it. Previously, Poseidon had sent a sea monster (Greek: kētŏs, Latin: cetus) to attack Troy. The story is related in several digressions in the "Iliad" (7.451–53; 20.145–48; 21.442–57) and is found in pseudo-Apollodorus' Bibliotheke (2.5.9). This expedition became the theme of the Eastern pediment of the Temple of Aphaea. Laomedon planned on sacrificing his daughter Hesione to Poseidon in the hope of appeasing him. Heracles happened to arrive (along with Telamon and Oicles) and agreed to kill the monster if Laomedon would give him the horses received from Zeus as compensation for Zeus' kidnapping Ganymede. Laomedon agreed. Heracles killed the monster, but Laomedon went back on his word. Accordingly, in a later expedition, Heracles and his followers attacked Troy and sacked it. Then they slew all Laomedon's sons present there save Podarces, who was renamed Priam, who saved his own life by giving Heracles a golden veil Hesione had made. Telamon took Hesione as a war prize and they had a son, Teucer.
After Heracles had performed his Labours, gods told him that before he passed into the company of the gods, he should create a colony at Sardinia and make his sons, whom he had with the daughters of Thespius, the leaders of the settlement. When his sons became adults, he sent them together with Iolaus to the island.
This is described in Sophocles's "Trachiniae" and in Ovid's "Metamorphoses" Book IX. Having wrestled and defeated Achelous, god of the Acheloos river, Heracles takes Deianira as his wife. Travelling to Tiryns, a centaur, Nessus, offers to help Deianira across a fast flowing river while Heracles swims it. However, Nessus is true to the archetype of the mischievous centaur and tries to steal Deianira away while Heracles is still in the water. Angry, Heracles shoots him with his arrows dipped in the poisonous blood of the Lernaean Hydra. Thinking of revenge, Nessus gives Deianira his blood-soaked tunic before he dies, telling her it will "excite the love of her husband".
Several years later, rumor tells Deianira that she has a rival for the love of Heracles. Deianira, remembering Nessus' words, gives Heracles the bloodstained shirt. Lichas, the herald, delivers the shirt to Heracles. However, it is still covered in the Hydra's blood from Heracles' arrows, and this poisons him, tearing his skin and exposing his bones. Before he dies, Heracles throws Lichas into the sea, thinking he was the one who poisoned him (according to several versions, Lichas turns to stone, becoming a rock standing in the sea, named for him). Heracles then uproots several trees and builds a funeral pyre on Mount Oeta, which Poeas, father of Philoctetes, lights. As his body burns, only his immortal side is left. Through Zeus' apotheosis, Heracles rises to Olympus as he dies.
No one but Heracles' friend Philoctetes (Poeas in some versions) would light his funeral pyre (in an alternative version, it is Iolaus who lights the pyre). For this action, Philoctetes or Poeas received Heracles' bow and arrows, which were later needed by the Greeks to defeat Troy in the Trojan War.
Philoctetes confronted Paris and shot a poisoned arrow at him. The Hydra poison subsequently led to the death of Paris. The Trojan War, however, continued until the Trojan Horse was used to defeat Troy.
According to Herodotus, Heracles lived 900 years before Herodotus' own time (c. 1300 BCE).
During the course of his life, Heracles married four times.
An episode of his female affairs that stands out was his stay at the palace of Thespius, king of Thespiae, who wished him to kill the Lion of Cithaeron. As a reward, the king offered him the chance to perform sexual intercourse with all fifty of his daughters in one night. Heracles complied and they all became pregnant and all bore sons. This is sometimes referred to as his Thirteenth Labour. Many of the kings of ancient Greece traced their lines to one or another of these, notably the kings of Sparta and Macedon.
Yet another episode of his female affairs that stands out was when he carried away the oxen of Geryon, he also visited the country of the Scythians. Once there, while asleep, his horses suddenly disappeared. When he woke and wandered about in search of them, he came into the country of Hylaea. He then found the dracaena of Scythia (sometimes identified as Echidna) in a cave. When he asked whether she knew anything about his horses, she answered, that they were in her own possession, but that she would not give them up, unless he would consent to stay with her for a time. Heracles accepted the request, and became by her the father of Agathyrsus, Gelonus, and Scythes. The last of them became king of the Scythians, according to his father's arrangement, because he was the only one among the three brothers that was able to manage the bow which Heracles had left behind and to use his father's girdle.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus writes that Heracles and Lavinia, daughter of Evander, had a son named Pallas.
As a symbol of masculinity and warriorship, Heracles also had a number of male lovers. Plutarch, in his "Eroticos," maintains that Heracles' male lovers were beyond counting. Of these, the one most closely linked to Heracles is the Theban Iolaus. According to a myth thought to be of ancient origins, Iolaus was Heracles' charioteer and squire. Heracles in the end helped Iolaus find a wife. Plutarch reports that down to his own time, male couples would go to Iolaus's tomb in Thebes to swear an oath of loyalty to the hero and to each other. He also mentions Admetus, known in myth for assisting in the hunt for the Calydonian Boar, as one of Heracles's male lovers.
One of Heracles' male lovers, and one represented in ancient as well as modern art, is Hylas.
Another reputed male lover of Heracles is Elacatas, who was honored in Sparta with a sanctuary and yearly games, Elacatea. The myth of their love is an ancient one.
Abdera's eponymous hero, Abderus, was another of Heracles' lovers. He was said to have been entrusted with—and slain by—the carnivorous mares of Thracian Diomedes. Heracles founded the city of Abdera in Thrace in his memory, where he was honored with athletic games.
Another myth is that of Iphitus.
Another story is the one of his love for Nireus, who was "the most beautiful man who came beneath Ilion" ("Iliad", 673). But Ptolemy adds that certain authors made Nireus out to be a son of Heracles.
Pausanias makes mention of Sostratus, a youth of Dyme, Achaea, as a lover of Heracles. Sostratus was said to have died young and to have been buried by Heracles outside the city. The tomb was still there in historical times, and the inhabitants of Dyme honored Sostratus as a hero. The youth seems to have also been referred to as Polystratus.
A series of lovers are only known in later literature. Among these are Eurystheus, Adonis, Corythus, and Nestor who was said to have been loved for his wisdom. In the account of Ptolemaeus Chennus, Nestor's role as lover explains why he was the only son of Neleus to be spared by the hero.
A scholiast commenting on Apollonius' "Argonautica" lists the following male lovers of Heracles: "Hylas, Philoctetes, Diomus, Perithoas, and Phrix, after whom a city in Libya was named". Diomus is also mentioned by Stephanus of Byzantium as the eponym of the deme Diomeia of the Attic phyle Aegeis: Heracles is said to have fallen in love with Diomus when he was received as guest by Diomus' father Collytus. Perithoas and Phrix are otherwise unknown, and so is the version that suggests a sexual relationship between Heracles and Philoctetes.
All of Heracles' marriages and almost all of his heterosexual affairs resulted in births of a number of sons and at least four daughters.
One of the most prominent is Hyllus, the son of Heracles and Deianeira or Melite. The term "Heracleidae", although it could refer to all of Heracles' children and further descendants, is most commonly used to indicate the descendants of Hyllus, in the context of their lasting struggle for return to Peloponnesus, out of where Hyllus and his brothers—the children of Heracles by Deianeira—were thought to have been expelled by Eurystheus.
The children of Heracles by Megara are collectively well known because of their ill fate, but there is some disagreement among sources as to their number and individual names. Apollodorus lists three, Therimachus, Creontiades and Deicoon; to these Hyginus adds Ophitus and, probably by mistake, Archelaus, who is otherwise known to have belonged to the Heracleidae, but to have lived several generations later. A scholiast on Pindar' s odes provides a list of seven completely different names: Anicetus, Chersibius, Mecistophonus, Menebrontes, Patrocles, Polydorus, Toxocleitus.
Other well-known children of Heracles include Telephus, king of Mysia (by Auge), and Tlepolemus, one of the Greek commanders in the Trojan War (by Astyoche).
According to Herodotus, a line of 22 Kings of Lydia descended from Hercules and Omphale. The line was called Tylonids after his Lydian name.
The divine sons of Heracles and Hebe are Alexiares and Anicetus.
In Rome, Heracles was honored as "Hercules", and had a number of distinctively Roman myths and practices associated with him under that name.
Herodotus connected Heracles to the Egyptian god Shu. Also he was associated with Khonsu, another Egyptian god who was in some ways similar to Shu. As Khonsu, Heracles was worshipped at the now sunken city of Heracleion, where a large temple was constructed.
Most often the Egyptians identified Heracles with Heryshaf, transcribed in Greek as "Arsaphes" or "Harsaphes" (Ἁρσαφής). He was an ancient ram-god whose cult was centered in Herakleopolis Magna.
Via the Greco-Buddhist culture, Heraclean symbolism was transmitted to the Far East. An example remains to this day in the Nio guardian deities in front of Japanese Buddhist temples.
Herodotus also connected Heracles to Phoenician god Melqart.
Sallust mentions in his work on the Jugurthine War that the Africans believe Heracles to have died in Spain where, his multicultural army being left without a leader, the Medes, Persians, and Armenians who were once under his command split off and populated the Mediterranean coast of Africa.
Temples dedicated to Heracles abounded all along the Mediterranean coastal countries. For example, the temple of "Heracles Monoikos" (i.e. the lone dweller), built far from any nearby town upon a promontory in what is now the Côte d'Azur, gave its name to the area's more recent name, Monaco.
The gateway to the Mediterranean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean, where the southernmost tip of Spain and the northernmost of Morocco face each other is, classically speaking, referred to as the Pillars of Hercules/Heracles, owing to the story that he set up two massive spires of stone to stabilise the area and ensure the safety of ships sailing between the two landmasses.
In various languages, variants of Hercules' name are used as a male given name, such as Hercule in French, Hércules in Spanish, Iraklis () in Modern Greek and Irakli () in Georgian.
There are many teams around the world that have this name or have Heracles as their symbol. The most popular in Greece is G.S. Iraklis Thessaloniki.
"Heracleum" is a genus of flowering plants in the carrot family Apiaceae. Some of the species in this genus are quite large. In particular, the giant hogweed ("Heracleum mantegazzianum") is exceptionally large, growing up to 5 m tall.
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Henry Rollins
Henry Lawrence Garfield (born February 13, 1961), better known as Henry Rollins, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, actor, presenter, comedian, and activist. He currently hosts a weekly radio show on KCRW, is a regular columnist for "Rolling Stone Australia", and was a regular columnist for "LA Weekly".
After performing in the short-lived band State of Alert in 1980, Rollins fronted the California hardcore punk band Black Flag from 1981 to 1986. Following the band's breakup, he established the record label and publishing company 2.13.61 to release his spoken word albums, and formed the Rollins Band, which toured with a number of lineups from 1987 to 2003 (and again in 2006).
Rollins has hosted numerous radio shows, such as "Harmony in My Head" on Indie 103, and television shows such as "The Henry Rollins Show", "120 Minutes", and "Jackass". He had recurring dramatic roles in the second season of "Sons of Anarchy", in the final seasons of the animated series "The Legend of Korra" as Zaheer, and has also had roles in several films. He has campaigned for various political causes in the United States, including the promotion of LGBT rights, World Hunger Relief, the West Memphis Three, and an end to all war.
Rollins was born Henry Lawrence Garfield in Washington, D.C. on February 13, 1961, the only child of Iris and Paul Garfield. His father was of Jewish descent. Rollins' Latvian paternal great-grandfather, Henach Luban, fled to the U.S. from Rēzekne (then part of the Russian Empire) and changed his first name to Henry. When Rollins was three years old, his parents divorced and he was raised by his mother in the Washington neighborhood of Glover Park. As a child and teenager, Rollins was sexually assaulted, and he suffered from depression and low self-esteem. In fourth grade, he was diagnosed with hyperactivity and took Ritalin for several years to focus during school.
Rollins attended The Bullis School, then an all-male preparatory school in Potomac, Maryland. According to Rollins, the school helped him to develop a sense of discipline and a strong work ethic. It was at Bullis that he began writing. After high school, he attended American University in Washington for one semester, but dropped out in December 1979. He began working minimum-wage jobs, including a job as a courier for kidney samples at the National Institutes of Health. In 1987, he said that he had not seen his father since the age of 18, and, in 2019, wrote, "What my father thinks of me, or if he is still alive, I have no idea."
Initially into bands like Van Halen and Ted Nugent Rollins soon developed an interest in punk rock with his friend Ian MacKaye.
From 1979 to 1980, Rollins was working as a roadie for Washington bands, including Teen Idles. When the band's singer Nathan Strejcek failed to appear for practice sessions, Rollins convinced the Teen Idles to let him sing. Word of Rollins' ability spread around the punk rock scene in Washington; Bad Brains singer H.R. would sometimes get Rollins on stage to sing with him. In 1980, the Washington punk band the Extorts lost their frontman Lyle Preslar to Minor Threat. Rollins joined the others of the band to form State of Alert (S.O.A.) and became its frontman and vocalist. He put words to the band's five songs and wrote several more. S.O.A. recorded their sole EP, "No Policy", and released it in 1981 on MacKaye's Dischord Records.
Around April 1981, drummer Simon Jacobsen was replaced by Ivor Hanson. At the time, Hanson's father was a top admiral in the U.S. Navy and his family shared living quarters with the U.S. Vice President in the Naval Observatory. The band held their practices there and would have to be let in by Secret Service agents.
S.O.A. disbanded after a total of a dozen concerts and one EP. Rollins had enjoyed being the band's frontman, and had earned a reputation for fighting in shows. He later said, "I was like nineteen and a young man all full of steam and "loved" to get in the dust-ups." By this time, Rollins had become the assistant manager of the Georgetown Häagen-Dazs ice cream store; his steady employment had helped to finance the S.O.A. EP.
In 1980, a friend gave Rollins and MacKaye a copy of Black Flag's "Nervous Breakdown" EP. Rollins soon became a fan of the band, exchanging letters with bassist Chuck Dukowski and later inviting the band to stay in his parents' home when Black Flag toured the East Coast in December 1980. When Black Flag returned to the East Coast in 1981, Rollins attended as many of their concerts as he could. At an impromptu show in a New York bar, Black Flag's vocalist Dez Cadena allowed Rollins to sing "Clocked In", a song Rollins had asked the band to play in light of the fact that he had to drive back to Washington, D.C. to begin work.
Unbeknownst to Rollins, Cadena wanted to switch to guitar, and the band was looking for a new vocalist. The band was impressed with Rollins' singing and stage demeanor, and the next day, after a semi-formal audition at Tu Casa Studio in New York City, they asked him to become their permanent vocalist. Despite some doubts, he accepted, in part because of MacKaye's encouragement. His high level of energy and intense personality suited the band's style, but Rollins' diverse tastes in music were a key factor in his being selected as singer; Black Flag's founder Greg Ginn was growing restless creatively and wanted a singer who was willing to move beyond simple, three-chord punk.
After joining Black Flag in 1981, Rollins quit his job at Häagen-Dazs, sold his car, and moved to Los Angeles. Upon arriving in Los Angeles, Rollins got the Black Flag logo tattooed on his left biceps and also on the back of his neck, chose the stage name of Rollins, a surname he and MacKaye had used as teenagers. Rollins played his first show with Black Flag on August 21, 1981 at Cuckoo's Nest in Costa Mesa, California. Rollins was in a different environment in Los Angeles; the police soon realized he was a member of Black Flag, and he was hassled as a result. Rollins later said: "That really scared me. It freaked me out that an adult would do that. ... My little eyes were opened big time."
Before concerts, as the others of the band tuned up, Rollins would stride about the stage dressed only in a pair of black shorts, grinding his teeth; to focus before the show, he would squeeze a pool ball. His stage persona impressed several critics; after a 1982 show in Anacortes, Washington, "Sub Pop" critic Calvin Johnson wrote: "Henry was incredible. Pacing back and forth, lunging, lurching, growling; it was all real, the most intense emotional experiences I have ever seen."
By 1983, Rollins' stage persona was increasingly alienating him from the rest of Black Flag. During a show in England, Rollins assaulted a member of the audience who attacked Ginn; Ginn later scolded Rollins, calling him a "macho asshole". A legal dispute with Unicorn Records held up further Black Flag releases until 1984, and Ginn was slowing the band's tempo down so that they would remain innovative. In August 1983, guitarist Dez Cadena had left the band; a stalemate lingered between Dukowski and Ginn, who wanted Dukowski to leave, before Ginn fired Dukowski outright. 1984's heavy metal music-influenced "My War" featured Rollins screaming and wailing throughout many of the songs; the band's members also grew their hair to confuse the band's hardcore punk audience.
Black Flag's change in musical style and appearance alienated many of their original fans, who focused their displeasure on Rollins by punching him in the mouth, stabbing him with pens, or scratching him with their nails, among other methods. He often fought back, dragging audience members on stage and assaulting them. During a Black Flag concert, Rollins repeatedly punched a fan in the face who had continuously reached for his microphone. Rollins became increasingly alienated from the audience; in his tour diary, Rollins wrote "When they spit at me, when they grab at me, they aren't hurting me. When I push out and mangle the flesh of another, it's falling so short of what I really want to do to them." During the Unicorn legal dispute, Rollins had started a weight-lifting program, and by their 1984 tours, he had become visibly well-built; journalist Michael Azerrad later commented that "his powerful physique was a metaphor for the impregnable emotional shield he was developing around himself." Rollins has since replied that "no, the training was just basically a way to push myself."
Before Black Flag disbanded in August 1986, Rollins had already toured as a solo spoken word artist. He released two solo records in 1987, "Hot Animal Machine", a collaboration with guitarist Chris Haskett, and "Drive by Shooting", recorded as "Henrietta Collins and the Wifebeating Childhaters"; Rollins also released his second spoken word album, "Big Ugly Mouth" in the same year. Along with Haskett, Rollins soon added Andrew Weiss and Sim Cain, both former members of Ginn's side-project Gone, and called the new group Rollins Band. The band toured relentlessly, and their 1987 debut album, "Life Time", was quickly followed by the outtakes and live collection "Do It". The band continued to tour throughout 1988; in 1989 another Rollins Band album, "Hard Volume" was released. Another live album, "Turned On", and another spoken word release, "Live at McCabe's", followed in 1990.
In 1991, the Rollins Band signed a distribution deal with Imago Records and appeared at the Lollapalooza festival; both improved the band's presence. However, in December 1991, Rollins and his best friend Joe Cole were accosted by two armed robbers outside Rollins's home. Cole was murdered by a gunshot to the head, Rollins escaped without injury but police suspected him in the murder and detained him for ten hours. Although traumatized by Cole's death, as chronicled in his book "Now Watch Him Die", Rollins continued to release new material; the spoken-word album "Human Butt" appeared in 1992 on his own record label, 2.13.61. The Rollins Band released "The End of Silence", Rollins's first charting album.
The following year, Rollins released a spoken-word double album, "The Boxed Life". The Rollins Band embarked upon the "End of Silence" tour; bassist Weiss was fired toward its end, and replaced by funk and jazz bassist Melvin Gibbs. According to critic Steve Huey, 1994 was Rollins's "breakout year". The Rollins Band appeared at Woodstock 94 and released "Weight", which ranked on the Billboard Top 40. Rollins released "Get in the Van: On the Road with Black Flag", a double-disc set of him reading from his Black Flag tour diary of the same name; he won the Grammy for Best Spoken Word Recording as a result. Rollins was named 1994's "Man of the Year" by the American men's magazine "Details" and became a contributing columnist to the magazine. With the increased exposure, Rollins made several appearances on American music channels MTV and VH1 around this time, and made his Hollywood film debut in 1994 in "The Chase" playing a police officer.
In 1995, the Rollins Band's record label, Imago Records, declared itself bankrupt. Rollins began focusing on his spoken word career. He released "Everything", a recording of a chapter of his book "Eye Scream" with free jazz backing, in 1996. He continued to appear in various films, including "Heat", "Johnny Mnemonic" and "Lost Highway". The Rollins Band signed to Dreamworks Records in 1997 and soon released "Come in and Burn", but it did not receive as much critical acclaim as their previous material. Rollins continued to release spoken-word book readings, releasing "Black Coffee Blues" in the same year. In 1998, Rollins released "Think Tank", his first set of non-book-related spoken material in five years.
By 1998, Rollins felt that the relationship with his backing band had run its course, and the line-up disbanded. He had produced a Los Angeles hard rock band called Mother Superior, and invited them to form a new incarnation of the Rollins Band. Their first album, "Get Some Go Again", was released two years later. The Rollins Band released several more albums, including 2001's "Nice" and 2003's "". After 2003, the band became inactive as Rollins focused on radio and television work. During a 2006 appearance on "Tom Green Live!", Rollins stated that he "may never do music again", a feeling which he reiterated in 2011 when talking to "Trebuchet" magazine. In an interview with "Culture Brats", Rollins admitted he had sworn off music for good – "... and I must say that I miss it every day. I just don't know honestly what I could do with it that's different."
On the same topic, Rollins more recently said in 2016 "For me, music was a time and a place. I never really enjoyed being in a band. It was in me and it needed to come out, like a 25-year exorcism. One day, I woke up, and I didn't have any more lyrics. I just had nothing to contribute to the form, and I was done with band practice and traveling in groups."
Rollins is a guest star on Damian Cowell's 2017 album "Get Yer Dag On!".
As a vocalist, Rollins has adopted a number of styles through the years. He was noted in the Washington, D.C. hardcore scene for what journalist Michael Azerrad described as a "compelling, raspy howl." With State of Alert, Rollins "spat out the lyrics like a bellicose auctioneer." He adopted a similar style after joining Black Flag in 1981. By their album "Damaged", however, Black Flag began to incorporate a swing beat into their style. Rollins then abandoned his State of Alert "bark" and adopted the band's swing. Rollins later explained: "What I was doing kind of matched the vibe of the music. The music was intense and, well, I was as intense as you needed."
In both incarnations of the Rollins Band, Rollins combined spoken word with his traditional vocal style in songs such as "Liar" (the song begins with a one-minute spoken diatribe by Rollins), barked his way through songs (such as "Tearing" and "Starve"), and employed the loud-quiet dynamic. "Rolling Stone"'s Anthony DeCurtis names Rollins a "screeching hate machine" and his "hallmark" as "the sheets-of-sound assault".
With the Rollins Band, his lyrics focused "almost exclusively on issues relating to personal integrity," according to critic Geoffrey Welchman.
In the 1980s, Rollins produced an album of acoustic songs for the famed convict Charles Manson titled "Completion". The record was supposed to be released by SST Records, but the project was canceled because the label received death threats for working with Manson. Only five test presses of "Completion" were pressed, two of which remain in Rollins' possession.
In 1995, Rollins produced Australian hard rock band the Mark of Cain's third full-length album "Ill at Ease".
As Rollins rose to prominence with the Rollins Band, he began to present and appear on television. These included "Alternative Nation" and "MTV Sports" in 1993 and 1994 respectively. Rollins also co starred in "The Chase" with Charlie Sheen. In 1995 Rollins appeared on an episode of "Unsolved Mysteries" that explored the murder of his best friend Joe Cole and present "State of the Union Undressed" on Comedy Central. Rollins began to present and narrate "VH1 Legends" in 1996. Rollins, busy with the Rollins Band, did not present more programs until 2001, but made appearances on a number of other television shows, including "Welcome to Paradox" in 1998 in the episode "All Our Sins Forgotten", as a therapist who develops a device that can erase the bad memories of his patients. Rollins also voiced Mad Stan in "Batman Beyond" in 1999 and 2000.
Rollins was a host of film review programme "Henry's Film Corner" on the Independent Film Channel, before presenting the weekly "The Henry Rollins Show" on the channel. "The Henry Rollins Show" is now being shown weekly on Film24 along with "Henry Rollins Uncut". The show also lead to a promotional tour in Europe that led to Rollins being dubbed a "bad boy goodwill ambassador" by a NY reviewer. He also hosted Fox's short-lived 2001 horror anthology "Night Visions".
In 2002, Rollins guest-starred on an episode of the sitcom "The Drew Carey Show" as a man Oswald found on eBay and paid to come to his house and "kick his ass". He co-hosted the British television show "Full Metal Challenge", in which teams built vehicles to compete in various driving and racing contests, from 2002 to 2003 on Channel 4 and TLC. He has made a number of cameo appearances in television series such as MTV's "Jackass" and an episode of "Californication", where he played himself hosting a radio show. In 2006, Rollins appeared in a documentary series by VH1 and The Sundance Channel called "The Drug Years".
Rollins appears in FX's "Sons of Anarchy's" second season, which premiered in the fall of 2009 in the United States. Rollins plays A.J. Weston, a white supremacist gang leader and new antagonist in the show's fictional town of Charming, California, who poses a deadly threat to the Sons of Anarchy Motorcycle Club. In 2009, Rollins voiced "Trucker" in "American Dad!'s" fourth season (episode eight). Rollins voiced Benjamin Knox/Bonk in the 2000 animated film "".
In 2010, Rollins appeared as a guest judge on Season 2 episode 6 of "RuPaul's Drag Race". In 2011, he was interviewed in the "National Geographic Explorer" episode "Born to Rage", regarding his possible link to the MAOA gene (warrior gene) and violent behavior. In 2012, he hosted the "National Geographic Wild" series "Animal Underworld", investigating where the real boundaries lie in human-animal relationships. Rollins also appeared in the "Hawaii Five-0" episode "Hoʻopio" that aired on May 6, 2013.
In November 2013, Rollins started hosting the show "10 Things You Don't Know About" on the History Channel's H2. In 2014, he voiced the antagonist Zaheer in the third season of the animated series "The Legend of Korra".
Rollins played the part of Lt. Mueller in episodes 1-3 of the fourth season of the TV series "Z Nation", which originally aired on Syfy in 2017.
In 2019, Rollins began appearing as a disillusioned poisons instructor in the TV series "Deadly Class".
On May 19, 2004, Rollins began hosting a weekly radio show, "Harmony in My Head", on Indie 103.1 radio in Los Angeles. The show aired every Monday evening, with Rollins playing music ranging from early rock and jump blues to hard rock, blues rock, folk rock, punk rock, heavy metal and rockabilly, and touching on hip hop, jazz, world music, reggae, classical music and more. "Harmony in my Head" often emphasizes B-sides, live bootlegs and other rarities, and nearly every episode has featured a song either by the Beastie Boys or British group The Fall.
Rollins put the show on a short hiatus to undertake a spoken-word tour in early 2005. Rollins posted playlists and commentary on-line; these lists were expanded with more information and published in book form as "Fanatic!" through 2.13.61 in November 2005. In late 2005, Rollins announced the show's return and began the first episode by playing the show's namesake Buzzcocks song. In 2008, the show was continuing each week despite Rollins's constant touring with new pre-recorded shows between live broadcasts. In 2009, Indie 103.1 went off the air, although it continues to broadcast over the Internet.
In 2007, Rollins published "Fanatic! Vol. 2" through 2.13.61. "Fanatic! Vol. 3" was released in the fall of 2008. On February 18, 2009, KCRW announced that Rollins would be hosting a live show on Saturday nights starting March 7, 2009, which has since been moved to Sunday nights at 8PM. In 2011 Rollins was interviewed on Episode 121 of American Public Media's podcast, "The Dinner Party Download", posted on November 3, 2011.
Starting in February 2015, Rollins began recording a semi-regular podcast with his longtime manager Heidi May, titled "Henry & Heidi". In describing the show, Rollins stated, "One day Heidi mentioned that I’ve told her a lot of stories that never made it to the stage and we should do a podcast so I could tell them...I thought it was a good idea and people seem to like how the two of us get along. We’ve been working together for over 20 years and are very good friends." The podcast has received positive reviews from "Rolling Stone" and "The A.V. Club".
Rollins began his film career appearing in several independent films featuring the band Black Flag. His film debut was in 1982's "The Slog Movie", about the West Coast punk scene. An appearance in 1985's "Black Flag Live" followed. Rollins' first film appearance without Black Flag was the short film "The Right Side of My Brain" with Lydia Lunch in 1985. Following the band's breakup, Rollins did not appear in any films until 1994's "The Chase". Rollins appeared in the 2007 direct-to-DVD sequel to "Wrong Turn" (2003), "" as a retired Marine Corps officer who hosts his own show which tests the contestants' will to survive. Rollins has also appeared in "Punk: Attitude", a documentary on the punk scene, and in "American Hardcore" (2006). In 2012, Rollins appeared in a short documentary entitled "Who Shot Rock and Roll" discussing the early punk scene in Los Angeles as well as photographs of himself in Black Flag taken by esteemed photographer Edward Colver. Rollins also auditioned for playing Negan in "The Walking Dead" television series and inspired the character's characterization in the comic book series of the same name, but eventually lost the role to Jeffrey Dean Morgan.
Some feature-length movies Rollins has appeared in include:
Rollins has written a variety of books, including "Black Coffee Blues", "Do I Come Here Often?", "The First Five" (a compilation of "High Adventure in the Great Outdoors", "Pissing in the Gene Pool", "Bang!", "Art to Choke Hearts", and "One From None"), "See a Grown Man Cry", "Now Watch Him Die", "Smile, You're Traveling", "Get in the Van", "Eye Scream", "Broken Summers", "Roomanitarian", and "Solipsist".
For the audiobook version of the 2006 novel "World War Z" Rollins voiced the character of T. Sean Collins, a mercenary hired to protect celebrities during a mass panic caused by an onslaught of the undead. Rollins' other audiobook recordings include "3:10 to Yuma" and his own autobiographical book "Get in the Van", for which he won a Grammy Award.
In September 2008, Rollins began contributing to the "Politics & Power" blog at the online version of "Vanity Fair" magazine. Since March 2009, his posts have appeared under their own sub-title, "Straight Talk Espresso". His posts consistently criticize conservative politicians and pundits, although he does occasionally target those on the left. In August 2010, he began writing a music column for "LA Weekly" in Los Angeles. In 2012, Rollins began publishing articles with "The Huffington Post" and alternative news website "WordswithMeaning!". In the months leading up to the 2012 United States Presidential election, Rollins broadcast a YouTube series called "Capitalism 2012", in which he toured the capital cities of the US states, interviewing people about current issues.
Rollins also has toured all over the world doing spoken word performances and his shows frequently last for over three hours. His spoken word style encompasses stand up comedy, accounts of experiences he's had in the world of music and during his extensive travels around the globe, self-deprecating stories about his own shortcomings, introspective recollections from his own life (such as the death of his friend, Joe Cole), commentaries on society and playful, sometimes vulgar, anecdotes.
Rollins was a playable character in both "" and "". Rollins is also the voice of Mace Griffin in "".
Rollins has become an outspoken human rights activist, most vocally for gay rights. In high school, a gay classmate of Rollins' was bullied by classmates to the point of attempting suicide. Rollins has cited this as the main catalyst of his "anti-homophobia." Rollins frequently speaks out on justice on his spoken word tours and promotes equality, regardless of sexuality. He was the host of the WedRock benefit concert, which raised money for a pro-gay-marriage organization.
During the Iraq War, he started touring with the United Service Organizations to entertain troops overseas while remaining against the war, leading him to once cause a stir at a base in Kyrgyzstan when he told the crowd: "Your commander would never lie to you. That's the vice president's job." Rollins believes it is important that he performs for the troops so that they have multiple points of contact with other parts of the world, stating that "they can get really cut loose from planet earth." He has made eight tours, including visits to bases in Djibouti, Kuwait, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan (twice), Egypt, Turkey, Qatar, Honduras, Japan, Korea and the United Arab Emirates.
He has also been active in the campaign to free the "West Memphis Three", three young men who were believed by their supporters to have been wrongfully convicted of murder, and who have since been released from prison, but not exonerated. Rollins appears with Public Enemy frontman Chuck D on the Black Flag song "Rise Above" on the benefit album "", the first time Rollins had performed Black Flag's material since 1986.
Continuing his activism on behalf of US troops and veterans, Rollins joined "Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America" (IAVA) in 2008 to launch a public service advertisement campaign, CommunityofVeterans.org, which helps veterans coming home from war reintegrate into their communities. In April 2009, Rollins helped IAVA launch the second phase of the campaign which engages the friends and family of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans at SupportYourVet.org.
On December 3, 2009, Rollins wrote of his support for the victims of the Bhopal disaster in India, in an article for "Vanity Fair" 25 years–to the day–after the methyl isocyanate gas leak from the Union Carbide Corporation's pesticide factory exposed more than half a million local people to poisonous gas and resulted in the death of 17,000. He spent time in Bhopal with the people, to listen to their stories. In a later radio interview in February 2010 Rollins summed up his approach to activism, "This is where my anger takes me, to places like this, not into abuse but into proactive, clean movement."
Rollins is an advocate for the legalization of cannabis. Rollins has stated he does not personally consume cannabis, but views the issue as an important matter of civil rights, arguing that its illegality is based in "bigotry and racism and financing the prison–industrial complex". Rollins has shared his views on the subject as keynote speaker at the Oregon Marijuana Business Conference and the International Cannabis Business Conference.
In August 2015, Rollins discussed his support for Bernie Sanders as a candidate in the 2016 Democratic Party presidential primaries.
Rollins has said that he does not have religious or spiritual beliefs, though he also does not consider himself an atheist. He has mostly avoided recreational drugs throughout his life, but experimented a few times with alcohol, cannabis, and LSD during his teens and early 20s. Regarding his diet, Rollins has stated, "I eat fish, that's about it for things that have a pulse. I don't eat beef or whatever else has claws or hooves. I just don't think it's a good idea to put that stuff into my system."
Rollins is childless by choice, and says that he has not been in a romantic relationship since his 20s. He considers himself a solitary person, and maintains few deep relationships outside of his professional ones. One of his closest personal friends is musician Ian MacKaye, with whom he has been close since they met as children. He also enjoys a friendship with actor William Shatner, which developed after he performed on Shatner's album "Has Been".
In an interview with Jason Tanamor of Zoiks! Online, when asked about a longtime rumor of Rollins being homosexual, the singer said, "Perhaps wishful thinking. If I were gay, believe me, you would know."
In December 1991, Rollins and his best friend Joe Cole were involved in a shooting when they were assaulted by robbers outside their shared home in Venice Beach, California. Cole died after being shot in the face, but Rollins escaped. The murder remains unsolved. In an April 1992 "Los Angeles Times" interview, Rollins revealed he kept a plastic container full of soil soaked with Cole's blood: "I dug up all the earth where his head fell—he was shot in the face—and I've got all the dirt here, and so Cole's in the house. I say good morning to him every day. I got his phone, too, so I got a direct line to him. So that feels good."
In a 2001 interview with Howard Stern, Rollins was asked about rumors that he kept Cole's brain in his house. He stated that he only has the soil from the spot where Cole was killed. During the interview, he also speculated that the reason they were targeted may have been because, days prior to the incident, record producer Rick Rubin had requested to hear the newly recorded album "The End of Silence" and parked his Rolls-Royce outside their house while carrying a cell phone. Because of the notoriety of the neighborhood, Rollins suspected that this would bring trouble because of the implication that there was money in the home. He even wrote in his journal the night of Rubin's visit that his home "is going to get popped".
Rollins has included Cole's story in his spoken word performances.
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Hadron
In particle physics, a hadron (, "hadrós;" "stout, thick") is a subatomic composite particle made of two or more quarks held together by the strong force in a similar way as molecules are held together by the electromagnetic force. Most of the mass of ordinary matter comes from two hadrons: the proton and the neutron.
Hadrons are categorized into two families: baryons, made of an odd number of quarks – usually three quarks – and mesons, made of an even number of quarks—usually one quark and one antiquark. Protons and neutrons are examples of baryons; pions are an example of a meson. "Exotic" hadrons, containing more than three valence quarks, have been discovered in recent years. A tetraquark state (an exotic meson), named the Z(4430)−, was discovered in 2007 by the Belle Collaboration and confirmed as a resonance in 2014 by the LHCb collaboration. Two pentaquark states (exotic baryons), named and , were discovered in 2015 by the LHCb collaboration. There are several more exotic hadron candidates, and other colour-singlet quark combinations that may also exist.
Almost all "free" hadrons and antihadrons (meaning, in isolation and not bound within an atomic nucleus) are believed to be unstable and eventually decay (break down) into other particles. The only known exception relates to free protons, which are "possibly" stable, or at least, take immense amounts of time to decay (order of 1034+ years). Free neutrons are unstable and decay with a half-life of about 611 seconds. Their respective antiparticles are expected to follow the same pattern, but they are difficult to capture and study, because they immediately annihilate on contact with ordinary matter. "Bound" protons and neutrons, contained within an atomic nucleus, are generally considered stable. Experimentally, hadron physics is studied by colliding protons or nuclei of heavy elements such as lead or gold, and detecting the debris in the produced particle showers. In the natural environment, mesons such as pions are produced by the collisions of cosmic rays with the atmosphere.
The term "hadron" was introduced by Lev B. Okun in a plenary talk at the 1962 International Conference on High Energy Physics. In this talk he said:
According to the quark model, the properties of hadrons are primarily determined by their so-called "valence quarks". For example, a proton is composed of two up quarks (each with electric charge +, for a total of + together) and one down quark (with electric charge −). Adding these together yields the proton charge of +1. Although quarks also carry color charge, hadrons must have zero total color charge because of a phenomenon called color confinement. That is, hadrons must be "colorless" or "white". The simplest ways for this to occur are with a quark of one color and an antiquark of the corresponding anticolor, or three quarks of different colors. Hadrons with the first arrangement are a type of meson, and those with the second arrangement are a type of baryon.
Massless virtual gluons compose the numerical majority of particles inside hadrons. The strength of the strong force gluons which bind the quarks together has sufficient energy ("E") to have resonances composed of massive ("m") quarks ("E > mc2") . One outcome is that short-lived pairs of virtual quarks and antiquarks are continually forming and vanishing again inside a hadron. Because the virtual quarks are not stable wave packets (quanta), but an irregular and transient phenomenon, it is not meaningful to ask which quark is real and which virtual; only the small excess is apparent from the outside in the form of a hadron. Therefore, when a hadron or anti-hadron is stated to consist of (typically) 2 or 3 quarks, this technically refers to the constant excess of quarks vs. antiquarks.
Like all subatomic particles, hadrons are assigned quantum numbers corresponding to the representations of the Poincaré group: "JPC"("m"), where "J" is the spin quantum number, "P" the intrinsic parity (or P-parity), "C" the charge conjugation (or C-parity), and "m" the particle's mass. Note that the mass of a hadron has very little to do with the mass of its valence quarks; rather, due to mass–energy equivalence, most of the mass comes from the large amount of energy associated with the strong interaction. Hadrons may also carry flavor quantum numbers such as isospin (G parity), and strangeness. All quarks carry an additive, conserved quantum number called a baryon number ("B"), which is + for quarks and − for antiquarks. This means that baryons (composite particles made of three, five or a larger odd number of quarks) have "B" = 1 whereas mesons have "B" = 0.
Hadrons have excited states known as resonances. Each ground state hadron may have several excited states; several hundreds of resonances have been observed in experiments. Resonances decay extremely quickly (within about 10−24 seconds) via the strong nuclear force.
In other phases of matter the hadrons may disappear. For example, at very high temperature and high pressure, unless there are sufficiently many flavors of quarks, the theory of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) predicts that quarks and gluons will no longer be confined within hadrons, "because the strength of the strong interaction diminishes with energy". This property, which is known as asymptotic freedom, has been experimentally confirmed in the energy range between 1 GeV (gigaelectronvolt) and 1 TeV (teraelectronvolt).
All free hadrons except (possibly) the proton and antiproton are unstable.
Baryons are hadrons containing an odd number of valence quarks (at least 3). Most well known baryons such as the proton and neutron have three valence quarks, but pentaquarks with five quarks – three quarks of different colors, and also one extra quark-antiquark pair – have also been proven to exist. Because baryons have an odd number of quarks, they are also all fermions, "i.e.", they have half-integer spin. As quarks possess baryon number "B" = , baryons have baryon number "B" = 1. Pentaquarks "also" have "B" = 1, since the extra quark's and antiquark's baryon numbers cancel.
Each type of baryon has a corresponding antiparticle (antibaryon) in which quarks are replaced by their corresponding antiquarks. For example, just as a proton is made of two up-quarks and one down-quark, its corresponding antiparticle, the antiproton, is made of two up-antiquarks and one down-antiquark.
As of August 2015, there are two known pentaquarks, and , both discovered in 2015 by the LHCb collaboration.
Mesons are hadrons containing an even number of valence quarks (at least 2). Most well known mesons are composed of a quark-antiquark pair, but possible tetraquarks (4 quarks) and hexaquarks (6 quarks, comprising either a dibaryon or three quark-antiquark pairs) may have been discovered and are being investigated to confirm their nature. Several other hypothetical types of exotic meson may exist which do not fall within the quark model of classification. These include glueballs and hybrid mesons (mesons bound by excited gluons).
Because mesons have an even number of quarks, they are also all bosons, with integer spin, "i.e.", 0, 1, or −1. They have baryon number "B" = − = 0. Examples of mesons commonly produced in particle physics experiments include pions and kaons. Pions also play a role in holding atomic nuclei together via the residual strong force.
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Heisuke Hironaka
Hironaka entered Kyoto University in 1949. After completing his undergraduate studies at Kyoto University, he received his Ph.D. in 1960 from Harvard while under the direction of Oscar Zariski.
Hironaka held teaching positions at Brandeis University from 1960-1963, Columbia University in 1964, and Kyoto University from 1975 to 1988. He was a professor of mathematics at Harvard University from 1968 until becoming "emeritus" in 1992 and was a president of Yamaguchi University from 1996 to 2002.
In 1964, Hironaka proved that singularities of algebraic varieties admit resolutions in characteristic zero. This means that any algebraic variety can be replaced by (more precisely is birationally equivalent to) a similar variety which has no singularities. He also introduced Hironaka's example showing that a deformation of Kähler manifolds need not be Kähler. In 2017 he posted to his personal webpage a manuscript that claims to prove the existence of a resolution of singularities in positive characteristic.
Hironaka was awarded the Fields Medal in 1970.
Hironaka has been active in raising funds for causes such as mathematical education. His daughter, Eriko Hironaka, is also a mathematician and focuses on low-dimensional topology and geometric topology.
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House of Habsburg
The House of Habsburg (; ; alternatively spelled Hapsburg in English; ), also officially called the House of Austria (; ), is one of the most influential and distinguished royal houses of Europe. The throne of the Holy Roman Empire was continuously occupied by the Habsburgs from 1440 until their extinction in the male line in 1740 and after the death of Francis I from 1765 until its dissolution in 1806.
The house also produced kings of Bohemia, Hungary, Croatia, Galicia, Portugal and Spain with their respective colonies, as well as rulers of several principalities in the Netherlands and Italy and emperors of Austria, Austria-Hungary and Mexico. From the 16th century, following the reign of Charles V, the dynasty was split between its Austrian and Spanish branches. Although they ruled distinct territories, they nevertheless maintained close relations and frequently intermarried.
The house takes its name from Habsburg Castle, a fortress built in the 1020s in present-day Switzerland, in the canton of Aargau, by Count Radbot of Klettgau, who named his fortress Habsburg. His grandson Otto II was the first to take the fortress name as his own, adding "Count of Habsburg" to his title. The House of Habsburg gathered dynastic momentum through the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries. In 1273, Count Radbot's seventh generation descendant Rudolph of Habsburg became Roman-German King. He moved the family's power base to the Duchy of Austria, which the Habsburgs ruled until 1918.
A series of dynastic marriages enabled the family to vastly expand its domains to include Burgundy, Spain and its colonial empire, Bohemia, Hungary, and other territories. In the 16th century, the family separated into the , who settled their mutual claims in the Oñate treaty.
The House of Habsburg became extinct in the male line in the 18th century. The senior Spanish branch ended upon the death of Charles II of Spain in 1700 and was replaced by the House of Bourbon. The remaining Austrian branch became extinct in the male line in 1740 with the death of Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI. It was succeeded by the descendants of his eldest daughter Maria Theresa's marriage to Francis III, Duke of Lorraine. The successor house styled itself formally as the House of Habsburg-Lorraine (). Since the House of Habsburg-Lorraine is referred to today as the House of Habsburg, historians use the appellation of the "Habsburg Monarchy" for the countries and provinces that were ruled by the family until 1918.
After the First World War, the House of Habsburg was a vehement opponent of National Socialism and Communism. Hitler diametrically opposed the centuries-old Habsburg principles of "live and let live" in relation to ethnic groups, peoples, minorities, religions, cultures and languages and bristled with hatred against the Habsburg family. During the Second World War there was a strong Habsburg resistance movement in Central Europe, which was radically persecuted by the Nazis and the Gestapo. The unofficial leader of these groups was Otto von Habsburg, who campaigned against the Nazis and for a free Central Europe in France and the USA. Most of the resistance fighters, such as Heinrich Maier, who successfully passed on production sites and plans for V-2 rockets, Tiger tanks and aircraft to the Allies, were executed. The Anarchists, Communists and Socialists as well as the USSR were strictly anti-Habsburg because they feared opposition in their oppressed countries during the Cold War. The Habsburg family played a leading role in the fall of the Iron Curtain and the collapse of the Communist Eastern Bloc.
The Habsburg Empire had the advantage of size, but multiple disadvantages. There were rivals on four sides, its finances were unstable, the population was fragmented into multiple ethnicities, and its industrial base was thin. Its naval resources were so minimal that it did not attempt to build an overseas empire. It did have the advantage of good diplomats, typified by Prince Metternich; they had a grand strategy for survival that kept the empire going despite wars with the Ottomans, Frederick the Great, Napoleon and Bismarck, until the final disaster of the First World War. Along with the Capetian dynasty, it was one of the two most powerful continental European royal families, dominating European politics for nearly five centuries.
The current house orders are the Order of the Golden Fleece and the Imperial and Royal Order of Saint George. The House of Habsburg still exists today and its members use the name Habsburg, such as the current head of the family Karl von Habsburg.
Their principal roles (including the roles of their cadet branches) were as follows:
Numerous other titles were attached to the crowns listed above.
The progenitor of the House of Habsburg may have been Guntram the Rich, a count in the Breisgau who lived in the 10th century, and forthwith farther back as the early medieval Adalrich, Duke of Alsace, father of the Etichonids from which Habsburg derives. His grandson Radbot, Count of Habsburg founded the Habsburg Castle, after which the Habsburgs are named. The origins of the castle's name, located in what is now the Swiss canton of Aargau, are uncertain.
There is disagreement on whether the name is derived from the High German "Habichtsburg" (hawk castle), or from the Middle High German word "hab/hap" meaning "ford", as there is a river with a ford nearby. The first documented use of the name by the dynasty itself has been traced to the year 1108.
The Habsburg Castle was the family seat in the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries.
The Habsburgs expanded their influence through arranged marriages and by gaining political privileges, especially countship rights in Zürichgau, Aargau and Thurgau. In the 13th century, the house aimed its marriage policy at families in Upper Alsace and Swabia. They were also able to gain high positions in the church hierarchy for their members. Territorially, they often profited from the extinction of other noble families such as the House of Kyburg.
By the second half of the 13th century, count Rudolph IV (1218–1291) had become one of the most influential territorial lords in the area between the Vosges Mountains and Lake Constance. Due to these impressive preconditions, on 1 October 1273, Rudolph was chosen as the King of the Romans and received the name Rudolph I of Germany.
In a crucial step towards the creation of his own power base in the Eastern Alps, Rudolph led a coalition against king Ottokar II of Bohemia who had taken advantage of the Great Interregnum in order to expand southwards, taking over first the Babenberg (Austria, Styria, Savinja), and then the Spanheim inheritance (Carinthia and Carniola). In 1278, Ottokar was defeated and killed in the Battle of Marchfeld. The lands he had acquired in the previous decades were reverted to the German crown. In 1282, the Habsburgs gained for themselves the rulership of the duchies of Austria and Styria, which they then held for over 600 years, until 1918. The southern portions of Ottokar's former realm, Carinthia, Carniola, and Savinja, were granted to Rudolph's allies from the House of Gorizia. The resulting arrangement, known as the "Habsburg-Gorizia equilibrium in the Eastern Alps" lasted for half a decade.
After Rudolph's death, the Habsburgs failed to maintain the Roman kingship. In the 1300s, their attempt to gain the Bohemian crown was frustrated first by Henry of Bohemia and finally by the House of Luxembourg. However, the weakening of the House of Gorizia in this succession struggle enabled them to expand southwards: in 1311, they took over the Savinja, and after the death of Henry of Bohemia in 1335, they assumed power in Carniola and in Carinthia. In 1369, they would succeed his daughter in Tyrol, as well. After the death of Albert III of Gorizia in 1374, they gained their first foothold on the Adriatic, in central Istria (Mitterburg), followed by Trieste in 1382. The original home territories of the Habsburgs, the Aargau with Habsburg Castle and much of the other original possessions in what is now Switzerland were lost in the 14th century to the expanding Swiss Confederacy after the battles of Morgarten (1315) and Sempach (1386).
Through the forged "privilegium maius" document (1358/59), a special bond was created between the House of Habsburg and Austria. The document, forged at the behest of Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria (1339–1365), also attempted to introduce rules to preserve the unity of the family's Austrian lands. In the long term, this indeed succeeded, but Rudolph's brothers ignored the rule, leading to the separation of the Albertian and Leopoldian family lines in 1379: the former would maintain Austria proper, while the latter would rule over Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, which became known as Inner Austria, as well as Tyrol and the original Habsburg lands in Swabia, now known as Further Austria.
By marrying Elisabeth of Luxembourg, the daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund in 1437, Duke Albert V (1397–1439) of the Albertine line became the ruler of Bohemia and Hungary, expanding the family's political horizons. The next year, Albert V was crowned as the King of the Romans as Albert II. After his early death in war with the Turks in 1439, and after the death of his son Ladislaus Postumus in 1457, the Habsburgs lost Bohemia and Hungary again. National kingdoms were established in these areas, and the Habsburgs were not able to restore their influence there for decades. With Ladislaus's death, the Albertine line died out, and the Leopoldian line took over all the family possessions.
In 1440, Frederick III was chosen by the electoral college to succeed Albert II as the king. Several Habsburg kings had attempted to gain the imperial throne over the years, but success finally arrived on 19 March 1452, when Pope Nicholas V crowned Frederick III as the Holy Roman Emperor in a grand ceremony held in Rome. In Frederick III, the Pope found an important political ally with whose help he was able to counter the conciliar movement.
While in Rome, Frederick III married Eleanor of Portugal, enabling him to build a network of connections with dynasties in the west and southeast of Europe. Frederick was rather distant to his family; Eleanor, by contrast, had a great influence on the raising and education of Frederick's children and therefore played an important role in the family's rise to prominence. After Frederick III's coronation, the Habsburgs were able to hold the imperial throne almost continuously for centuries, until 1806.
As emperor, Frederick III took a leading role inside the family and positioned himself as the judge over the family's internal conflicts, often making use of the "privilegium maius". He was able to restore the unity of the house's Austrian lands, as the Albertinian line was now extinct. Territorial integrity was also strengthened by the extinction of the Tyrolean branch of the Leopoldian line in 1490/1496. Frederick's aim was to make Austria a united country, stretching from the Rhine to the Mur and Leitha.
On the external front, one of Frederick's main achievements was the Siege of Neuss (1474–75), in which he forced Charles the Bold of Burgundy to give his daughter Mary of Burgundy as wife to Frederick's son Maximilian. The wedding took place on the evening of 16 August 1477 and ultimately resulted in the Habsburgs acquiring control of the Low Countries. After Mary's early death in 1482, Maximilian attempted to secure the Burgundian heritance to one of his and Mary's children Philip the Handsome. Charles VIII of France contested this, using both military and dynastic means, but the Burgundian succession was finally ruled in favor of Philip in the Treaty of Senlis in 1493.
After the death of his father in 1493, Maximilian was proclaimed the new King of the Romans, receiving the name Maximilian I. Maximilian was initially unable to travel to Rome to receive the Imperial title from the Pope, due to opposition from Venice and from the French who were occupying Milan, as well a refusal from the Pope due to enemy forces being present on his territory. In 1508, Maximilian proclaimed himself as the "chosen Emperor," and this was also recognized by the Pope due to changes in political alliances. This had a historical consequence in that, in the future, the Roman King would also automatically become Emperor, without needing the Pope's consent. In 1530, Emperor Charles V became the last person to be crowned as the Emperor by the Pope.
Maximilian's rule (1493–1519) was a time of great expansion for the Habsburgs. In 1497, Maximilian's son Philip the Handsome (also known as Phillip the Fair) married Joanna of Castile, also known as Joan the Mad, heiress of Castile, Aragon, and most of Spain. Phillip and Joan had six children, the eldest of whom became emperor Charles V and inherited the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon (including their colonies in the New World) as Charles I, Southern Italy, Austria, and the Low Countries.
The foundations for the later empire of Austria-Hungary were laid in 1515 by the means of a double wedding between Louis, only son of Vladislaus II, King of Bohemia and Hungary, and Maximilian's granddaughter Mary; and between her brother Archduke Ferdinand and Vladislaus' daughter Anna. The wedding was celebrated in grand style on 22 July 1515 and has been described by some historians as the First Congress of Vienna due to its significant implications for Europe's political landscape. All the children were still minors, so the wedding was formally completed in 1521. Vladislaus died on 13 March 1516, and Maximilian died on 12 January 1519, but his designs were ultimately successful: on Louis's death in 1526, Maximilian's grandson and Charles V's brother Ferdinand, became the King of Bohemia.
The Habsburg dynasty achieved the position of a true world power by the time of Charles V's election in 1519, for the first and only time in their history—the "World Emperor" ruling an "empire on which the sun never sets".
The Habsburgs' policies against Protestantism led to an eradication of the former throughout vast areas under their control.
After the abdication of Charles V in 1556, the Habsburg dynasty split into the branch of the Austrian Habsburgs (or German Habsburgs) and the branch of the Spanish Habsburgs. Ferdinand I, King of Bohemia, Hungary, and archduke of Austria in the name of his brother Charles V became suo jure monarch as well as the Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor (designated as successor already in 1531). Philip II of Spain, son of Charles V, became King of Spain and its colonial empire, and ruler of the Mezzogiorno of Italy. The Spanish Habsburgs also ruled Portugal for a time (1580–1640).
The Seventeen Provinces and the Duchy of Milan were also left in personal union under the King of Spain, but remained part of the Holy Roman Empire. Furthermore, the Spanish king had claims on Hungary and Bohemia. In the secret Oñate treaty, the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs settled their mutual claims. The Spanish Habsburgs died out in 1700 (prompting the War of the Spanish Succession), as did the last male of the Austrian Habsburg line in 1740 (prompting the War of the Austrian Succession), and finally the last female of the Habsburg male line in 1780.
The Habsburgs sought to consolidate their power by frequent consanguineous marriages, resulting in a cumulatively deleterious effect on their gene pool. A study of 3,000 family members over 16 generations by the University of Santiago de Compostela suggests inbreeding may have played a factor in their extinction. However, other scientific studies dispute the ideas of any linkage between fertility and consanguinity.
Numerous members of the family show specific facial deformities: an enlarged lower jaw with an extended chin known as mandibular prognathism or "Habsburg jaw", a large nose with hump and hanging tip ("Habsburg nose"), and an everted lower lip ("Habsburg lip"). The latter two are signs of maxillary deficiency. A 2019 study found that the degree of mandibular prognasthism in the Habsburg family shows a statistically significant correlation with the degree of inbreeding. A correlation between maxillary deficiency and degree of inbreeding was also present but was not statistically significant.
The gene pool eventually became so small that the last of the Spanish line, Charles II, who was severely disabled from birth, perhaps by genetic disorders, possessed a genome comparable to that of a child born to a brother and sister, as did his father, probably because of "remote inbreeding".
The Austrian branch became extinct in the male line in 1740 with the death of Charles VI and in the female line in 1780 with the death of his daughter, Maria Theresa; it was succeeded by the Vaudemont branch of the House of Lorraine in the person of her son, Joseph II. The new successor house styled itself formally as the House of Habsburg-Lorraine (German: "Haus Habsburg-Lothringen"), although it was often referred to simply as the House of Habsburg. The heiress of the last Austrian Habsburgs, Maria Theresa, had married Francis Stephan, Duke of Lorraine (both of them were great-grandchildren of Habsburg emperor Ferdinand III, but from different empresses). Their descendants carried on the Habsburg tradition from Vienna under the dynastic name Habsburg-Lorraine, although technically a new ruling house came into existence in the Habsburg-ruled territories – the House of Lorraine (see Dukes of Lorraine family tree). It is thought that extensive intra-family marriages within both lines contributed to their extinction.
On 6 August 1806, the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved under the French emperor Napoleon I's reorganization of Germany. However, in anticipation of the loss of his title of Holy Roman Emperor, Francis II declared himself hereditary Emperor of Austria (as Francis I) on 11 August 1804, three months after Napoleon had declared himself Emperor of the French on 18 May 1804.
Emperor Francis I of Austria used the official full list of titles: "We, Francis the First, by the grace of God, Emperor of Austria; King of Jerusalem, Hungary, Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, Galicia and Lodomeria; Archduke of Austria; Duke of Lorraine, Salzburg, Würzburg, Franconia, Styria, Carinthia, and Carniola; Grand Duke of Cracow; Grand Prince of Transylvania; Margrave of Moravia; Duke of Sandomir, Masovia, Lublin, Upper and Lower Silesia, Auschwitz and Zator, Teschen, and Friule; Prince of Berchtesgaden and Mergentheim; Princely Count of Habsburg, Gorizia, and Gradisca and of the Tyrol; and Margrave of Upper and Lower Lusatia and Istria".
The Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 created a real union, whereby the Kingdom of Hungary was granted co-equality with the Empire of Austria, that henceforth didn't include the Kingdom of Hungary as a crownland anymore. The Austrian and the Hungarian lands became independent entities enjoying equal status. Under this arrangement, the Hungarians referred to their ruler as king and never emperor (see k. u. k.). This prevailed until the Habsburgs' deposition from both Austria and Hungary in 1918 following defeat in World War I.
On 11 November 1918, with his empire collapsing around him, the last Habsburg ruler, Charles I of Austria (who also reigned as Charles IV of Hungary) issued a proclamation recognizing Austria's right to determine the future of the state and renouncing any role in state affairs. Two days later, he issued a separate proclamation for Hungary. Even though he did not officially abdicate, this is considered the end of the Habsburg dynasty. In 1919, the new republican Austrian government subsequently passed a law banishing the Habsburgs from Austrian territory until they renounced all intentions of regaining the throne and accepted the status of private citizens. Charles made several attempts to regain the throne of Hungary, and in 1921 the Hungarian government passed a law that revoked Charles' rights and dethroned the Habsburgs.
The Habsburgs did not formally abandon all hope of returning to power until Otto von Habsburg, the eldest son of Charles I, on 31 May 1961 renounced all claims to the throne.
The dynasty's motto was "Leave the waging of wars to others! But you, happy Austria, marry; for the realms which Mars awards to others, Venus transfers to you."
Fragmentary references (see below) cite the Habsburgs as descendants of the early Germanic Etichonider, probably of Frankish, Burgundian or Visigothic origin, who ruled the Duchy of Alsace in the Early Middle Ages (7th–10th centuries). The dynasty is named for Eticho (also known as Aldarich) who ruled from 662 to 690.
Family tree of the ancestors of the Habsburg family, largely before becoming Holy Roman Emperors and (Arch)Dukes of Austria. This family tree only includes male scions of the House of Habsburg from 920 to 1308. Otto II was probably the first to take the Habsburg Castle name as his own, adding "von Habsburg" to his title and creating the House of Habsburg. See below for more references.
Similarly, this family tree only includes male scions of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine who survived to adulthood:
The Habsburg Empire was never composed of a single unified and unitary state as Bourbon France, Hohenzollern Germany, or Great Britain was. It was made up of an accretion of territories that owed their historic loyalty to the head of the house of Habsburg as hereditary lord. The Habsburgs had mostly married the heiresses of these territories, most famously of Spain and the Netherlands. They used their coats of arms then as a statement of their right to rule all these territories. As there were many territories, so their arms were complex and reflected the waxing and waning position of the Habsburgs within European power politics. It was not until the 19th century (see below Arms of Dominion of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) that the arms began to take on their own life as symbols of a state which may have an existence outside of the Habsburg dynasty. A complete listing of the arms can be found at the .
Before Rudolph rose to German king, the Habsburgs were Counts of Baden in what is today southwestern Germany and Switzerland.
In the late Middle Ages, when the Habsburgs expanded their territories in the east, they usually ruled as dukes of the Duchy of Austria which covered only what is today Lower Austria ("Niederösterreich") and the eastern part of Upper Austria ("Oberösterreich"). The Habsburg possessions also included the rest of what was then called Inner Austria ("Innerösterreich"), i.e. the Duchy of Styria, and then expanded west to include the Duchy of Carinthia and Carniola in 1335 and the Count of Tirol in 1363. Their original scattered possessions in the southern Alsace, south-western Germany and Vorarlberg were collectively known as Further Austria.
The senior Habsburg dynasty generally ruled Lower Austria from Vienna as archduke ("paramount duke") of the Duchy of Austria. The Styrian lands had already been ruled in personal union by the Babenberg dukes of Austria since 1192 and were finally seized with the Austrian lands by the Habsburg king Rudolph I of Germany upon his victory in the 1278 Battle on the Marchfeld. In 1335 Rudolph's grandson Duke Albert II of Austria also received the Carinthian duchy with the adjacent March of Carniola at the hands of Emperor Louis the Bavarian as Imperial fiefs.
The Habsburg dukes gradually lost their homelands south of the Rhine and Lake Constance to the expanding Old Swiss Confederacy. Unless mentioned explicitly, the dukes of Austria also ruled over Further Austria until 1379, after that year, Further Austria was ruled by the Princely Count of Tyrol. Names in "italics" designate dukes who never actually ruled.
When Albert's son Duke Rudolf IV of Austria died in 1365, his younger brothers Albert III and Leopold III quarrelled about his heritage and in the Treaty of Neuberg of 1379 finally split the Habsburg territories: The Albertinian line would rule in the Archduchy of Austria proper (then sometimes referred to as "Lower Austria" ("Niederösterreich"), but comprising modern Lower Austria and most of Upper Austria), while the Leopoldian line ruled in the Styrian, Carinthian and Carniolan territories, subsumed under the denotation of "Inner Austria". At that time their share also comprised Tyrol and the original Habsburg possessions in Swabia, called Further Austria; sometimes both were collectively referred to as "Upper Austria" ("Oberösterreich") in that context, also not to be confused with the modern state of that name.
After the death of Leopold's eldest son William in 1406, the Leopoldinian line was further split among his brothers into the Inner Austrian territory under Ernest the Iron and a Tyrolean/Further Austrian line under Frederick IV. In 1457 Ernest's son Duke Frederick V of Inner Austria also gained the Austrian archduchy after his Albertine cousin Ladislaus the Posthumous had died without issue. 1490 saw the reunification of all Habsburg lines when Archduke Sigismund of Further Austria and Tyrol resigned in favor of Frederick's son Maximilian I. In 1512, the Habsburg territories were incorporated into the Imperial Austrian Circle.
"Archduke of Austria", was invented in the "Privilegium Maius", a 14th-century forgery initiated by Duke Rudolf IV of Austria. Originally, it was meant to denote the "ruler" (thus "Arch-") of the Duchy of Austria, usually from Vienna, in an effort to put the Habsburgs on a par with the Prince-electors, as Austria had been bypassed as hereditary prince-electors of the empire when the Golden Bull of 1356 assigned that title to the highest-ranking Imperial princes. The Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV refused to recognize the title.
The archducal title was only officially recognized in 1453 by Emperor Frederick III. Emperor Frederick III himself used just "Duke of Austria", never "Archduke", until his death in 1493. The title was first granted to Frederick's younger brother, Albert VI of Austria (died 1463), who used it at least from 1458.
In 1477, Frederick III also granted the title "archduke" to his first cousin, Sigismund of Austria, ruler of Further Austria.
Frederick's son and heir, the future Emperor Maximilian I, started to use the title, but apparently only after the death of his wife Mary of Burgundy (died 1482), as "Archduke" never appears in documents issued jointly by Maximilian and Mary as rulers in the Low Countries (where Maximilian is still titled "Duke of Austria"). The title appears first in documents issued under the joint rule of Maximilian and Philip (his under-age son) in the Low Countries.
"Archduke" was initially borne by those dynasts who ruled a Habsburg territory, i.e., only by males and their consorts, appanages being commonly distributed to cadets. But these "junior" "archdukes" did not thereby become independent hereditary rulers, since all territories remained vested in the Austrian crown. Occasionally a territory might be combined with a separate gubernatorial mandate ruled by an archducal cadet.
From the 16th century onward, "archduke" and its female form, "archduchess", came to be used by all the members of the House of Habsburg (e.g., Queen Marie Antoinette of France was born "Archduchess Maria Antonia of Austria".
After the death of Rudolph IV, his brothers Albert III and Leopold III ruled the Habsburg possessions together from 1365 until 1379, when they split the territories in the Treaty of Neuberg, Albert keeping the Duchy of Austria and Leopold ruling over Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, the Windic March, Tirol, and Further Austria.
Sigismund had no children and adopted Maximilian I, son of duke Frederick V (emperor Frederick III). Under Maximilian, the possessions of the Habsburgs would be united again under one ruler, after he had re-conquered the Duchy of Austria after the death of Matthias Corvinus, who resided in Vienna and styled himself duke of Austria from 1485–1490.
The title Archduke of Austria, the one most famously associated with the Habsburgs, was invented in the Privilegium Maius, a 14th-century forgery initiated by Duke Rudolf IV of Austria. Originally, it was meant to denote the ruler of the (thus 'Arch') duchy of Austria, in an effort to put that ruler on par with the Prince-electors, as Austria had been passed over in the Golden Bull of 1356, when the electorships had been assigned. Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV refused to recognize the title. Ladislaus the Posthumous, Duke of Austria, who died in 1457, was never in his lifetime authorized to use it, and accordingly, not he nor anyone in his branch of the dynasty ever used the title.
Duke Ernest the Iron and his descendants unilaterally assumed the title "archduke". This title was only officially recognized in 1453 by his son, Emperor Frederick III, when the Habsburgs had (permanently) gained control of the office of the Holy Roman Emperor. Emperor Frederick III himself used just Duke of Austria, never Archduke, until his death in 1493.
Frederick's son and heir, the future Emperor Maximilian I, started to use the title, but apparently only after the death of his wife Mary of Burgundy (died 1482) as the title never appears in documents of joint Maximilian and Mary rule in the Low Countries (where Maximilian is still titled Duke of Austria). The title appears first in documents of joint Maximilian and Philip (his under-age son) rule in the Low Countries. It only gained currency with Charles V and the descendants of his brother, the Emperor Ferdinand.
The reigning duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, was the chief political opponent of Maximilian's father Frederick III. Charles controlled not only Burgundy (both dukedom and county), but the wealthy and powerful Southern Netherlands, current Flanders, the real center of his power. Frederick was concerned about Burgundy's expansive tendencies on the western border of his Holy Roman Empire, and to forestall military conflict, he attempted to secure the marriage of Charles's only daughter, Mary of Burgundy, to his son Maximilian. After the Siege of Neuss (1474–75), he was successful.
The wedding between Maximilian and Mary took place on the evening of 16 August 1477, after the death of Charles. Mary and the Habsburgs lost the Duchy of Burgundy to France, but managed to defend and hold onto the rest what became the 17 provinces of the Habsburg Netherlands. After Mary's death in 1482, Maximilian acted as regent for his son:
The Netherlands were frequently governed directly by a regent or governor-general, who was a collateral member of the Habsburgs. By the Pragmatic Sanction of 1549 Charles V combined the Netherlands into one administrative unit, to be inherited by his son Philip II. Charles effectively united the Netherlands as one entity. The Habsburgs controlled the 17 Provinces of the Netherlands until the Dutch Revolt in the second half of the 16th century, when they lost the seven northern Protestant provinces. They held onto the southern Catholic part (roughly modern Belgium and Luxembourg) as the Spanish and Austrian Netherlands until they were conquered by French Revolutionary armies in 1795. The one exception to this was the period of (1601–1621), when shortly before Philip II died on 13 September 1598, he renounced his rights to the Netherlands in favor of his daughter Isabella and her fiancé, Archduke Albert of Austria, a younger son of Emperor Maximilian II. The territories reverted to Spain on the death of Albert in 1621, as the couple had no surviving offspring, and Isabella acted as regent-governor until her death in 1633:
Habsburg Spain was a personal union between the Crowns of Castile and Aragon; Aragon was itself divided into the Kingdoms of Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, Majorca, Naples, Sicily, Malta and Sardinia. From 1581, they were kings of Portugal until they renounced this title in the 1668 Treaty of Lisbon. They were also Dukes of Milan, Lord of the Americas, and holder of multiple titles from territories within the Habsburg Netherlands. A full listing can be seen here.
This wide range of claims was illustrated in their coat of arms. There are many more variants of these arms in the as well as coat of arms of the King of Spain, coat of arms of Spain, coat of arms of the Prince of Asturias, and coats of arms of Spanish Monarchs in Italy. The Spanish Habsburgs also kept up the Burgundian court tradition of the dynast being known by a "nickname" (e.g. the Bold, the Prudent, the Bewitched). In Spain they were known as the ", and illegitimate sons were known as "de Austria" (see Don Juan de Austria and Don Juan José de Austria).
The War of the Spanish Succession took place after the extinction of the Spanish Habsburg line, to determine the inheritance of Charles II.
The abdications of Charles V in 1556 ended his formal authority over Ferdinand and made him "suo jure" ruler in Austria, Bohemia, Hungary, as well as Holy Roman Emperor. This inheritance was itself split in 1564 among the children of deceased Emperor Ferdinand I of Habsburg.
The Inner Austrian line founded by Archduke Charles II prevailed again, when his son and successor as regent of Inner Austria (i.e. the Duchy of Styria, the Duchy of Carniola with March of Istria, the Duchy of Carinthia, the Princely County of Gorizia and Gradisca, and the Imperial City of Trieste, ruled from Graz) Ferdinand II in 1619 became Archduke of Austria and Holy Roman Emperor as well as King of Bohemia and Hungary in 1620. The Further Austrian/Tyrolean line of Ferdinand's brother Archduke Leopold V survived until the death of his son Sigismund Francis in 1665, whereafter their territories ultimately returned to common control with the other Austrian Habsburg lands. Inner Austrian stadtholders went on to rule until the days of Empress Maria Theresa in the 18th century.
The War of the Austrian Succession took place after the extinction of the male line of the Austrian Habsburg line upon the death of Charles VI. The direct Habsburg line itself became totally extinct with the death of Maria Theresa of Austria, when it was followed by the House of Lorraine, styled " of Habsburg-Lorraine".
Queen Maria Christina of Austria of Spain, great-granddaughter of Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor above. Wife of Alfonso XII of Spain and mother of Alfonso XIII of the House of Bourbon. Alfonso XIII's wife Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg was descended from King George I of Great Britain from the Habsburg Leopold Line {above}.
The House of Habsburg-Lorraine retained Austria and attached possessions after the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire; see below.
A son of Leopold II was Archduke Rainer of Austria whose wife was from the House of Savoy; a daughter Adelaide, Queen of Sardina was the wife of King Victor Emmanuel II of Piedmont, Savoy, and Sardinia and King of Italy. Their Children married into the Royal Houses of Bonaparte; Saxe-Coburg and Gotha {Bragança} {Portugal}; Savoy {Spain}; and the Dukedoms of Montferrat and Chablis.
(→Family Tree)
Francis Stephen assigned the grand duchy of Tuscany to his second son Peter Leopold, who in turn assigned it to his second son upon his accession as Holy Roman Emperor. Tuscany remained the domain of this cadet branch of the family until Italian unification.
The duchy of Modena was assigned to a minor branch of the family by the Congress of Vienna. It was lost to Italian unification. The Dukes named their line the House of Austria-Este, as they were descended from the daughter of the last D'Este Duke of Modena.
Dona Maria Leopoldina of Austria (22 January 1797 – 11 December 1826) was an archduchess of Austria, Empress consort of Brazil and Queen consort of Portugal.
The duchy of Parma was likewise assigned to a Habsburg, but did not stay in the House long before succumbing to Italian unification. It was granted to the second wife of Napoleon I of France, Maria Luisa Duchess of Parma, a daughter of the Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, who was the mother of Napoleon II of France. Napoleon had divorced his wife Rose de Tascher de la Pagerie (better known to history as Josephine de Beauharnais) in her favour.
Maximilian, the adventurous second son of Archduke Franz Karl, was invited as part of Napoleon III's manipulations to take the throne of Mexico, becoming Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico. The conservative Mexican nobility, as well as the clergy, supported this Second Mexican Empire. His consort, Charlotte of Belgium, a daughter of King Leopold I of Belgium and a princess of the House of Saxe-Coburg Gotha, encouraged her husband's acceptance of the Mexican crown and accompanied him as Empress Carlota of Mexico. The adventure did not end well. Maximilian was shot in Cerro de las Campanas, Querétaro, in 1867 by the republican forces of Benito Juárez.
Charles I was expelled from his domains after World War I and the empire was abolished.
see Line of succession to the Austro-Hungarian throne
The kingship of Hungary remained in the Habsburg family for centuries; but as the kingship was not strictly inherited (Hungary was an elective monarchy until 1687) and was sometimes used as a training ground for young Habsburgs, as "Palatine" of Hungary, the dates of rule do not always match those of the primary Habsburg possessions. Therefore, the kings of Hungary are listed separately.
After Václav III’s death, there were no male heirs remaining in the Přemyslid line. Therefore, with the election of Rudolf in 1306, the kingship of Bohemia was a position elected by its nobles, although often the crown was transferred through war, such as John of Bohemia in 1310. As a result, it was not an automatically inherited position. Until the rule of Ferdinand I, Habsburgs didn't gain hereditary accession to the throne and were displaced by other dynasties. Hence, the kings of Bohemia and their ruling dates are listed separately. The Habsburgs became hereditary kings of Bohemia in 1627. By their acquisition of the Bohemian Crown in 1526 the Habsburgs secured the highest rank among the secular prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire.
Most royal families did not have a family name until the 19th century. They were known as "of" (in German "von") based on the main territory they ruled. For example, sons, daughters, grandsons, and granddaughters of a ruling French King were known as "of France" (see Wikipedia on House of Bourbon). The name "Capet" was an invention of the French Revolutionaries. "Bourbon" was in some sense the name of the house as it was differentiated from the previous Valois kings. Princes and princesses of the royal house of England were known as "of England", or later "Great Britain" (see House of Windsor) or "of" the main title associated with their parent (see Prince William of Wales).
In the Middle Ages, princes of England were often known by the town or castle of their birth (see John of Gaunt, Henry Bolingbroke, or Henry of Monmouth). Even when the royal family had the last name (see House of Tudor, House of Stuart or House of Windsor), it was not used in their titles.
Similarly, the Habsburg name was used as one of the subsidiary titles of the rulers above, as in "Princely Count of Habsburg" (see above under Habsburg-Lorraine). The Habsburg arms (see above) were displayed only in the most complete (great arms) of the prince. The dynasty was known as the "house of Austria". Most of the princes above were known as Archduke XYZ "of Austria" and had no need for a surname. Charles V was known in his youth after his birthplace as "Charles of Ghent". When he became king of Spain he was known as "Charles of Spain" until he became emperor, when he was known as Charles V ("Charles Quint").
In Spain, the dynasty was known as the , and illegitimate sons were given the title of "de Austria" (see Don Juan de Austria and Don Juan José de Austria). The arms displayed in their simplest form were those of Austria, which the Habsburgs had made their own, at times impaled with the arms of the Duchy of Burgundy (ancient).
When Maria Theresa married the duke of Lorraine, Francis Stephen (see above), there was a desire to show that the ruling dynasty continued as did all its inherited rights, as the ruling dynasty's right to rule was based on inherited legitimate birthright in each of the constituent territories. Using the concept of "Habsburg" as the traditional Austrian ruler was one of those ways. When Francis I became Emperor of Austria, there was an even further reinforcement of this by the reappearance of the arms of Habsburg in the tripart personal arms of the house with Austria and Lorraine. This also reinforced the "Germanness" of the Austrian Emperor and his claim to rule in Germany against the Prussian Kings, or at least to be included in "Germany". As Emperor Francis Joseph wrote to Napoleon III „Nein, ich bin ein Deutscher Fürst“ In the genealogical table above, some younger sons who had no prospects of the throne, were given the personal title of "count of Habsburg".
Today, as the dynasty is no longer on the throne, the surname of members of the house is taken to be "von Habsburg" or more completely "von Habsburg-Lothringen" (see Otto von Habsburg and Karl von Habsburg). Princes and members of the house use the Tripartite arms shown above, generally forgoing any imperial pretensions.
The arms of dominion began to take on a life of their own in the 19th century as the idea of the state as independent from the Habsburg dynasty took root. They are the national arms as borne by a sovereign in his capacity as head of state and represent the state as separate from the person of the monarch or his dynasty. That very idea had been, heretofore, foreign to the concept of the Habsburg state. The state had been the personal property of the Habsburg dynasty. Since the states, territories, and nationalities represented were in many cases only united to the Austro-Hungarian Empire by their historic loyalty to the head of the house of Habsburg as hereditary lord, these full ("grand") arms of dominion of Austria-Hungary reflect the complex political infrastructure that was necessarily to accommodate the many different nationalities and groupings within the empire after the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867.
After 1867 the eastern part of the empire, also called Transleithania, was mostly under the domination of the Kingdom of Hungary. The shield integrated the arms of the kingdom of Hungary, with two angels and supporters and the crown of St. Stephen, along with the territories that were subject to it:
The Kingdom of Dalmatia, the Kingdom of Croatia, the Kingdom of Slavonia (conjoined with Croatia as the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia - formally known as the Triune Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia, although the claim to Dalmatia was mostly de jure), the Great Principality of Transylvania, the Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina (1915–1918), the City of Fiume and its district (modern Rijeka), and in the center, the Kingdom of Hungary.
The western or Austrian part of the empire, "Cisleithania", continued using the shield of the Empire in 1815 but with the seals of various member territories located around the central shield. Paradoxically, some of these coats of arms belonged to the territories that were part of the Hungarian part of the empire and shield. This shield, the most frequently used until 1915, was known as the middle shield. There was also the small shield, with just the personal arms of the Habsburgs, as used in 1815.
In 1915, in the middle of World War I, Austria-Hungary adopted a heraldic composition uniting the shield that was used in the Hungarian part, also known as the Lands of the Crown of St. Stephen, with a new version of the medium shield of the Austrian part as depicted above in the section on the mainline of the Emperors of Austria.
Before 1915, the arms of the different territories of the Austrian part of the Empire (heraldry was added to some areas not shown in the previous version and to the left to the Hungarian part) appeared together in the shield positioned on the double-headed eagle coat of arms of the Austrian Empire as an inescutcheon. The eagle was inside a shield with a goldfield. The latter shield was supported by two griffins and was topped by the Austrian Imperial Crown (previously these items were included only in the large shield). Then, shown in the center of both arms of dominion, as an inescutcheon to the inescutcheon, is the small shield, i.e. personal arms, of the Habsburgs. All this was surrounded by the collar Order of the Golden Fleece.
In the heraldic composition of 1915, the shields of the two foci of the empire, Austria and Hungary, were brought together. The griffin supporter on the left was added for Austria and an angel on the right as a supporter for Hungary. The center featured the personal arms of the Habsburgs (Habsburg, Austria, and Lorraine). This small shield was topped with a royal crown and surrounded by the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece, below which was the Military Order of Maria Theresa, below which was the collars of the Orders of St. Stephen's and Leopold. At the bottom was the motto that read "AC INDIVISIBILITER INSEPARABILITER" ("indivisible and inseparable"). Other simplified versions did not have the supports depicted, and the simple shields of Austria and Hungary. These were the arms of the Empire of Austria with an inescutcheon of Austria, and the Arms of Hungary (with chequer of Croatia at the tip).
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House of Commons of the United Kingdom
The House of Commons, domestically often referred to simply as the Commons, is the lower house and "de facto" primary chamber of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster. Owing to shortage of space, its office accommodation extends into Portcullis House.
The Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 members known as members of Parliament (MPs). Members are elected to represent constituencies by the first-past-the-post system and hold their seats until Parliament is dissolved.
The House of Commons of England started to evolve in the 13th and 14th centuries. It became the House of Commons of Great Britain after the political union with Scotland in 1707, and assumed the title of "House of Commons of Great Britain and Ireland" after the political union with Ireland at the start of the 19th century. The "United Kingdom" referred to was the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 1800, and became the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland after the independence of the Irish Free State in 1922. Accordingly, the House of Commons assumed its current title.
Under the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949, the Lords' power to reject legislation was reduced to a delaying power. The government is solely responsible to the House of Commons and the prime minister stays in office only as long as he or she retains the confidence of a majority of the Commons.
Although the House of Commons does not formally elect the prime minister, by convention and in practice, the prime minister is answerable to the House, and therefore must maintain its support. In this way, the position of the parties in the House is of overriding importance. Thus, whenever the office of prime minister falls vacant, the monarch appoints the person who has the support of the House, or who is most likely to command the support of the Housenormally the leader of the largest party in the Housewhile the leader of the second-largest party becomes the leader of the Opposition. Since 1963, by convention, the prime minister is always a member of the House of Commons, rather than the House of Lords.
The Commons may indicate its lack of support for the government by rejecting a motion of confidence or by passing a motion of no confidence. Confidence and no confidence motions are phrased explicitly: for instance, "That this House has no confidence in Her Majesty's Government." Many other motions were until recent decades considered confidence issues, even though not explicitly phrased as such: in particular, important bills that were part of the government's agenda. The annual Budget is still considered a matter of confidence. When a Government has lost the confidence of the House of Commons, the prime minister is obliged either to resign, making way for another MP who can command confidence, or to request the monarch to dissolve Parliament, thereby precipitating a general election.
Before 2011, Parliament sat for anything up to five years. This was a maximum: the prime minister could, and often did, choose an earlier time to dissolve parliament, with the permission of the monarch. Since the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, the term has been fixed at five years. However, an early general election can be brought about ("inter alia") by the approval of MPs holding at least two-thirds of all seats (whether vacant or entitled to vote, or not) or by a vote of no confidence in the government that is not followed within fourteen days by a vote of confidence (which may be for confidence in the same government or in a different one). By the second of these mechanisms, the UK's government can change its political composition without an intervening general election. As at 31 October 2019, four of the nine last prime ministers have attained office as the immediate result of a general election; the others have gained office upon the resignation of a prime minister of their own party.
A prime minister will resign after party defeat at an election if unable to form a coalition, or obtain a confidence and supply arrangement. She or he may also resign after a motion of no confidence in the prime minister or for personal reasons. In such cases, the premiership goes to whoever can command a majority in the House, unless there is a hung parliament and a coalition is formed; the new prime minister will by convention be the new leader of the resigner's party. It has become the practice to write the constitutions of major UK political parties to provide a set way in which to appoint a new party leader.
By convention, ministers are members of either the House of Commons or the House of Lords. A handful have been appointed who were outside Parliament, but in most cases they then entered Parliament in a by-election or by receiving a peerage (being made a peer). Since 1902, all prime ministers have been members of the Commons; the sole exception was during the long summer recess in 1963: the 14th Earl of Home disclaimed his peerage (under a new mechanism which remains in force) three days after becoming prime minister, and became Sir Alec Douglas-Home. The new session of Parliament was delayed to await the outcome of his by-election, which happened to be already under way due to a recent death. As anticipated, he won that election, which was for the highest-majority seat in Scotland among his party; otherwise he would have been constitutionally obliged to resign.
Since 1990, almost all cabinet ministers, save for three whose offices are an intrinsic part of the House of Lords, have belonged to the Commons.
Few major cabinet positions (except Lord Privy Seal, Lord Chancellor and Leader of the House of Lords) have been filled by a peer in recent times. Notable exceptions are Peter Carington, 6th Lord Carrington, who served as Foreign Secretary from 1979 to 1982; David Young, Lord Young of Graffham, who was appointed Employment Secretary in 1985; Lord Mandelson, who served as Business Secretary; Lord Adonis, who served as Transport Secretary; Baroness Amos, who served as International Development Secretary; Baroness Morgan of Cotes, who served as Culture Secretary; and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park, who is serving as Minister of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Minister of State for International Development. The elected status of members of the Commons (as opposed to the unelected Lords) and their direct accountability to that House, together with empowerment and transparency, ensures ministerial accountability. Responsible government is an international constitutional paradigm. The prime minister chooses the ministers, and may decide to remove them at any time, although the appointments and dismissals are formally made by the Sovereign.
The House of Commons formally scrutinises the Government through its Committees and Prime Minister's Questions, when members ask questions of the prime minister; the House gives other opportunities to question other cabinet ministers. Prime Minister's Questions occur weekly, normally for half an hour each Wednesday. Questions must relate to the responding minister's official government activities, not to his or her activities as a party leader or as a private Member of Parliament. Customarily, members of the Government party/coalition and members of the Opposition alternate when asking questions. Members may also make inquiries in writing.
In practice, this scrutiny can be fairly weak. Since the first-past-the-post electoral system is employed, the governing party often enjoys a large majority in the Commons, and ministers and departments practise defensive government, outsourcing key work to third parties. If the government has a large majority, it has no need or incentive to compromise with other parties, apart from working in Select Committees for personal acclaim. Major modern British political parties tend to be so tightly orchestrated that their MPs often have little scope for free action. A large minority of ruling party MPs are paid members of the Government. Since 1900 the Government has lost confidence motions three times — twice in 1924, and once in 1979. However, the threat of rebellions by their own party's backbench MPs often forces governments to make concessions (under the Coalition, over foundation hospitals and under Labour over top-up fees and compensation for failed company pension schemes). Occasionally Government bills are defeated by backbench rebellions (Terrorism Act 2006). However, the scrutiny provided by the Select committees is more serious.
The House of Commons technically retains the power to impeach Ministers of the Crown (or any other subject, even if not a public officer) for their crimes. Impeachments are tried by the House of Lords, where a simple majority is necessary to convict. But this power has fallen into disuse: the House of Commons exercises its checks on the government through other means, such as no confidence motions; the last impeachment was that of Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville in 1806.
Bills may be introduced in either house, though bills of importance generally originate in the House of Commons. The supremacy of the Commons in legislative matters is assured by the Parliament Acts, under which certain types of bills may be presented to the Queen for Royal Assent without the consent of the House of Lords. The Lords may not delay a money bill (a bill that, in the view of the Speaker of the House of Commons, solely concerns national taxation or public funds) for more than one month. Moreover, the Lords may not delay most other public bills for more than two parliamentary sessions, or one calendar year. These provisions, however, only apply to public bills that originate in the House of Commons. Moreover, a bill that seeks to extend a parliamentary term beyond five years requires the consent of the House of Lords.
By a custom that prevailed even before the Parliament Acts, only the House of Commons may originate bills concerning taxation or Supply. Furthermore, supply bills passed by the House of Commons are immune to amendments in the House of Lords. In addition, the House of Lords is barred from amending a bill so as to insert a taxation or supply-related provision, but the House of Commons often waives its privileges and allows the Lords to make amendments with financial implications. Under a separate convention, known as the Salisbury Convention, the House of Lords does not seek to oppose legislation promised in the Government's election manifesto. Hence, as the power of the House of Lords has been severely curtailed by statute and by practice, the House of Commons is clearly the more powerful chamber of Parliament.
The British parliament of today largely descends, in practice, from the Parliament of England, although the 1706 Treaty of Union, and the Acts of Union that ratified the Treaty, created a new Parliament of Great Britain to replace the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland, with the addition of 45 MPs and sixteen Peers to represent Scotland. Later still the Acts of Union 1800 brought about the abolition of the Parliament of Ireland and enlarged the Commons at Westminster with 100 Irish members, creating the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
Although popularly considered to refer to the fact its members are commoners, the actual name of the House of Commons comes from the Norman French word for communities – "communes".
The current Commons' layout is influenced by the use of the original St. Stephen's Chapel in the Palace of Westminster.
The rectangular shape is derived from the shape of the chapel. Benches were arranged using the configuration of the chapel's choir stalls whereby they were facing across from one another. This arrangement facilitated an adversarial atmosphere that is representative of the British parliamentary approach.
The distance across the floor of the House between the government and opposition benches is , said to be equivalent to two swords' length, though this is likely to be purely symbolic given weapons have been banned in the chamber for hundreds of years.
The House of Commons underwent an important period of reform during the 19th century. Over the years, several anomalies had developed in borough representation. The constituency boundaries had not been changed since 1660, so many towns whose importance had declined by the 19th century still retained their ancient right of electing two members, in addition to other boroughs that had never been important, such as Gatton.
Among the most notorious of these "rotten boroughs" were Old Sarum, which had only six voters for two MPs, and Dunwich, which had largely collapsed into the sea from coastal erosion. At the same time, large cities such as Manchester received no separate representation (although their eligible residents were entitled to vote in the corresponding county seat). Also notable were the pocket boroughs, small constituencies controlled by wealthy landowners and aristocrats, whose "nominees" were invariably elected.
The Commons attempted to address these anomalies by passing a Reform Bill in 1831. At first, the House of Lords proved unwilling to pass the bill, but it was forced to relent when the prime minister, Charles, 2nd Earl Grey, advised King William IV to flood the House of Lords by creating pro-Reform peers. To avoid this, the Lords relented and passed the bill in 1832. The Reform Act 1832, also known as the "Great Reform Act", abolished the rotten boroughs, established uniform voting requirements for the boroughs, and granted representation to populous cities, but still retained some anomalies.
In the ensuing years, the Commons grew more assertive, the influence of the House of Lords having been reduced by the Reform Bill crisis, and the power of the patrons reduced. The Lords became more reluctant to reject bills that the Commons had passed with large majorities, and it became an accepted political principle that the confidence of the House of Commons alone was necessary for a government to remain in office.
Many more reforms were introduced in the latter half of the 19th century. The Reform Act 1867 lowered property requirements for voting in the boroughs, reduced the representation of the less populous boroughs, and granted parliamentary seats to several growing industrial towns. The electorate was further expanded by the Representation of the People Act 1884, under which property qualifications in the counties were lowered. The Redistribution of Seats Act of the following year replaced almost all multi-member constituencies with single-member constituencies.
In 1908, the Liberal Government under H. H. Asquith introduced a number of social welfare programmes, which, together with an expensive arms race, forced the Government to seek higher taxes. In 1909, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George, introduced the "People's Budget", which proposed a new tax targeting wealthy landowners. This measure failed in the heavily Conservative House of Lords, and the government resigned.
The resulting general election returned a hung parliament, but Asquith remained prime minister with the support of the smaller parties. Asquith then proposed that the powers of the Lords be severely curtailed. After a further election in December 1910, the Asquith Government secured the passage of a bill to curtail the powers of the House of Lords after threatening to flood the House with 500 new Liberal peers to ensure the passage of the bill.
Thus the Parliament Act 1911 came into effect, destroying the legislative equality of the two Houses of Parliament. The House of Lords was permitted only to delay most legislation, for a maximum of three parliamentary sessions or two calendar years (reduced to two sessions or one year by the Parliament Act 1949). Since the passage of these Acts, the House of Commons has become the dominant branch of Parliament, both in theory and in practice.
Since the 17th century, government ministers were paid, while other MPs were not. Most of the men elected to the Commons had private incomes, while a few relied on financial support from a wealthy patron. Early Labour MPs were often provided with a salary by a trade union, but this was declared illegal by a House of Lords judgement of 1909. Consequently, a resolution was passed in the House of Commons in 1911 introducing salaries for MPs.
In 1918, women over 30 who owned property were given the right to vote, as were men over 21 who did not own property, quickly followed by the passage of a law enabling women to be eligible for election as members of parliament at the younger age of 21. The only woman to be elected that year was an Irish Sinn Féin candidate, Constance Markievicz, who therefore became the first woman to be an MP. However, owing to Sinn Féin's policy of abstention from Westminster, she never took her seat.
Women were given equal voting status as men in 1928, and with effect from the General Election in 1950, various forms of plural voting (i.e. some individuals had the right to vote in more than one constituency in the same election), including University constituencies, were abolished.
In May and June 2009 revelations of MPs' expenses claims caused a major scandal and loss of confidence by the public in the integrity of MPs, as well as causing the first forced resignation of the Speaker in 300 years. In 2011, a referendum was held, asking whether or not to replace the present "first-past-the-post" system with the "alternative vote" (AV) method. The proposal to introduce AV was overwhelmingly rejected by 67.9% of voters on a national turnout of 42%.
The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 was passed by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, transferring the power to call an early election from the Prime Minister to parliament, and setting out the procedure for this. Under the act, calling an early election requires a two-thirds super-majority of the house. These provisions were first used by Theresa May to trigger the 2017 snap election.
In 2019, MPs used "standing order 24" (a parliamentary procedure that triggers emergency debates) as a means of gaining control of the parliamentary order paper for the following day, and passing legislation without the incumbent government. This unusual process was achieved through tabling amendments to the "motion in neutral terms", which is traditionally a non-binding statement released by parliament at the conclusion of the debate. This new technique was used to pass the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2019 in March, as well as the No. 2 Act in September, both relating to Brexit.
In 2020, new procedures for hybrid proceedings were introduced from 22 April. These mitigated the coronavirus pandemic with measures including a limit of 50 MPs in the chamber, physical distancing and remote participation using video conferencing.
Since 1950, each and every constituency has been represented by a single Member of Parliament. There remains a technical distinction between county and borough constituencies; its only effects are on the amount of money candidates are allowed to spend during campaigns and the rank of the local authority co-opted Returning Officer who presides over the count. Geographic boundaries are determined by four permanent and independent Boundary Commissions, one each for England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. The commissions conduct general reviews of electoral boundaries once every 8 to 12 years, and interim reviews. In drawing boundaries, they are required to prefer local government boundaries, but may deviate from these to prevent great disparities in electorate; such disparities are given the formal term malapportionment. The proposals of the Boundary Commissions are subject to parliamentary approval, but may not be amended. After their next Periodic Reviews, the Boundary Commissions will be absorbed into the Electoral Commission, which was established in 2000. As of 2019, the UK is divided into 650 constituencies, with 533 in England, 40 in Wales, 59 in Scotland, and 18 in Northern Ireland.
General elections occur whenever Parliament is dissolved. The timing of the dissolution was normally chosen by the Prime Minister (see relationship with the Government above); however, as a result of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011, Parliamentary terms are now fixed at five years, except in the event of the House of Commons sustaining a vote of no confidence or passing an "early election" motion, the latter having to be passed by a two-thirds vote; or, as in 2019, by some other mechanism. The first use of this procedure was in April 2017, when MPs voted in favour of Theresa May's call for a snap election to be held that June.
All elections in the UK have for some years been held on a Thursday. The Electoral Commission is unsure when this practice arose, but dates it to 1931, with the suggestion that it was made to coincide with market day; this would ease voting for those who had to travel into the towns to cast their ballot.
A candidate for a seat must submit nomination papers signed by ten registered voters from that area, and pay £500, which is refunded if the candidate wins at least five per cent of the vote. Such a deposit seeks to discourage frivolity and very long ballot papers which would cause vote splitting (and arguably voter confusion). Each constituency is also called a seat (as it was in 1885), as it returns one member, using the first-past-the-post electoral system, under which the candidate with a plurality of votes wins, that is greatest number of votes. Minors (that is, anyone under the age of 18), members of the House of Lords, and prisoners are not qualified to become members of the House of Commons. To vote, one must be a UK resident and a British citizen, or a citizen of a British overseas territory, of the Republic of Ireland, or of a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. British citizens living abroad are allowed to vote for 15 years after leaving. It is a criminal offence for a person to vote in the ballot of more than one seat which is vacant at any election. This has not always been the case: before 1948 plural voting was permitted as voters qualified by home ownership or residence and could vote under both entitlements simultaneously, as well as for a university constituency if a university graduate.
Once elected, Members of Parliament normally continue to serve until the next dissolution of Parliament. But if a member dies or ceases to be qualified (see qualifications below), his or her seat falls vacant. It is also possible for the House of Commons to expel a member, a power exercised only in cases of serious misconduct or criminal activity. In each case, the vacancy is filled by a by-election in the constituency, with the same electoral system as in general elections.
The term "Member of Parliament" by modern convention means a member of the House of Commons. These members may, and almost invariably do, use the post-nominal letters "MP". The annual salary of each member is £74,962, effective from 1 April 2016. Members may also receive additional salaries for other offices they hold (for instance, the Speakership). Most members also claim for various office expenses (staff costs, postage, travelling, etc.) and, in the case of members for seats outside London, for the costs of maintaining a home in the capital.
There are numerous qualifications that apply to Members of Parliament. One must be aged at least 18 (the minimum age was 21 until s.17 of the Electoral Administration Act 2006 came into force), and must be a citizen of the United Kingdom, of a British overseas territory, of the Republic of Ireland, or of a member state of the Commonwealth of Nations. These restrictions were introduced by the British Nationality Act 1981, but were previously far more stringent: under the Act of Settlement 1701, only natural-born subjects were qualified. Members of the House of Lords may not serve in the House of Commons, or even vote in parliamentary elections (just as the Queen does not vote); however, they are permitted to sit in the chamber during debates (unlike the Queen, who cannot enter the chamber).
A person may not sit in the Commons if he or she is the subject of a Bankruptcy Restrictions Order (applicable in England and Wales only), or if she or he is adjudged bankrupt (in Northern Ireland), or if his or her estate is sequestered (in Scotland). Previously, MPs detained under the Mental Health Act 1983 for six months or more would have their seat vacated if two specialists reported to the Speaker that the member was suffering from a mental disorder. However, this disqualification was removed by the Mental Health (Discrimination) Act 2013. There also exists a common law precedent from the 18th century that the deaf and dumb are ineligible to sit in the Lower House; this precedent, however, has not been tested in recent years.
Anyone found guilty of high treason may not sit in Parliament until she or he has either completed the term of imprisonment or received a full pardon from the Crown. Moreover, anyone serving a prison sentence of one year or more is ineligible. Finally, the Representation of the People Act 1983 disqualifies for ten years those found guilty of certain election-related offences. Several other disqualifications are codified in the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975: holders of high judicial offices, civil servants, members of the regular armed forces, members of foreign legislatures (excluding the Republic of Ireland and Commonwealth countries), and holders of several Crown offices. Ministers, even though they are paid officers of the Crown, are not disqualified.
The rule that precludes certain Crown officers from serving in the House of Commons is used to circumvent a resolution adopted by the House of Commons in 1623, under which members are not permitted to resign their seats. In practice, however, they always can. Should a member wish to resign from the Commons, she or he may request appointment to one of two ceremonial Crown offices: that of Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds, or that of Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead. These offices are sinecures (that is, they involve no actual duties); they exist solely to permit the "resignation" of members of the House of Commons. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is responsible for making the appointment, and, by convention, never refuses to do so when asked by a member who desires to leave the House of Commons.
At the beginning of each new parliamentary term, the House of Commons elects one of its members as a presiding officer, known as the Speaker. If the incumbent Speaker seeks a new term, then the House may re-elect him or her merely by passing a motion; otherwise, a secret ballot is held. A Speaker-elect cannot take office until she or he has been approved by the Sovereign; the granting of the royal approbation, however, is a formality. The Speaker is assisted by three Deputy Speakers, the most senior of whom holds the title of Chairman of Ways and Means. The two other Deputy Speakers are known as the First and Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means. These titles derive from the Committee of Ways and Means, a body over which the chairman once used to preside; even though the committee was abolished in 1967, the traditional titles of the Deputy Speakers are still retained. The Speaker and the Deputy Speakers are always members of the House of Commons.
Whilst presiding, the Speaker or Deputy Speaker traditionally wears ceremonial dress. The presiding officer may also wear a wig, but this tradition was abandoned by Speaker Betty Boothroyd. Her successor, Michael Martin, also did not wear a wig while in the chamber. His successor, John Bercow, chose to wear a gown over a lounge suit, a decision that sparked much debate and opposition; he also did not wear a wig.
The Speaker or deputy presides from a chair at the front of the House. This chair was designed by Augustus Pugin, who initially built a prototype of the chair at King Edward's School, Birmingham: that chair is called Sapientia (Latin for "wisdom") and is where the chief master sits. The Speaker is also chairman of the House of Commons Commission, which oversees the running of the House, and controls debates by calling on members to speak. A member who believes that a rule (or Standing Order) has been breached may raise a "point of order", on which the Speaker makes a ruling that is not subject to any appeal. The Speaker may discipline members who fail to observe the rules of the House. The Speaker also decides which proposed amendments to a motion are to be debated. Thus, the Speaker is far more powerful than his or her Lords counterpart, the Lord Speaker, who has no disciplinary powers. Customarily, the Speaker and the deputies are non-partisan; they do not vote (with the notable exception of tied votes, where the Speaker votes in accordance with Denison's rule), or participate in the affairs of any political party. By convention, a Speaker seeking re-election to parliament is not opposed in his or her constituency by any of the major parties. The lack of partisanship continues even after the Speaker leaves the House of Commons.
The Clerk of the House is both the House's chief adviser on matters of procedure and chief executive of the House of Commons. She or he is a permanent official, not a member of the House itself. The Clerk advises the Speaker on the rules and procedure of the House, signs orders and official communications, and signs and endorses bills. The Clerk also chairs the Board of Management, which consists of the heads of the six departments of the House. The Clerk's deputy is known as the Clerk Assistant. Another officer of the House is the Serjeant-at-Arms, whose duties include the maintenance of law, order, and security on the House's premises. The Serjeant-at-Arms carries the ceremonial mace, a symbol of the authority of the Crown and of the House of Commons, into the House each day in front of the Speaker, and the Mace is laid upon the Table of the House during sittings. The Librarian is head of the House of Commons Library, the House's research and information arm.
Like the Lords, the Commons meets in the Palace of Westminster in London. The Commons chamber is small and modestly decorated in green, in contrast to the large, lavishly furnished red Lords chamber. There are benches on two sides of the chamber, divided by a centre aisle. This arrangement reflects the design of St Stephen's Chapel, which served as the home of the House of Commons until destroyed by fire in 1834. The Speaker's chair is at one end of the Chamber; in front of it, is the Table of the House, on which the Mace rests. The Clerks sit at one end of the Table, close to the Speaker so that they may advise him or her on procedure when necessary.
Members of the Government sit on the benches on the Speaker's right, whilst members of the Opposition occupy the benches on the Speaker's left. In front of each set of benches a red line is drawn, which members are traditionally not allowed to cross during debates. Government ministers and the leader of the Opposition and the Shadow Cabinet sit on the front rows, and are known as "frontbenchers". Other members of parliament, in contrast, are known as "backbenchers". Not all Members of Parliament can fit into the Chamber at the same time, as it only has space to seat approximately two thirds of the Members. According to Robert Rogers, former Clerk of the House of Commons and Chief Executive, a figure of 427 seats is an average or a finger-in-the-wind estimate. Members who arrive late must stand near the entrance of the House if they wish to listen to debates. Sittings in the Chamber are held each day from Monday to Thursday, and also on some Fridays. During times of national emergency, the House may also sit at weekends.
Sittings of the House are open to the public, but the House may at any time vote to sit in private, which has occurred only twice since 1950. Traditionally, a Member who desired that the House sit privately could shout "I spy strangers!" and a vote would automatically follow. In the past, when relations between the Commons and the Crown were less than cordial, this procedure was used whenever the House wanted to keep its debate private. More often, however, this device was used to delay and disrupt proceedings; as a result, it was abolished in 1998. Now, Members seeking that the House sit in private must make a formal motion to that effect.
Public debates are recorded and archived in Hansard. The post war redesign of the House in 1950 included microphones, and debates were allowed to be broadcast by radio in 1975. Since 1989, they have also been broadcast on television, which is now handled by BBC Parliament.
Sessions of the House of Commons have sometimes been disrupted by angry protesters throwing objects into the Chamber from the galleries—items thrown include leaflets, manure, flour by the group Fathers 4 Justice, and a canister of chlorobenzylidene malonitrile (tear gas). Even members have been known to disturb proceedings of the House. For instance, in 1976, Conservative MP Michael Heseltine seized and brandished the Mace of the House during a heated debate. However, perhaps the most famous disruption of the House of Commons was caused by Charles I, who entered the Commons Chamber in 1642 with an armed force to arrest five members for high treason. This action was deemed a breach of the privilege of the House, and has given rise to the tradition that the monarch does not set foot in the House of Commons.
Each year, the parliamentary session begins with the State Opening of Parliament, a ceremony in the Lords Chamber during which the Sovereign, in the presence of Members of both Houses, delivers an address outlining the Government's legislative agenda. The Gentleman or Lady Usher of the Black Rod (a Lords official) is responsible for summoning the Commons to the Lords Chamber. When he arrives to deliver his summons, the doors of the Commons Chamber are traditionally slammed shut in his face, symbolising the right of the Lower House to debate without interference. He then knocks on the door three times with his Black Rod, and only then is granted admittance, where he informs the MPs that the Monarch awaits them, after which they proceed to the House of Lords for the Queen's Speech.
During debates, Members may speak only if called upon by the Speaker (or a Deputy Speaker, if the Speaker is not presiding). Traditionally, the presiding officer alternates between calling Members from the Government and Opposition. The Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, and other leaders from both sides are normally given priority. All Privy Counsellors used to be granted priority; however, the modernisation of Commons procedure in 1998 led to the abolition of this tradition.
Speeches are addressed to the presiding officer, using the words "Mr Speaker", "Madam Speaker", "Mr Deputy Speaker", or "Madam Deputy Speaker". Only the presiding officer may be directly addressed in debate; other members must be referred to in the third person. Traditionally, members do not refer to each other by name, but by constituency, using forms such as "the Honourable Member for [constituency]", or, in the case of Privy Counsellors, "the Right Honourable Member for [constituency]". Members of the same party (or allied parties or groups) refer to each other as "my (Right) Honourable friend". (A member of the Armed Forces used to be called "the Honourable and Gallant Member", a barrister "the Honourable and Learned Member", and a woman "the Honourable Lady the Member".) This may not always be the case during the actual oral delivery, when it might be difficult for a member to remember another member's exact constituency, but it is invariably followed in the transcript entered in the Hansard. The Speaker enforces the rules of the House and may warn and punish members who deviate from them. Disregarding the Speaker's instructions is considered a breach of the rules of the House and may result in the suspension of the offender from the House. In the case of grave disorder, the Speaker may adjourn the House without taking a vote.
The Standing Orders of the House of Commons do not establish any formal time limits for debates. The Speaker may, however, order a member who persists in making a tediously repetitive or irrelevant speech to stop speaking. The time set aside for debate on a particular motion is, however, often limited by informal agreements between the parties. Debate may also be restricted by the passage of "Allocation of Time Motions", which are more commonly known as "Guillotine Motions". Alternatively, the House may put an immediate end to debate by passing a motion to invoke Closure. The Speaker is allowed to deny the motion if she or he believes that it infringes upon the rights of the minority. Today, bills are scheduled according to a Timetable Motion, which the whole House agrees in advance, negating the use of a guillotine.
When the debate concludes, or when the Closure is invoked, the motion in question is put to a vote. The House first votes by voice vote; the Speaker or Deputy Speaker puts the question, and Members respond either "Aye!" (in favour of the motion) or "No!" (against the motion). The presiding officer then announces the result of the voice vote, but if his or her assessment is challenged by any member or the voice vote is unclear, a recorded vote known as a division follows. The presiding officer, if she or he believes that the result of the voice vote is clear, may reject the challenge. When a division occurs, members enter one of two lobbies (the "Aye" lobby or the "No" lobby) on either side of the Chamber, where their names are recorded by clerks. A member who wishes to pointedly abstain from a vote may do so by entering both lobbies, casting one vote for and one against. At each lobby are two tellers (themselves members of the House) who count the votes of the members.
Once the division concludes, the tellers provide the results to the presiding officer, who then announces them to the House. If there is an equality of votes, the Speaker or Deputy Speaker has a casting vote. Traditionally, this casting vote is exercised to allow further debate, if this is possible, or otherwise to avoid a decision being taken without a majority (e.g. voting 'No' to a motion or the third reading of a bill). Ties rarely occur—more than 25 years passed between the last two ones in July 1993 and April 2019. The quorum of the House of Commons is 40 members for any vote, including the Speaker and four tellers. If fewer than 40 members have participated, the division is invalid.
Formerly, if a member sought to raise a point of order during a division, suggesting that some of the rules governing parliamentary procedure are violated, he was required to wear a hat, thereby signalling that he was not engaging in debate. Collapsible top hats were kept in the Chamber just for this purpose. This custom was discontinued in 1998.
The outcome of most votes is largely known beforehand, since political parties normally instruct members on how to vote. A party normally entrusts some members of parliament, known as whips, with the task of ensuring that all party members vote as desired. Members of Parliament do not tend to vote against such instructions, since those who do so jeopardise promotion, or may be deselected as party candidates for future elections. Ministers, junior ministers and parliamentary private secretaries who vote against the whips' instructions usually resign. Thus, the independence of Members of Parliament tends to be low, although "backbench rebellions" by members discontent with their party's policies do occur. A member is also traditionally allowed some leeway if the particular interests of his constituency are adversely affected. In some circumstances, however, parties announce "free votes", allowing members to vote as they please. Votes relating to issues of conscience such as abortion and capital punishment are typically free votes.
Pairing is an arrangement where a member from one party agrees with a member of another party not to vote in a particular division, allowing both MPs the opportunity not to attend.
A bisque is permission from the Whips given to a member to miss a vote or debate in the House to attend to constituency business or other matters.
The British Parliament uses committees for a variety of purposes, e.g., for the review of bills. Committees consider bills in detail, and may make amendments. Bills of great constitutional importance, as well as some important financial measures, are usually sent to the "Committee of the Whole House", a body that includes all members of the Commons. Instead of the Speaker, the chairman or a Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means presides. The Committee meets in the House of Commons Chamber.
Most bills were until 2006 considered by Standing Committees, which consisted of between 16 and 50 members. The membership of each Standing Committee roughly reflected the strength of the parties in the House. The membership of Standing Committees changed constantly; new Members were assigned each time the committee considered a new bill. There was no formal limit on the number of Standing Committees, but usually only ten existed. Rarely, a bill was committed to a Special Standing Committee, which investigated and held hearings on the issues raised. In November 2006, Standing Committees were replaced by Public Bill Committees.
The House of Commons also has several Departmental Select Committees. The membership of these bodies, like that of the Standing Committees, reflects the strength of the parties. The chairman of each committee is voted on in a secret ballot of the whole house during the first session of a parliamentary term, or when a vacancy occurs. The number of select committee chairmanships allocated to each party reflects the strength of the parties, and the parties allocate the positions through agreement. The primary function of a Departmental Select Committee is to scrutinise and investigate the activities of a particular government department. To fulfil these aims, it is permitted to hold hearings and collect evidence. Bills may be referred to Departmental Select Committees, but such a procedure is seldom used.
A separate type of Select Committee is the Domestic Committee. Domestic Committees oversee the administration of the House and the services provided to Members. Other committees of the House of Commons include Joint Committees (which also include members of the House of Lords), the Committee on Standards and Privileges (which considers questions of parliamentary privilege, as well as matters relating to the conduct of the members), and the Committee of Selection (which determines the membership of other committees).
The symbol used by the Commons consists of a portcullis topped by St Edward's Crown. The portcullis has been one of the Royal Badges of England since the accession of the Tudors in the 15th century, and was a favourite symbol of King Henry VII. It was originally the badge of Beaufort, his mother's family; and a pun on the name Tudor, as in tu-"door". The original badge was of gold, but nowadays is shown in various colours, predominantly green or black.
In 1986, the British television production company Granada Television created a near-full size replica of the post-1950 House of Commons debating chamber at its studios in Manchester for use in its adaptation of the Jeffrey Archer novel "First Among Equals". The set was highly convincing, and was retained after the production—since then, it has been used in nearly every British film and television production that has featured scenes set in the chamber. From 1988 until 1999 it was also one of the prominent attractions on the Granada Studios Tour, where visitors could watch actors performing mock political debates on the set. The major difference between the studio set and the real House of Commons Chamber is that the studio set has just four rows of seats on either side whereas the real Chamber has five.
In 2002, the set was purchased by the scriptwriter Paul Abbott so that it could be used in his BBC drama serial "State of Play". Abbott, a former Granada Television staff writer, bought it personally as the set would otherwise have been destroyed and he feared it would take too long to get the necessary money from the BBC. Abbott kept the set in storage in Oxford.
The pre-1941 Chamber was recreated in Shepperton Studios for the Ridley Scott/Richard Loncraine 2002 biographical film on Churchill, "The Gathering Storm".
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Hearts (card game)
Hearts is an "evasion-type" trick-taking playing card game for four players, although most variations can accommodate between three and six players. It was first recorded in America in the 1880s and has many variants, some of which are also referred to as "Hearts"; these particularly include Black Lady and Black Maria. The game is a member of the Whist family of trick-taking games (which also includes Bridge and Spades), but the game is unusual among Whist variants in that it is a trick-avoidance game; players avoid winning certain penalty cards in tricks, usually by avoiding winning tricks altogether. The original game of Hearts has been almost entirely superseded by Black Lady in the United States and Black Maria in Great Britain.
The game of Hearts as currently known originated with a family of related games called Reversis, which became popular around 1750 in Spain. In this game, a penalty point was awarded for each trick won, plus additional points for capturing or . A similar game called "Four Jacks" centered around avoiding any trick containing a Jack, which were worth one penalty point, and worth two.
Hearts itself emerged in the United States during the 1880s, "The Standard Hoyle" of 1887 reporting that it had only been played there for "the last five years" and was "probably of German origin". It described Hearts as "a most pleasant game, highly provocative of laughter". It was a no trump, trick-taking game for four players using a full pack of cards, the aim being to avoid taking any hearts in tricks. The basic format has changed little since. Two scoring variants were mentioned under the name 'Double or Eagle Game'. The first was the precursor to Spot Hearts whereby the cards of the heart suit cost the following in chips: Ace 14, King 13, Queen 12, Jack 11 and pip cards their face value. The second scoring scheme was: Ace 5, King 4, Queen 3, Jack 2 and all pips 1 chip each.
The was introduced initially in a variant variously called Discard Hearts or Black Lady in 1909; this has since become the standard game of the Hearts group in America where it is often, somewhat confusingly, called "Hearts". From the start it added the feature of passing unwanted cards to other players after the deal; the idea of "shooting the moon" came later.
In the 1920s, the variation (ten positive points) was introduced, and some time later the scoring was reversed so that penalty points were expressed as positive instead of negative.
Meanwhile, in Britain the game of Black Maria, with its additional penalty cards in the suit of spades, emerged in 1939 and, both it and Omnibus Hearts are "sufficiently different and popular to justify descriptions as separate games."
The game has increased in popularity through Internet gaming sites.
The following rules are based on those published in "The Standard Hoyle" of 1887.
The game is usually played by four players, but three to six can be accommodated (see below). The aim is to avoid taking any cards of the heart suit in tricks. A standard 52-card pack of Anglo-American pattern cards is used, cards ranking in from ace (high) down to the two. Players drawn a fixed number of chips, typically 25 or 50, which may or may not have a monetary value. The pack is shuffled by the dealer, cut by the player to his right and then dealt clockwise beginning with the player left of the dealer until each player has thirteen cards. There are no trumps. If cards are misdealt, the deal passes to the left. If cards are faced in the pack, the dealer reshuffles, offers it for the cut and re-deals.
Eldest hand (left of dealer) leads to the first trick. Players must follow suit if able; otherwise may discard any card. The trick is won by the highest card of the led suit and the trick winner leads to the next trick. If a player revokes, they lose the trick and pay the pre-agreed penalty in chips.
If a player takes all 13 hearts, he pays 13 chips: four to each opponent and one to the table. Otherwise the player with the lowest number of hearts wins and the others pay him in chips the number of hearts they took. If two or more players have the lowest number of chips, they divide the spoils. If a player revokes in order to avoid taking 13 chips, he pays 8 to each opponent.
There are two scoring variants known as the Double Game of Hearts (or Eagle Game of Hearts):
The following rules are based on Arnold (2011).
Three to six may play, but four is best. A standard pack is used. For three players, the is removed; for five players the and are removed, for six players the , , and are left out. Players draw cards to determine the first dealer; lowest deals. Deal and play are clockwise. Dealer shuffles and youngest hand (right of dealer) cuts. Dealer then deals all the cards, individually and face down, beginning with eldest hand.
Eldest hand leads to the first trick. Players must follow suit if able; otherwise they may play any card. The trick is won by the highest card of the suit led and the trick winner leads to the next.
Each heart captured incurs a penalty point, there being thirteen penalty points "in toto." The winner is the player with the lowest score after an agreed number of deals. Alternatively a target score may be agreed (such as 80 for four players) and when the first player reaches the target, the game ends. The player with the lowest score wins.
If Hearts is played for stakes, the average score is worked out and those above it pay the difference into a pool, while those below it draw the difference.
The variant of Auction Hearts appears for the first time in the 1897 edition of "Foster's Complete Hoyle". It is a game for four players, although five or six may "form a table". Its novel feature is that, after the deal, players may bid in sequence to declare the penalty suit. Eldest hand begins the bidding by stating the number of chips he is willing to pay for the privilege of naming the suit; the succeeding players may pass or bid higher. The dealer goes last and there is only one round of bidding. The player who wins the auction pays his bid into the pool and leads to the first trick.
Black Jack appeared at the same time as Black Lady, both as alternative names for the more general name of Discard Hearts. Discard Hearts, as the name suggests, introduced the concept of discarding (also called passing or exchanging) for the first time into Hearts. It is identical with the basic Black Lady game, but with the Jack of Spades as the penalty card, worth 10 "hearts" (i.e. points). It is last mentioned by Gibson in 1974, only this time with the same penalty as Black Lady of 13 points.
Black Lady appeared in 1909, at which time it was also called Discard Hearts, and has since become the most popular variant in the United States, overtaking Hearts itself to become a game in its own right. It is frequently, and confusingly, also called Hearts, not least in computer gaming versions. However its distinguishing feature is that the Queen of Spades, the Black Lady, is an additional penalty card worth 13 points. The first description of the game already included the feature of discarding cards to one's neighbour after the deal. Over time, the game has developed elaborations such as 'shooting the moon' and passing cards in different directions with each deal.
Black Maria is the British variant of Hearts and features three additional penalty cards – the worth 10 points, the worth 7 points and the Black Maria or worth 13 points. It was first described by Hubert Phillips in the mid-20th century. It usually includes passing to the right (not left as in other variants) which is considered more challenging because you don't know any of the next player's cards. Hitting the moon is an optional rule. Confusingly, sometimes the name Black Lady is given to this game and sometimes Black Lady is called Black Maria.
Cancellation Hearts is first described in 1950 by Culbertson and is a variant designed for larger numbers of players, typically 6 to 11 players, using two decks shuffled together. If exactly the same card is played twice in one trick, the cards cancel each other out, and neither can win the trick. If two such pairs appear in the same trick, the whole trick is cancelled and the cards are rolled over to the winner of the next trick.
Another variant first noted by Foster in 1909, the key feature of which is that it is played with a stock. Each player receives six cards and the remainder are placed face down on the table as a stock. When a player is unable to follow suit, he has to draw cards, one at a time, from the stock until he can follow suit. The last player holding cards must pick up any remaining cards in the stock and count them with his tricks. Every heart taken scores one penalty point. As soon as any player reaches or exceeds thirty-one points, the game is over and the winner is the player with the fewest hearts scored.
Greek Hearts is a name given to at least three different variants. In the earliest version, which Phillips and Westall (1939) say is widely played in Greece hence why they call it "Greek Hearts", the scores 50 penalty points, the scores 15, the courts score 10 and the remaining pip cards of the Hearts suit score their face value. A player taking all the penalty cards scores 150, that is, gets paid 150 points by each opponent. There is "a great deal more in the game than there is in 'Slippery Anne'" (Black Lady). Meanwhile, Culbertson (1950) describes it as the game of Black Lady with 3 changes: three cards are always passed to the right, the counts as 10 plus points and a heart card may not be led to the first trick of the game. Maguire's version (1990) is essentially Spot Hearts with passing to the left and Parlett (2008) has a similar scoring system to the original, with the valued at 50 penalty points, the at 15, courts 10 each, but the remaining hearts as only 1 each.
Heartsette is another very early variant that is still played. Its distinguishing feature is a widow. When four play, the spade deuce is removed, twelve cards are dealt to each player and the remaining three cards are placed face down in the centre of the table to form the widow. For other numbers of players the full pack is used, the widow comprising three cards when three play, two when five play and four when six play. The player winning the first trick takes in the widow and any hearts it contains. He may look at these cards but may not show them to anyone. Otherwise the game is played as normal. The key difference from basic Hearts is that the first winner is the only one who known how many and which hearts are still to be played.
Joker Hearts is recorded as early as 1897. One or more Jokers are added, which can be played any time (regardless if following suit is possible). They cannot win tricks or score any penalty points.
In 1950, Culbertson reported that Omnibus Hearts was "rapidly becoming the most popular of Hearts games" and was so called because it included all the features found in different members of the Hearts family and Arnold states that it is "sufficiently different and popular" to justify being described as a separate game." In effect, Omnibus Hearts is really a variant of Black Lady to which has been added the bonus card of the which earns 10 plus points for the player who takes it in a trick. If a player takes all fifteen counters (, and thirteen hearts), he scores 26 plus points for the deal and the rest score zero (noting that in Culbertson's Black Lady rules, what is now called shooting the moon results in no player scoring for that deal). Arnold (2011) states that Omnibus Hearts is considered the best version of Hearts by many players. He refers to the capture of all counting cards as "hitting the moon, take-all or slam". The game ends when a player reaches or exceeds 100 penalty points, whereupon the player with the lowest score wins.
A recent variant to enable players to play in partnership. There are three versions of Partnership Hearts. In the first, partners sit opposite one another and combine their scores, a team that successfully shoots the moon causing the other to earn 52 penalty points. In the second, partners also face each other at the table, but keep individual scores. A player shooting the moon must do this alone. When any player reaches 100 or more, the partners combine their scores and the team with the lower score wins. The third is really a variant of Omnibus Hearts with a slam bid. After the deal, players bid to shoot the moon by taking all tricks. The player holding the 10 becomes the silent partner of the winning bidder and they combine their scores. If no one bids, the game is played as in Omnibus Hearts with no partnerships.
Spot Hearts appears as a variant in the very first description of Hearts in 1887, albeit referred to as the Double Game of Hearts or the Eagle Game of Hearts, being first named as Spot Hearts by Foster in 1897. Both names continue to be used until the 1920s when Spot Hearts becomes the standard name of the game. The key difference is that the hearts are now worth values ranging from 2 to 14, rather than being worth 1 chip (or penalty point) each. The actual values are: Ace 14, King 13, Queen 12, Jack 11 and pips score their face value. Foster remarks that "this adds nothing to the interest or skill of the game; but rather tends to create confusion and delay, owing to the numerous disputes as to the correctness of the count." Nevertheless, the game has been regularly listed right up to the present day with the "Little Giant Encyclopedia" (2009) giving an alternative name of Chip Hearts. Modern rules, however, tend to score the Ace as 1 penalty point rather than the original 14.
After assessing the hand, players should decide whether to try and pass off his hearts to his opponents or attempt to capture them all. Although it appears wise to play low hearts first, it is usually better to hold onto them until it is clearer, from the fall of the cards, to whom you are giving them. Low hearts are especially handy for passing the lead over in the dangerous final few tricks. The exception to this is when one's plain suit cards are high or dangerous, but hearts are relatively low. In this case, it may be better to ditch the hearts earlier on.
A void is when a player does not have any cards of a certain suit. Generally this is a highly advantageous situation, because it prevents the player from winning any points in that suit, and provides a means to dispose of poor cards. These can be intentionally created with good passing strategy, or appear by themselves.
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Hastings
Hastings is a seaside town and borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England,
The first mention of Hastings is found in the late 8th century in the form "Hastingas". This is derived from the Old English tribal name "Hæstingas", meaning `the constituency (followers) of Hæsta'. Symeon of Durham records the victory of Offa in 771 over the "Hestingorum gens", that is, "the people of the Hastings tribe." Hastingleigh in Kent was named after that tribe. The place name "Hæstingaceaster" is found in the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" entry for 1050, and may be an alternative name for Hastings. However, the absence of any archaeological remains of or documentary evidence for a Roman fort at Hastings suggest that "Hæstingaceaster" may refer to a different settlement, most likely that based on the Roman remains at Pevensey.
Evidence of prehistoric settlements have been found at the town site: flint arrowheads and Bronze Age artefacts have been found. Iron Age forts have been excavated on both the East and West Hills. This suggests that the inhabitants moved early to the safety of the valley in between the forts. The settlement was already based on the port when the Romans arrived in Britain for the first time in 55 BC. At this time, they began to exploit the iron (Wealden rocks provide a plentiful supply of the ore), and shipped it out by boat. Iron was worked locally at Beauport Park, to the north of the town. It employed up to one thousand men and is considered to have been the third-largest mine in the Roman Empire. There was also a possible iron-working site near Blacklands Church in the town - the old name of 'Ponbay Bridge' for a bridge that used to exist in the area is a corruption of 'Pond Bay' as suggested by Thomas Ross (Mayor of Hastings and author of an 1835 guide book)
With the departure of the Romans, the town suffered setbacks. The Beauport site was abandoned, and the town suffered from problems from nature and man-made attacks. The Sussex coast has always suffered from occasional violent storms; with the additional hazard of longshore drift (the eastward movement of shingle along the coast), the coastline has been frequently changing. The original Roman port is likely now under the sea.
Bulverhythe was probably a harbour used by Danish invaders, which suggests that "-hythe" or "hithe" means a port or small haven.
From the 6th century AD until 771, the people of the area around modern-day Hastings, identified the territory as that of the Haestingas tribe and a kingdom separate from the surrounding kingdoms of Suth Saxe ("South Saxons", i.e. Sussex) and Kent. It worked to retain its separate cultural identity until the 11th century. The kingdom was probably a sub-kingdom, the object of a disputed overlordship by the two powerful neighbouring kingdoms: when King Wihtred of Kent settled a dispute with King Ine of Sussex & Wessex in 694, it is probable that he seceded the overlordship of Haestingas to Ine as part of the treaty.
In 771 King Offa of Mercia invaded Southern England, and over the next decade gradually seized control of Sussex and Kent. Symeon of Durham records a battle fought at an unidentified location near Hastings in 771, at which Offa defeated the Haestingas tribe, effectively ending its existence as a separate kingdom. By 790, Offa controlled Hastings effectively enough to confirm grants of land in Hastings to the Abbey of St Denis, in Paris. But, the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" for 1011 relates that Vikings overran "all Kent, Sussex, Surrey and Haestingas", indicating the town was still considered a separate 'county' or province to its neighbours 240 years after Offa's conquest.
During the reign of Athelstan, he established a royal mint in Hastings in AD 928.
The start of the Norman Conquest was the Battle of Hastings, fought on 14 October 1066, although the battle itself took place to the north at Senlac Hill, and William had landed on the coast between Hastings and Eastbourne at Pevensey. It is thought that the Norman encampment was on the town's outskirts, where there was open ground; a new town was already being built in the valley to the east. That "New Burgh" was founded in 1069 and is mentioned in the Domesday Book as such. William defeated and killed Harold Godwinson, the last Saxon King of England, and destroyed his army, thus opening England to the Norman conquest.
William caused a castle to be built at Hastings probably using the earthworks of the existing Saxon castle.
Hastings was shown as a borough by the time of the Domesday Book (1086); it had also given its name to the Rape of Hastings, one of the six administrative divisions of Sussex. As a borough, Hastings had a corporation consisting of a "bailiff, jurats, and commonalty". By a Charter of Elizabeth I in 1589, the bailiff was replaced by a mayor.
Muslim scholar Muhammad al-Idrisi, writing c.1153, described Hastings as "a town of large extent and many inhabitants, flourishing and handsome, having markets, workpeople and rich merchants".
By the end of the Saxon period, the port of Hastings had moved eastward near the present town centre in the Priory Stream valley, whose entrance was protected by the White Rock headland (since demolished). It was to be a short stay: Danish attacks and huge floods in 1011 and 1014 motivated the townspeople to relocate to the New Burgh.
In the Middle Ages Hastings became one of the Cinque Ports; Sandwich, Dover and New Romney being the first, Hastings and Hythe followed, all finally being joined by Rye and Winchelsea, at one point 42 towns were directly or indirectly affiliated with the group.
In the 13th century, much of the town and half of Hastings Castle was washed away in the South England flood of February 1287. During a naval campaign of 1339, and again in 1377, the town was raided and burnt by the French, and seems then to have gone into a decline. As a port, Hastings' days were finished.
Hastings had suffered over the years from the lack of a natural harbour, and there have been attempts to create a sheltered harbour. Attempts were made to build a stone harbour during the reign of Elizabeth I, but the foundations were destroyed by the sea in terrible storms. The fishing boats are still stored on and launched from the beach.
Hastings was then just a small fishing settlement, but it was soon discovered that the new taxes on luxury goods could be made profitable by smuggling; the town was ideally located for that purpose. Near the castle ruins, on the West Hill, are "St Clement's Caves", partly natural, but mainly excavated by hand by smugglers from the soft sandstone. Their trade was to come to an end with the period following the Napoleonic Wars, for the town became one of the most fashionable resorts in Britain, brought about by the so-called health-giving properties of seawater, as well as the local springs and Roman baths. Once this came about the expansion of the town took place, to the west, since there was little space left in the valley.
It was at this time that the elegant Pelham Crescent and Wellington Square were built: other building followed. In the Crescent (designed by architect Joseph Kay) is the classical style church of St Mary in the Castle (its name recalling the old chapel in the castle above) now in use as an arts centre. The building of the crescent and the church necessitated further cutting away of the castle hill cliffs. Once that move away from the old town had begun, it led to the further expansion along the coast, eventually linking up with the new St Leonards.
The extensive development meant that a large transient work-force was required. Many of the people coming in to Hastings at this time, settled on some waste-ground to the west of the main town called the America Ground. This land, originally a shingle spit created by the great storm of 1287, was declared to be Crown Property after an inquiry held at Battle during 1827 and the land was cleared in preparation for the development of this area of land by Patrick Francis Robertson.
Like many coastal towns, the population of Hastings grew significantly as a result of the construction of railway links and the fashionable growth of seaside holidays during the Victorian era. In 1801, its population was a mere 3,175; by 1831, it had reached over ten thousand; by 1891, it was almost sixty thousand.
The last harbour project began in 1896, but this also failed when structural problems and rising costs exhausted all the available funds. Today a fractured seawall is all that remains of what might have become a magnificent harbour. In 1897, the foundation stone was laid on a large concrete structure, but there was insufficient money to complete the work and the "Harbour arm" remains uncompleted. It was later partially blown up to discourage possible use by German invasion forces during World War II.
Between 1903 and 1919 Fred Judge FRPS photographed many of the towns events and disasters. These included storms, the first tram, visit of the Lord Mayor of London, Hastings Marathon Race and the pier fire of 1917. Many of these images were produced as picture postcards by the British Postcard manufacturer he founded now known as Judges Postcards.
In the 1930s, the town underwent some rejuvenation. Seaside resorts were starting to go out of fashion: Hastings perhaps more than most. The town council set about a huge rebuilding project, among which the promenade was rebuilt, and an Olympic-size bathing pool was erected. The latter, regarded in its day as one of the best open-air swimming and diving complexes in Europe, later became a holiday camp before closing in 1986. It was demolished, but the area is still known by locals as "The Old Bathing Pool".
The 2001 census reported over 85,000 inhabitants.
Hastings returned two Members of Parliament from the 14th century until 1885, since when it has returned one. Since 1983, it has been part of the parliamentary constituency of Hastings and Rye; the current MP, since December 2019, is Sally-Ann Hart of the Conservative Party. Prior to 1983, the town formed the Hastings parliamentary constituency by itself.
Hastings, it is thought, was a Saxon town before the arrival of the Normans: the Domesday Book refers to a "new Borough": as a borough, Hastings had a corporation consisting of a "bailiff, jurats, and commonalty". Its importance was such that it also gave its name to one of the six Rapes or administrative districts of Sussex.
By a Charter of Elizabeth I in 1589 the bailiff was replaced by a mayor, by which time the town's importance was dwindling. In the Georgian era, patronage of such seaside places (such as nearby Brighton) gave it a new lease of life so that, when the time came with the reform of English local government in 1888, Hastings became a County Borough, responsible for all its local services, independent of the surrounding county, then Sussex (East); less than one hundred years later, in 1974, that status was abolished.
Hastings Borough Council is now in the second tier of local government, below East Sussex County Council. The Labour Party has an overall control of the council with 23 seats, whilst the Conservative Party holds 9 seats and one is held by an independent. The Borough is divided into sixteen electoral wards; Ashdown, Baird, Braybrooke, Castle, Central St Leonards, Conquest, Gensing, Hollington, Maze Hill, Old Hastings, Ore, St Helens, Silverhill, Tressell, West St Leonards and Wishing Tree. The council leader is Kim Forward (Labour) .
Hastings is situated where the sandstone beds, at the heart of the Weald, known geologically as the Hastings Sands, meet the English Channel, forming tall cliffs to the east of the town. Hastings Old Town is in a sheltered valley between the East Hill and West Hill (on which the remains of the Castle stand). In Victorian times and later the town has spread westwards and northwards, and now forms a single urban centre with the more suburban area of St Leonards-on-Sea to the west. Roads from the Old Town valley lead towards the Victorian area of Clive Vale and the former village of Ore, from which "The Ridge", marking the effective boundary of Hastings, extends north-westwards towards Battle. Beyond Bulverhythe, the western end of Hastings is marked by low-lying land known as Glyne Gap, separating it from Bexhill-on-Sea.
The sandstone cliffs have been the subject of considerable erosion in relatively recent times: much of the Castle was lost to the sea before the present sea defences and promenade were built, and a number of cliff-top houses are in danger of disappearing around the nearby village of Fairlight.
The beach is mainly shingle, although wide areas of sand are uncovered at low tide. The town is generally built upon a series of low hills rising to above sea level at "The Ridge" before falling back in the river valley further to the north.
There are three Sites of Special Scientific Interest within the borough; Marline Valley Woods, Combe Haven and Hastings Cliffs To Pett Beach. Marline Valley Woods lies within the Ashdown ward of Hastings. It is an ancient woodland of Pedunculate oak—hornbeam which is uncommon nationally. Sussex Wildlife Trust own part of the site. Combe Haven is another site of biological interest, with alluvial meadows, and the largest reed bed in the county, providing habitat for breeding birds. It is in the West St Leonards ward, stretching into the parish of Crowhurst. The final SSSI, Hastings Cliffs to Pett Beach, is within the Ore ward of Hastings, extending into the neighbouring Fairlight and Pett parishes. The site runs along the coast and is of both biological and geological interest. The cliffs hold many fossils and the site has many habitats, including ancient woodland and shingle beaches.
As with the rest of the British Isles and Southern England, Hastings experiences a maritime climate with cool summers and mild winters. In terms of the local climate, Hastings is on the eastern edge of what is, on average, the sunniest part of the UK, the stretch of coast from the Isle of Wight to the Hastings area. Hastings, tied with Eastbourne, recorded the highest duration of sunshine of any month anywhere in the United Kingdom – 384 hours – in 1911. Temperature extremes since 1960 at Hastings have ranged from in July 2019, down to in January 1987. The Köppen climate classification subtype for this climate is "" (Marine West Coast Climate/Oceanic climate).
Some of the areas and suburbs of Hastings are Ore Valley, St Leonards, Silverhill, West St Leonards, and Hollington. Ore, Silverhill and Hollington were once villages that have since become part of the Hastings conurbation area during rapid growth. The original part St Leonards was bought by James Burton and laid out by his son, the architect Decimus Burton, in the early 19th century as a new town: a place of elegant houses designed for the well-off; it also included a central public garden, a hotel, an archery, assembly rooms and a church. Today's St Leonards has extended well beyond that original design, although the original town still exists within it.
The population of the town in 2001 was 85,029, by 2009 the estimated population was 86,900. Hastings suffers at a disadvantage insofar as growth is concerned because of its restricted situation, lying as it does with the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty to the north. Redevelopment of the area is partly hampered by the split administration of the combined Hastings and Bexhill economic region between Hastings and Rother district councils. There is little space for further large-scale housing and employment growth within the designated boundaries of Hastings, and development on the outskirts is resisted by Rother council whose administrative area surrounds Hastings. Rother has a policy of urban expansion in the area immediately north of Bexhill, but this requires infrastructure improvements by central Governments which have been under discussion for decades. This situation has now become the subject of parliamentary consideration.
Ethnicity in 2001
Until the development of tourism, fishing was Hastings' major industry. The fishing fleet, based at the Stade, remains Europe's largest beach-launched fishing fleet and has recently won accreditation for its sustainable methods. The fleet has been based on the same beach, below the cliffs at Hastings, for at least 400, possibly 600, years. Its longevity is attributed to the prolific fishing ground of Rye Bay nearby. Hastings fishing vessels are registered at Rye, and thus bear the letters "RX" (Rye, SusseX).
There are now various industrial estates that lie around the town, mostly on the outskirts, which include engineering, catering, motoring and construction; however, most of the jobs within the Borough are concentrated on health, public services, retail and education. 85% of the firms (in 2005) employed fewer than 10 people; as a consequence the unemployment rate was 3.3% ("cf." East Sussex 1.7%). However, qualification levels are similar to the national average: 8.2% of the working-age population have no qualifications while 28% hold degree-level qualifications or higher, compared with 11% and 31% respectively across England.
Hastings main shopping centre is Priory Meadow Shopping Centre, which was built on the site of the old Central Recreation Ground which played host to some Sussex CCC first-class fixtures, and cricketing royalty such as Dr. W. G. Grace and Sir Don Bradman. The centre houses 56 stores and covers around 420,000 ft2. Further retail areas in the town centre include Queens Road, Wellington Place and Robertson Street.
There are plans to expand the retail area in Hastings, which includes expanding Priory Meadow and creating more retail space as part of the Priory Quarter development. Priory was intended to have a second floor added to part of the retail area, which has not happened yet and so far only office space has been created as part of the Priory Quarter.
In 2002 the Hastings and Bexhill task force, set up by the South East England Development Agency, was founded to regenerate the local economy, a 10-year programme being set up to tackle the local reliance on public sector employment. The regeneration scheme saw the construction of the University Centre Hastings, (now known as the University of Brighton in Hastings) the new Sussex Coast College campus and construction of the Priory Quarter, which still remains unfinished but now houses Saga offices, bringing 800 new jobs to the area.
Hastings has an Army Cadet Force (ACF) detachment which is part of Sussex ACF. This detachment is based in the old Territorial Army Unit Building on Cinque Ports Way, and is affiliated to PWRR. Hastings also has a Royal Air Force Air Cadet Squadron, 304 (Hastings) Squadron of Sussex Wing RAFAC, based in the same building. The town also has a Sea Cadet squadron, T.S. "Hastings". This sits adjacent to the Army and Air Cadet building on the seafront. The site features a climbing wall and other training facilities.
Throughout the year many annual events take place in Hastings, the largest of which being the May Day bank holiday weekend, which features a Jack-in-the-Green festival (revived since 1983), and the culmination of the Maydayrun—tens of thousands of motorcyclists having ridden the A21 to Hastings. The yearly carnival during Old Town Week takes place every August, which includes a week of events around Hastings Old Town, including a Seaboot race, bike race, street party and pram race. In September, there is a month-long arts festival 'Coastal Currents' and a Seafood and Wine Festival. During Hastings Week held each year around 14 October the Hastings Bonfire Society stages a traditional Sussex Bonfire which includes a torchlight procession through the streets, a beach bonfire and firework display.
Hastings Pirate Day takes place in July every year. Hastings, as of November 2017, still holds the Guinness World Record for the most pirates in one place.
Other events include the Hastings Beer and Music Festival, held every July in Alexandra Park, the Hastings Musical Festival held every March in the White Rock Theatre, the International Composers Festival split between Hastings and Bexhill during August and the Hastings International Chess Congress.
There are two main theatres in the town, the White Rock Theatre and the Stables Theatre. The White Rock theatre is the venue of the yearly pantomime and throughout the year hosts comedy, dance and music acts. The Stables stages more local productions and acts as an arts exhibition centre. An additional theatre is located in Cambridge Road, the Opus Theatre in a shared space with the His Place church in what used to be the Robertson Street United Reformed Church.
There is a small four screen Odeon cinema in the town, located opposite the town hall; however, there are plans to build a new multiplex cinema as part of the Priory Quarter development in the town centre. The town has an independent cinema called the Electric Palace located in the Old Town and a restored cinema in St Leonards called the Kino Teatr. The new luxury 'Sussex Exchange' Cinema, bar and conference venue is situated in st.leonards.
There are three museums in Hastings; the Hastings Museum and Art Gallery, the Hastings Fishermen's Museum and the Shipwreck Museum. The former two mentioned are open for the whole year while the Shipwreck Museum is open only weekends during the winter, but daily for the rest of the year.
The Hastings Museum and Art gallery concentrates mostly on local history and contains exhibits on Grey Owl and John Logie Baird. It also features a Durbar Hall, donated by Lord Brassey; the hall contains displays focusing on the Indian subcontinent and the Brassey Family. The Fishermen's Museum, housed in the former fishermen's church, is dedicated to the fishing industry and maritime history of Hastings. The Shipwreck Museum displays artifacts from wrecks around the area.
The Jerwood Gallery located in the Stade area of Hastings Old Town is the home for the Jerwood Collection of 20th and 21st century art and a changing contemporary exhibition programme. The project was opposed by many locals who felt that a new art gallery would have been better located elsewhere in the town.
Jerwood Gallery has now been replaced with the Hastings Contemporary.
There are many parks and open spaces located throughout the town, one of the most popular and largest being Alexandra Park opened in 1882 by the Prince and Princess of Wales. The park contains gardens, open spaces, woods, a bandstand, tennis courts and a cafe. Other open spaces include White Rock Gardens, West Marina Gardens, St Leonards Gardens, Gensing Gardens, Markwick Gardens, Summerfields Woods, Linton Gardens, Hollington woods, Filsham Valley, Warrior Square, Castle Hill, St Helens Woods and Hastings Country Park.
Hastings Castle was built in 1070 by the Normans, four years after the Norman invasion. It is located on the West Hill, overlooking the town centre and is a Grade I listed building. Little remains of the castle apart from the arch left from the chapel, part of the walls and dungeons. The nearby St. Clements Caves are home to the Smugglers Adventure, which features interactive displays relating to the history of smuggling on the south coast of England.
Hastings Pier can be seen from any part of the seafront in the town. The old pier was opened in 1872, but closed in 2006 following safety concerns from the council. In October 2010, a serious fire burned down most of the buildings on the pier and caused further damage to the structure. However, the pier reopened on 27 April 2016 in modern architectural forms after a £14.2m refurbishment. It won the Stirling Prize of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA)in 2017.
Many church buildings throughout the town are Grade II listed including; Church in the Wood, Blacklands Parish Church, Ebenezer Particular Baptist Chapel, Fishermen's Museum and St Mary Magdalene's Church.
On the seafront at St Leonards is Marine Court, a 1938 block of flats in the Art Deco style that was originally called 'The Ship' due to its style being based on the ocean liner RMS "Queen Mary". This block of flats can be seen up to away on a clear day, from Holywell, in the Meads area of Eastbourne.
An important former landmark was "the Memorial", a clock tower commemorating Albert the Prince Consort which stood for many years at the traffic junction at the town centre, but was demolished following an arson attack in the 1970s.
There are two major roads in Hastings: the A21 trunk road to London; and the A259 coastal road. Both are beset with traffic problems: although the London road, which has to contend with difficult terrain, has had several sections of widening over the past decades there are still many delays. Long-term plans for a much improved A259 east–west route (including a Hastings bypass) were abandoned in the 1990s. A new Hastings-Bexhill Link Road opened in April 2016 known as the A2690 with the hope of reducing traffic congestion along the A259 Bexhill Road. The new link road travels from Queensway in the North of Hastings and joins up to the A259 in Bexhill. Hastings is also linked to Battle via the A2100, the original London road.
The town is served by Stagecoach in Hastings buses on routes that serve the town, and also extend to Bexhill, Eastbourne and Dover as part of The Wave route. Stagecoach also run long distance buses up to Northiam, Hawkhurst, Royal Tunbridge Wells, Ashford and Canterbury.
National Express Coaches run service 023 to London.
Hastings has four rail links: two to London, one to Brighton and one to Ashford. Of the London lines, the shorter is the Hastings Line, the former South Eastern Railway (SER) route to Charing Cross via Battle and Tunbridge Wells, which opened in 1852; and the longer is the East Coastway Line, the former London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LBSCR) route to Victoria via Bexhill, Eastbourne and Lewes. Trains to Brighton also use the East Coastway Line. The Marshlink Line runs via Rye to Ashford where a connection can be made with Eurostar services, and is unelectrified except for the Hastings-Ore segment.
A historic British Rail Class 201 "Thumper" can sometimes been seen (and heard) on historic runs to and from Hastings.
Hastings is served by two rail companies: Southeastern and Southern.
Southeastern services run along the Hastings Line, generally terminating at Hastings, with some peak services extending to Ore; the other lines are served by Southern, with services terminating at Ore or Ashford.
The town currently has four railway stations: from west to east they are West St Leonards station, St Leonards Warrior Square, Hastings, and Ore; this latter has been proposed to be renamed to Ore Valley. There is also one closed station and one proposed station in the area. West Marina station (on the LBSCR line) was very near West St Leonards (on the SER line) and was closed some years ago. A new station has been proposed at Glyne Gap in Bexhill, which would also serve residents from western Hastings.
There are two funicular railways, known locally as the West Hill and East Hill Lifts respectively.
The Hastings Miniature Railway operates along the beach from Rock-a-Nore to Marine Parade, and has provided tourist transport since 1948. The railway was considerably restored and re-opened in 2010.
A local metro railway service from Bexhill to Ore has also been proposed.
The Saxon Shore Way, (a long distance footpath, in length from Gravesend, Kent traces the Kent and Sussex coast "as it was in Roman times" to Hastings. The National Cycle Network route NCR2 links Dover to St Austell along the south coast, and passes through Hastings.
In 1753 many prominent Hastings figures – including the major landowners Edward Milward and John Collier – obtained an Act that allowed them to take control of the existing Hastings-London trackway via Battle and Whatlington, as far north as Flimwell, however the first properly recognised turnpike developed in St. Leonards in 1837 when builder James Burton was building his new town of St Leonards. The route of the road is that taken by the A21 today.
Hastings had a network of trams from 1905 to 1929. The trams ran as far as Bexhill, and were worked by overhead electric wires, except for the stretch along the seafront from Bo-Peep to the Memorial, which was initially worked by the Dolter stud contact system. The Dolter system was replaced by petrol electric trams in 1914 due to safety concerns, but overhead electrification was extended to this section in 1921. Trolleybuses rather than trams were used in the section that included the very narrow High Street, and the entire tram network was replaced by the Hastings trolleybus system in 1928–1929.
Maidstone & District bought the Hastings Tramway Company in 1935, but the trolleybuses still carried the "Hastings Tramways" logo until shortly before they were replaced by diesel buses in 1959, following the failure of the "Save our trolleys" campaign.
Hastings has 18 primary schools, four secondary schools, one further education college and one higher education institution.
The University of Brighton in Hastings offers higher education courses in a range of subjects and currently attracts over 800 students. The university's Hastings campus doubled in size in 2012, with the addition of the new Priory Square building designed by Proctor and Matthews Architects. This is located in the town centre a short distance from the railway station.
Sussex Coast College, formerly called Hastings College, is the town's further education college; it is located at Station Plaza, next to the railway station.
The secondary schools in the town include ARK Alexander Academy (Formerly Ark Helenswood Academy and Ark William Parker Academy), Hastings Academy and The St Leonards Academy. East Sussex County Council closed three mixed comprehensive schools: Filsham Valley, The Grove and Hillcrest, replacing them with two academy schools; The St Leonards Academy, and The Hastings Academy. The sponsors for the academies are University of Brighton (lead sponsor), British Telecom and East Sussex County Council itself.
The most important buildings from the late medieval period are the two churches in the Old Town, St Clement's (probably built after 1377) and All Saints (early 15th century).
There is also a mosque, formerly "Mercatoria School" until purchased by the East Sussex Islamic Association. The former Ebenezer Particular Baptist Chapel in the Old Town dates from 1817 and is listed at Grade II. Christ Church, Blacklands (1876) has a complete decorative scheme of Mural, Stained Glass, Mosaic and Wrought Iron from the firm of Hardman's which gives it a ll* listing. When St. Andrew's was demolished in 1970 to make way for a supermarket, a fragment of the decorative scheme there, painted by Robert Noonan (also known as Robert Tressell, author of "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists") was rescued and features in the Hastings Museum. The Parish and title were added to Blacklands Church.
Every year the Hastings Half Marathon is held in the town. The 13.1 mi (21.1 km) race first took place in 1984 and attracts entrants from all over the country, taking runners on a route encircling the town, starting and finishing by the West Marina Gardens in St Leonards.
Hastings United is the town's most senior football team, playing in the Premier Division of the Isthmian League. It was founded in 1894 and plays its home games at The Pilot Field, which ground used to be home to two other senior clubs; St Leonards and the original Hastings United which folded in 1985. There are football clubs in Hastings that compete in the East Sussex League, such as Hollington United, St Leonards Social and Rock-a-Nore, playing at local parks and recreation grounds about the town. United attracted sports media headlines, when in 2013 they made it to the third round of the FA Cup for the first time in their history, being the lowest ranked team left in the contest before going out - losing 4-1 to Middlesbrough.
The Central Recreation Ground was one of England's oldest, most scenic and most famous cricket grounds. The first match was played there in 1864 and the last in 1989, after which the site was redeveloped into a shopping centre which opened in 1996. It was particularly popular with touring Australian sides who played 18 matches there. Hastings Priory is the town's largest cricket club, having 4 teams playing competitive, as well as a large junior section. The club's home is at Horntye Park, though it also makes use of the facilities at Ark Alexander Academy.
ARK Alexander Academy sees clubs using the school as their base, such as Hastings & Bexhill Rugby Football Club, Hastings Athletic Club and Hastings Priory Cricket Club 3rd and 4th teams.
Founded in 1895 South Saxons Hockey Club is one of the largest sports clubs in Hastings and is the towns only field hockey club. Locally known as 'Saxons' their home ground is the astroturf pitch at Horntye Park Sports Complex. Saxons field nine Saturday teams (4 Mens, 2 Ladies, 2 Boys development and a Girls development team). Saxons also have a thriving junior section who train on a Sunday and play in county 7's tournaments. Saxons Mens 1st XI play in Kent and Sussex Regional Division One and Saxons Ladies 1st XI play in Sussex Ladies League Premier Division.
Hastings Conquerors is the town's only American Football Club. The club was founded in March 2013 by local resident Chris Chillingworth and currently trains at William Parker Sports College. The club made history in June 2013 when it became the UK's first Co-Operative run not-for-profit American Football club.
There are many bowling greens in the parks and gardens located about the town; the Hastings Open Bowls Tournament has been held annually in June since 1911 and attracts many entrants country-wide.
Since 1920 Hastings has hosted the Hastings International Chess Congress. The annual event is held over the Christmas period at Horntye Park Sports Complex. A testament to its importance is that every World Champion before Garry Kasparov except Bobby Fischer played at Hastings including Emanuel Lasker (1895), José Raúl Capablanca (1919, 1929/30, 1930/1 and 1934/5), Alexander Alekhine (1922, 1925/6, 1933/4 and 1936/7), Max Euwe (1923/4, 1930/1, 1931/2, 1934/5, 1945/6 and 1949/50), Mikhail Botvinnik (1934/5, 1961/2 and 1966/7), Vasily Smyslov (1954/5, 1962/3 and 1968/9), Mikhail Tal (1963/4), Tigran Petrosian (1977/8), Boris Spassky (1965/6), and Anatoly Karpov (1971/2).
Hastings & St Leonards/Hastings Downs Golf Club (now defunct) was founded in 1893. The club disappeared in the 1950s.
John Logie Baird lived in Hastings in the 1920s where he carried out experiments that led to the transmission of the first television image. Robert Tressell wrote "The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists" in Hastings between 1906 and 1910. Many notable figures were born, raised, or lived in Hastings, including computer scientist Alan Turing, poet Fiona Pitt-Kethley, actress Gwen Watford, comedian Jo Brand and singer Suggs.
Gareth Barry, who holds the record number of appearances in the Premier League, was born in Hastings. The author who worked as Grey Owl was born In Hastings and lived here for several years.
Biddy the Tubman was a noted entertainer between 1939-1964 and gave visitors much entertainment as he paddled a half-barrel tub in the sea.
Harry H Corbett (Steptoe & Son) lived in Hastings up until his death in 1982.
Hastings is twinned with:
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Human rights
Human rights are moral principles or norms that describe certain standards of human behaviour and are regularly protected as natural and legal rights in municipal and international law. They are commonly understood as inalienable, fundamental rights "to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being" and which are "inherent in all human beings", regardless of their age, ethnic origin, location, language, religion, ethnicity, or any other status. They are applicable everywhere and at every time in the sense of being universal, and they are egalitarian in the sense of being the same for everyone. They are regarded as requiring empathy and the rule of law and imposing an obligation on persons to respect the human rights of others, and it is generally considered that they should not be taken away except as a result of due process based on specific circumstances; for example, human rights may include freedom from unlawful imprisonment, torture, and execution.
The doctrine of human rights has been highly influential within international law and global and regional institutions. Actions by states and non-governmental organisations form a basis of public policy worldwide. The idea of human rights suggests that "if the public discourse of peacetime global society can be said to have a common moral language, it is that of human rights". The strong claims made by the doctrine of human rights continue to provoke considerable scepticism and debates about the content, nature and justifications of human rights to this day. The precise meaning of the term "right" is controversial and is the subject of continued philosophical debate; while there is consensus that human rights encompasses a wide variety of rights such as the right to a fair trial, protection against enslavement, prohibition of genocide, free speech or a right to education, there is disagreement about which of these particular rights should be included within the general framework of human rights; some thinkers suggest that human rights should be a minimum requirement to avoid the worst-case abuses, while others see it as a higher standard.
Many of the basic ideas that animated the human rights movement developed in the aftermath of the Second World War and the events of the Holocaust, culminating in the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Paris by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. Ancient peoples did not have the same modern-day conception of universal human rights. The true forerunner of human rights discourse was the concept of natural rights which appeared as part of the medieval natural law tradition that became prominent during the European Enlightenment with such philosophers as John Locke, Francis Hutcheson and Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui and which featured prominently in the political discourse of the American Revolution and the French Revolution. From this foundation, the modern human rights arguments emerged over the latter half of the 20th century, possibly as a reaction to slavery, torture, genocide and war crimes, as a realisation of inherent human vulnerability and as being a precondition for the possibility of a just society.
Ancient peoples did not have the same modern-day conception of universal human rights. The true forerunner of human-rights discourse was the concept of natural rights which appeared as part of the medieval natural law tradition that became prominent during the European Enlightenment. From this foundation, the modern human rights arguments emerged over the latter half of the 20th century.
17th-century English philosopher John Locke discussed natural rights in his work, identifying them as being "life, liberty, and estate (property)", and argued that such fundamental rights could not be surrendered in the social contract. In Britain in 1689, the English Bill of Rights and the Scottish Claim of Right each made illegal a range of oppressive governmental actions. Two major revolutions occurred during the 18th century, in the United States (1776) and in France (1789), leading to the United States Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen respectively, both of which articulated certain human rights. Additionally, the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776 encoded into law a number of fundamental civil rights and civil freedoms.
Philosophers such as Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill and Hegel expanded on the theme of universality during the 18th and 19th centuries. In 1831 William Lloyd Garrison wrote in a newspaper called "The Liberator" that he was trying to enlist his readers in "the great cause of human rights" so the term "human rights" probably came into use sometime between Paine's "The Rights of Man" and Garrison's publication. In 1849 a contemporary, Henry David Thoreau, wrote about human rights in his treatise "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" which was later influential on human rights and civil rights thinkers. United States Supreme Court Justice David Davis, in his 1867 opinion for Ex Parte Milligan, wrote "By the protection of the law, human rights are secured; withdraw that protection and they are at the mercy of wicked rulers or the clamor of an excited people."
Many groups and movements have managed to achieve profound social changes over the course of the 20th century in the name of human rights. In Western Europe and North America, labour unions brought about laws granting workers the right to strike, establishing minimum work conditions and forbidding or regulating child labour. The women's rights movement succeeded in gaining for many women the right to vote. National liberation movements in many countries succeeded in driving out colonial powers. One of the most influential was Mahatma Gandhi's movement to free his native India from British rule. Movements by long-oppressed racial and religious minorities succeeded in many parts of the world, among them the civil rights movement, and more recent diverse identity politics movements, on behalf of women and minorities in the United States.
The foundation of the International Committee of the Red Cross, the 1864 Lieber Code and the first of the Geneva Conventions in 1864 laid the foundations of International humanitarian law, to be further developed following the two World Wars.
The League of Nations was established in 1919 at the negotiations over the Treaty of Versailles following the end of World War I. The League's goals included disarmament, preventing war through collective security, settling disputes between countries through negotiation, diplomacy and improving global welfare. Enshrined in its Charter was a mandate to promote many of the rights which were later included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The League of Nations had mandates to support many of the former colonies of the Western European colonial powers during their transition from colony to independent state.
Established as an agency of the League of Nations, and now part of United Nations, the International Labour Organization also had a mandate to promote and safeguard certain of the rights later included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR):
On the issue of "universal", the declarations did not apply to domestic discrimination or racism. Henry J. Richardson III has argued:
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a non-binding declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, partly in response to the barbarism of World War II. The UDHR urges member states to promote a number of human, civil, economic and social rights, asserting these rights are part of the "foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world". The declaration was the first international legal effort to limit the behavior of states and press upon them duties to their citizens following the model of the rights-duty duality.
The UDHR was framed by members of the Human Rights Commission, with Eleanor Roosevelt as Chair, who began to discuss an "International Bill of Rights" in 1947. The members of the Commission did not immediately agree on the form of such a bill of rights, and whether, or how, it should be enforced. The Commission proceeded to frame the UDHR and accompanying treaties, but the UDHR quickly became the priority. Canadian law professor John Humprey and French lawyer Rene Cassin were responsible for much of the cross-national research and the structure of the document respectively, where the articles of the declaration were interpretative of the general principle of the preamble. The document was structured by Cassin to include the basic principles of dignity, liberty, equality and brotherhood in the first two articles, followed successively by rights pertaining to individuals; rights of individuals in relation to each other and to groups; spiritual, public and political rights; and economic, social and cultural rights. The final three articles place, according to Cassin, rights in the context of limits, duties and the social and political order in which they are to be realized. Humphrey and Cassin intended the rights in the UDHR to be legally enforceable through some means, as is reflected in the third clause of the preamble:
Some of the UDHR was researched and written by a committee of international experts on human rights, including representatives from all continents and all major religions, and drawing on consultation with leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi. The inclusion of both civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights was predicated on the assumption that basic human rights are indivisible and that the different types of rights listed are inextricably linked. Though this principle was not opposed by any member states at the time of adoption (the declaration was adopted unanimously, with the abstention of the Soviet bloc, Apartheid South Africa and Saudi Arabia), this principle was later subject to significant challenges.
The onset of the Cold War soon after the UDHR was conceived brought to the fore divisions over the inclusion of both economic and social rights and civil and political rights in the declaration. Capitalist states tended to place strong emphasis on civil and political rights (such as freedom of association and expression), and were reluctant to include economic and social rights (such as the right to work and the right to join a union). Socialist states placed much greater importance on economic and social rights and argued strongly for their inclusion.
Because of the divisions over which rights to include, and because some states declined to ratify any treaties including certain specific interpretations of human rights, and despite the Soviet bloc and a number of developing countries arguing strongly for the inclusion of all rights in a so-called "Unity Resolution", the rights enshrined in the UDHR were split into two separate covenants, allowing states to adopt some rights and derogate others. Though this allowed the covenants to be created, it denied the proposed principle that all rights are linked which was central to some interpretations of the UDHR.
Although the UDHR is a non-binding resolution, it is now considered to be a central component of international customary law which may be invoked under appropriate circumstances by state judiciaries and other judiciaries.
In 1966, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) were adopted by the United Nations, between them making the rights contained in the UDHR binding on all states. However, they came into force only in 1976, when they were ratified by a sufficient number of countries (despite achieving the ICCPR, a covenant including no economic or social rights, the US only ratified the ICCPR in 1992). The ICESCR commits 155 state parties to work toward the granting of economic, social, and cultural rights (ESCR) to individuals.
Since then numerous other treaties (pieces of legislation) have been offered at the international level. They are generally known as "human rights instruments". Some of the most significant are:
The United Nations (UN) is the only multilateral governmental agency with universally accepted international jurisdiction for universal human rights legislation. All UN organs have advisory roles to the United Nations Security Council and the United Nations Human Rights Council, and there are numerous committees within the UN with responsibilities for safeguarding different human rights treaties. The most senior body of the UN with regard to human rights is the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The United Nations has an international mandate to:
The UN Human Rights Council, created in 2005, has a mandate to investigate alleged human rights violations. 47 of the 193 UN member states sit on the Council, elected by simple majority in a secret ballot of the United Nations General Assembly. Members serve a maximum of six years and may have their membership suspended for gross human rights abuses. The Council is based in Geneva, and meets three times a year; with additional meetings to respond to urgent situations.
Independent experts ("rapporteurs") are retained by the Council to investigate alleged human rights abuses and to report to the Council.
The Human Rights Council may request that the Security Council refer cases to the International Criminal Court (ICC) even if the issue being referred is outside the normal jurisdiction of the ICC.
In addition to the political bodies whose mandate flows from the UN charter, the UN has set up a number of "treaty-based" bodies, comprising committees of independent experts who monitor compliance with human rights standards and norms flowing from the core international human rights treaties. They are supported by and are created by the treaty that they monitor, With the exception of the CESCR, which was established under a resolution of the Economic and Social Council to carry out the monitoring functions originally assigned to that body under the Covenant, they are technically autonomous bodies, established by the treaties that they monitor and accountable to the state parties of those treaties – rather than subsidiary to the United Nations, though in practice they are closely intertwined with the United Nations system and are supported by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) and the UN Centre for Human Rights.
Each treaty body receives secretariat support from the Human Rights Council and Treaties Division of Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR) in Geneva except CEDAW, which is supported by the Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW). CEDAW formerly held all its sessions at United Nations headquarters in New York but now frequently meets at the United Nations Office in Geneva; the other treaty bodies meet in Geneva. The Human Rights Committee usually holds its March session in New York City.
There are many regional agreements and organizations promoting and governing human rights.
The African Union (AU) is a supranational union consisting of fifty-five African states. Established in 2001, the AU's purpose is to help secure Africa's democracy, human rights, and a sustainable economy, especially by bringing an end to intra-African conflict and creating an effective common market.
The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) is a quasi-judicial organ of the African Union tasked with promoting and protecting human rights and collective (peoples') rights throughout the African continent as well as interpreting the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and considering individual complaints of violations of the Charter. The Commission has three broad areas of responsibility:
In pursuit of these goals, the Commission is mandated to "collect documents, undertake studies and researches on African problems in the field of human and peoples, rights, organise seminars, symposia and conferences, disseminate information, encourage national and local institutions concerned with human and peoples' rights and, should the case arise, give its views or make recommendations to governments" (Charter, Art. 45).
With the creation of the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights (under a protocol to the Charter which was adopted in 1998 and entered into force in January 2004), the Commission will have the additional task of preparing cases for submission to the Court's jurisdiction. In a July 2004 decision, the AU Assembly resolved that the future Court on Human and Peoples' Rights would be integrated with the African Court of Justice.
The Court of Justice of the African Union is intended to be the "principal judicial organ of the Union" (Protocol of the Court of Justice of the African Union, Article 2.2). Although it has not yet been established, it is intended to take over the duties of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, as well as act as the supreme court of the African Union, interpreting all necessary laws and treaties. The Protocol establishing the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights entered into force in January 2004 but its merging with the Court of Justice has delayed its establishment. The Protocol establishing the Court of Justice will come into force when ratified by 15 countries.
There are many countries in Africa accused of human rights violations by the international community and NGOs.
The Organization of American States (OAS) is an international organization, headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States. Its members are the thirty-five independent states of the Americas. Over the course of the 1990s, with the end of the Cold War, the return to democracy in Latin America, and the thrust toward globalization, the OAS made major efforts to reinvent itself to fit the new context. Its stated priorities now include the following:
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (the IACHR) is an autonomous organ of the Organization of American States, also based in Washington, D.C. Along with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, based in San José, Costa Rica, it is one of the bodies that comprise the inter-American system for the promotion and protection of human rights. The IACHR is a permanent body which meets in regular and special sessions several times a year to examine allegations of human rights violations in the hemisphere. Its human rights duties stem from three documents:
The Inter-Americal Court of Human Rights was established in 1979 with the purpose of enforcing and interpreting the provisions of the American Convention on Human Rights. Its two main functions are thus adjudicatory and advisory. Under the former, it hears and rules on the specific cases of human rights violations referred to it. Under the latter, it issues opinions on matters of legal interpretation brought to its attention by other OAS bodies or member states.
There are no Asia-wide organisations or conventions to promote or protect human rights. Countries vary widely in their approach to human rights and their record of human rights protection.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is a geo-political and economic organization of 10 countries located in Southeast Asia, which was formed in 1967 by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. The organisation now also includes Brunei Darussalam, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia. In October 2009, the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights was inaugurated, and subsequently, the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration was adopted unanimously by ASEAN members on 18 November 2012.
The Arab Charter on Human Rights (ACHR) was adopted by the Council of the League of Arab States on 22 May 2004.
The Council of Europe, founded in 1949, is the oldest organisation working for European integration. It is an international organisation with legal personality recognised under public international law and has observer status with the United Nations. The seat of the Council of Europe is in Strasbourg in France. The Council of Europe is responsible for both the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights. These institutions bind the Council's members to a code of human rights which, though strict, are more lenient than those of the United Nations charter on human rights. The Council also promotes the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages and the European Social Charter. Membership is open to all European states which seek European integration, accept the principle of the rule of law and are able and willing to guarantee democracy, fundamental human rights and freedoms.
The Council of Europe is an organisation that is not part of the European Union, but the latter is expected to accede to the European Convention and potentially the Council itself. The EU has its own human rights document; the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.
The European Convention on Human Rights defines and guarantees since 1950 human rights and fundamental freedoms in Europe. All 47 member states of the Council of Europe have signed this Convention and are therefore under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. In order to prevent torture and inhuman or degrading treatment (Article 3 of the Convention), the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture was established.
Several theoretical approaches have been advanced to explain how and why human rights become part of social expectations.
One of the oldest Western philosophies on human rights is that they are a product of a natural law, stemming from different philosophical or religious grounds.
Other theories hold that human rights codify moral behavior which is a human social product developed by a process of biological and social evolution (associated with Hume). Human rights are also described as a sociological pattern of rule setting (as in the sociological theory of law and the work of Weber). These approaches include the notion that individuals in a society accept rules from legitimate authority in exchange for security and economic advantage (as in Rawls) – a social contract.
Natural law theories base human rights on a "natural" moral, religious or even biological order which is independent of transitory human laws or traditions.
Socrates and his philosophic heirs, Plato and Aristotle, posited the existence of natural justice or natural right ("dikaion physikon", "δικαιον φυσικον", Latin "ius naturale"). Of these, Aristotle is often said to be the father of natural law, although evidence for this is due largely to the interpretations of his work of Thomas Aquinas.
The development of this tradition of natural justice into one of natural law is usually attributed to the Stoics.
Some of the early Church fathers sought to incorporate the until then pagan concept of natural law into Christianity. Natural law theories have featured greatly in the philosophies of Thomas Aquinas, Francisco Suárez, Richard Hooker, Thomas Hobbes, Hugo Grotius, Samuel von Pufendorf, and John Locke.
In the Seventeenth Century Thomas Hobbes founded a contractualist theory of legal positivism on what all men could agree upon: what they sought (happiness) was subject to contention, but a broad consensus could form around what they feared (violent death at the hands of another). The natural law was how a rational human being, seeking to survive and prosper, would act. It was discovered by considering humankind's natural rights, whereas previously it could be said that natural rights were discovered by considering the natural law. In Hobbes' opinion, the only way natural law could prevail was for men to submit to the commands of the sovereign. In this lay the foundations of the theory of a social contract between the governed and the governor.
Hugo Grotius based his philosophy of international law on natural law. He wrote that "even the will of an omnipotent being cannot change or abrogate" natural law, which "would maintain its objective validity even if we should assume the impossible, that there is no God or that he does not care for human affairs." ("De iure belli ac pacis", Prolegomeni XI). This is the famous argument "etiamsi daremus" ("non-esse Deum"), that made natural law no longer dependent on theology.
John Locke incorporated natural law into many of his theories and philosophy, especially in "Two Treatises of Government". Locke turned Hobbes' prescription around, saying that if the ruler went against natural law and failed to protect "life, liberty, and property," people could justifiably overthrow the existing state and create a new one.
The Belgian philosopher of law Frank van Dun is one among those who are elaborating a secular conception of natural law in the liberal tradition. There are also emerging and secular forms of natural law theory that define human rights as derivative of the notion of universal human dignity.
The term "human rights" has replaced the term "natural rights" in popularity, because the rights are less and less frequently seen as requiring natural law for their existence.
The philosopher John Finnis argues that human rights are justifiable on the grounds of their instrumental value in creating the necessary conditions for human well-being. Interest theories highlight the duty to respect the rights of other individuals on grounds of self-interest:
The biological theory considers the comparative reproductive advantage of human social behavior based on empathy and altruism in the context of natural selection.
The most common categorization of human rights is to split them into civil and political rights, and economic, social and cultural rights.
Civil and political rights are enshrined in articles 3 to 21 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the ICCPR. Economic, social and cultural rights are enshrined in articles 22 to 28 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the ICESCR. The UDHR included both economic, social and cultural rights and civil and political rights because it was based on the principle that the different rights could only successfully exist in combination:
This is held to be true because without civil and political rights the public cannot assert their economic, social and cultural rights. Similarly, without livelihoods and a working society, the public cannot assert or make use of civil or political rights (known as the "full belly thesis")
Although accepted by the signaturies to the UDHR, most of them do not in practice give equal weight to the different types of rights. Western cultures have often given priority to civil and political rights, sometimes at the expense of economic and social rights such as the right to work, to education, health and housing. For example, in the United States there is no universal access to healthcare free at the point of use. That is not to say that Western cultures have overlooked these rights entirely (the welfare states that exist in Western Europe are evidence of this). Similarly the ex Soviet bloc countries and Asian countries have tended to give priority to economic, social and cultural rights, but have often failed to provide civil and political rights.
Another categorization, offered by Karel Vasak, is that there are "three generations of human rights": first-generation civil and political rights (right to life and political participation), second-generation economic, social and cultural rights (right to subsistence) and third-generation solidarity rights (right to peace, right to clean environment). Out of these generations, the third generation is the most debated and lacks both legal and political recognition. This categorisation is at odds with the indivisibility of rights, as it implicitly states that some rights can exist without others. Prioritisation of rights for pragmatic reasons is however a widely accepted necessity. Human rights expert Philip Alston argues:
He, and others, urge caution with prioritisation of rights:
Some human rights are said to be "inalienable rights." The term inalienable rights (or unalienable rights) refers to "a set of human rights that are fundamental, are not awarded by human power, and cannot be surrendered."
The adherence to the principle of indivisibility by the international community was reaffirmed in 1995:
This statement was again endorsed at the 2005 World Summit in New York (paragraph 121).
The UDHR enshrines, by definition, rights that apply to all humans equally, whichever geographical location, state, race or culture they belong to.
Proponents of cultural relativism suggest that human rights are not all universal, and indeed conflict with some cultures and threaten their survival.
Rights which are most often contested with relativistic arguments are the rights of women. For example, Female genital mutilation occurs in different cultures in Africa, Asia and South America. It is not mandated by any religion, but has become a tradition in many cultures. It is considered a violation of women's and girl's rights by much of the international community, and is outlawed in some countries.
Universalism has been described by some as cultural, economic or political imperialism. In particular, the concept of human rights is often claimed to be fundamentally rooted in a politically liberal outlook which, although generally accepted in Europe, Japan or North America, is not necessarily taken as standard elsewhere.
For example, in 1981, the Iranian representative to the United Nations, Said Rajaie-Khorassani, articulated the position of his country regarding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by saying that the UDHR was "a secular understanding of the Judeo-Christian tradition", which could not be implemented by Muslims without trespassing the Islamic law. The former Prime Ministers of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, and of Malaysia, Mahathir bin Mohamad both claimed in the 1990s that "Asian values" were significantly different from western values and included a sense of loyalty and foregoing personal freedoms for the sake of social stability and prosperity, and therefore authoritarian government is more appropriate in Asia than democracy. This view is countered by Mahathir's former deputy:
and also by Singapore's opposition leader Chee Soon Juan who states that it is racist to assert that Asians do not want human rights.
An appeal is often made to the fact that influential human rights thinkers, such as John Locke and John Stuart Mill, have all been Western and indeed that some were involved in the running of Empires themselves.
Relativistic arguments tend to neglect the fact that modern human rights are new to all cultures, dating back no further than the UDHR in 1948. They also don't account for the fact that the UDHR was drafted by people from many different cultures and traditions, including a US Roman Catholic, a Chinese Confucian philosopher, a French Zionist and a representative from the Arab League, amongst others, and drew upon advice from thinkers such as Mahatma Gandhi.
Michael Ignatieff has argued that cultural relativism is almost exclusively an argument used by those who wield power in cultures which commit human rights abuses, and that those whose human rights are compromised are the powerless. This reflects the fact that the difficulty in judging universalism versus relativism lies in who is claiming to represent a particular culture.
Although the argument between universalism and relativism is far from complete, it is an academic discussion in that all international human rights instruments adhere to the principle that human rights are universally applicable. The 2005 World Summit reaffirmed the international community's adherence to this principle:
Companies, NGOs, political parties, informal groups, and individuals are known as "non-State actors". Non-State actors can also commit human rights abuses, but are not subject to human rights law other than International Humanitarian Law, which applies to individuals.
Multi-national companies play an increasingly large role in the world, and are responsible for a large number of human rights abuses. Although the legal and moral environment surrounding the actions of governments is reasonably well developed, that surrounding multi-national companies is both controversial and ill-defined. Multi-national companies' primary responsibility is to their shareholders, not to those affected by their actions. Such companies are often larger than the economies of the states in which they operate, and can wield significant economic and political power. No international treaties exist to specifically cover the behavior of companies with regard to human rights, and national legislation is very variable. Jean Ziegler, Special Rapporteur of the UN Commission on Human Rights on the right to food stated in a report in 2003:
In August 2003 the Human Rights Commission's Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights produced draft "Norms on the responsibilities of transnational corporations and other business enterprises with regard to human rights". These were considered by the Human Rights Commission in 2004, but have no binding status on corporations and are not monitored.
Realism and national loyalties have been described as a destructive influence on the human rights movement because they deny people's innately similar human qualities.
With the exception of non-derogable human rights (international conventions class the right to life, the right to be free from slavery, the right to be free from torture and the right to be free from retroactive application of penal laws as non-derogable), the UN recognises that human rights can be limited or even pushed aside during times of national emergency – although
Rights that cannot be derogated for reasons of national security in any circumstances are known as peremptory norms or "jus cogens". Such International law obligations are binding on all states and cannot be modified by treaty.
The human rights enshrined in the UDHR, the Geneva Conventions and the various enforced treaties of the United Nations are enforceable in law. In practice, many rights are very difficult to legally enforce due to the absence of consensus on the application of certain rights, the lack of relevant national legislation or of bodies empowered to take legal action to enforce them.
There exist a number of internationally recognized organisations with worldwide mandate or jurisdiction over certain aspects of human rights:
The ICC and other international courts (see Regional human rights above exist to take action where the national legal system of a state is unable to try the case itself. If national law is able to safeguard human rights and punish those who breach human rights legislation, it has primary jurisdiction by complementarity. Only when all "local remedies" have been exhausted does international law take effect.
In over 110 countries National human rights institutions (NHRIs) have been set up to protect, promote or monitor human rights with jurisdiction in a given country. Although not all NHRIs are compliant with the Paris Principles, the number and effect of these institutions is increasing. The Paris Principles were defined at the first International Workshop on National Institutions for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in Paris on 7–9 October 1991, and adopted by United Nations Human Rights Commission Resolution 1992/54 of 1992 and the General Assembly Resolution 48/134 of 1993. The Paris Principles list a number of responsibilities for national institutions.
Universal jurisdiction is a controversial principle in international law whereby states claim criminal jurisdiction over persons whose alleged crimes were committed outside the boundaries of the prosecuting state, regardless of nationality, country of residence, or any other relation with the prosecuting country. The state backs its claim on the grounds that the crime committed is considered a crime against all, which any state is authorized to punish. The concept of universal jurisdiction is therefore closely linked to the idea that certain international norms are erga omnes, or owed to the entire world community, as well as the concept of jus cogens. In 1993 Belgium passed a "law of universal jurisdiction" to give its courts jurisdiction over crimes against humanity in other countries, and in 1998 Augusto Pinochet was arrested in London following an indictment by Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon under the universal jurisdiction principle. The principle is supported by Amnesty International and other human rights organisations as they believe certain crimes pose a threat to the international community as a whole and the community has a moral duty to act, but others, including Henry Kissinger (who has himself been accused of war crimes by several commentators), argue that state sovereignty is paramount, because breaches of rights committed in other countries are outside states' sovereign interest and because states could use the principle for political reasons.
Human rights violations occur when any state or non-state actor breaches any of the terms of the UDHR or other international human rights or humanitarian law. In regard to human rights violations of United Nations laws. Article 39 of the United Nations Charter designates the UN Security Council (or an appointed authority) as the only tribunal that may determine UN human rights violations.
Human rights abuses are monitored by United Nations committees, national institutions and governments and by many independent non-governmental organizations, such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, World Organisation Against Torture, Freedom House, International Freedom of Expression Exchange and Anti-Slavery International. These organisations collect evidence and documentation of human rights abuses and apply pressure to promote human rights
Wars of aggression, war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide, are breaches of International humanitarian law.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=13831
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Hash table
In computing, a hash table (hash map) is a data structure that implements an associative array abstract data type, a structure that can map keys to values. A hash table uses a hash function to compute an "index", also called a "hash code", into an array of "buckets" or "slots", from which the desired value can be found.
During lookup, the key is hashed and the resulting hash indicates where the corresponding value is stored.
Ideally, the hash function will assign each key to a unique bucket, but most hash table designs employ an imperfect hash function, which might cause hash "collisions" where the hash function generates the same index for more than one key. Such collisions are always accommodated in some way.
In a well-dimensioned hash table, the average cost (number of instructions) for each lookup is independent of the number of elements stored in the table. Many hash table designs also allow arbitrary insertions and deletions of key-value pairs, at (amortized) constant average cost per operation.
In many situations, hash tables turn out to be on average more efficient than search trees or any other table lookup structure. For this reason, they are widely used in many kinds of computer software, particularly for associative arrays, database indexing, caches, and sets.
The idea of hashing is to distribute the entries (key/value pairs) across an array of "buckets". Given a key, the algorithm computes an "index" that suggests where the entry can be found:
Often this is done in two steps:
In this method, the "hash" is independent of the array size, and it is then "reduced" to an index (a number between codice_1 and codice_2) using the modulo operator (codice_3).
In the case that the array size is a power of two, the remainder operation is reduced to masking, which improves speed, but can increase problems with a poor hash function.
A basic requirement is that the function should provide a uniform distribution of hash values. A non-uniform distribution increases the number of collisions and the cost of resolving them. Uniformity is sometimes difficult to ensure by design, but may be evaluated empirically using statistical tests, e.g., a Pearson's chi-squared test for discrete uniform distributions.
The distribution needs to be uniform only for table sizes that occur in the application. In particular, if one uses dynamic resizing with exact doubling and halving of the table size, then the hash function needs to be uniform only when the size is a power of two. Here the index can be computed as some range of bits of the hash function. On the other hand, some hashing algorithms prefer to have the size be a prime number. The modulus operation may provide some additional mixing; this is especially useful with a poor hash function.
For open addressing schemes, the hash function should also avoid "clustering", the mapping of two or more keys to consecutive slots. Such clustering may cause the lookup cost to skyrocket, even if the load factor is low and collisions are infrequent. The popular multiplicative hash is claimed to have particularly poor clustering behavior.
Cryptographic hash functions are believed to provide good hash functions for any table size, either by modulo reduction or by bit masking. They may also be appropriate if there is a risk of malicious users trying to sabotage a network service by submitting requests designed to generate a large number of collisions in the server's hash tables. However, the risk of sabotage can also be avoided by cheaper methods (such as applying a secret salt to the data, or using a universal hash function). A drawback of cryptographic hashing functions is that they are often slower to compute, which means that in cases where the uniformity for " any" size is not necessary, a non-cryptographic hashing function might be preferable.
If all keys are known ahead of time, a perfect hash function can be used to create a perfect hash table that has no collisions. If minimal perfect hashing is used, every location in the hash table can be used as well.
Perfect hashing allows for constant time lookups in all cases. This is in contrast to most chaining and open addressing methods, where the time for lookup is low on average, but may be very large, O("n"), for instance when all the keys hash to a few values.
A critical statistic for a hash table is the "load factor", defined as
where
As the load factor grows larger, the hash table becomes slower, and it may even fail to work (depending on the method used). The expected constant time property of a hash table assumes that the load factor be kept below some bound. For a "fixed" number of buckets, the time for a lookup grows with the number of entries, and therefore the desired constant time is not achieved. In some implementations, the solution is to automatically grow (usually, double) the size of the table when the load factor bound is reached, thus forcing to re-hash all entries. As a real-world example, the default load factor for a HashMap in Java 10 is 0.75, which "offers a good trade-off between time and space costs."
Second to the load factor, one can examine the variance of number of entries per bucket. For example, two tables both have 1,000 entries and 1,000 buckets; one has exactly one entry in each bucket, the other has all entries in the same bucket. Clearly the hashing is not working in the second one.
A low load factor is not especially beneficial. As the load factor approaches 0, the proportion of unused areas in the hash table increases, but there is not necessarily any reduction in search cost. This results in wasted memory.
Hash collisions are practically unavoidable when hashing a random subset of a large set of possible keys. For example, if 2,450 keys are hashed into a million buckets, even with a perfectly uniform random distribution, according to the birthday problem there is approximately a 95% chance of at least two of the keys being hashed to the same slot.
Therefore, almost all hash table implementations have some collision resolution strategy to handle such events. Some common strategies are described below. All these methods require that the keys (or pointers to them) be stored in the table, together with the associated values.
In the method known as "separate chaining", each bucket is independent, and has some sort of list of entries with the same index. The time for hash table operations is the time to find the bucket (which is constant) plus the time for the list operation.
In a good hash table, each bucket has zero or one entries, and sometimes two or three, but rarely more than that. Therefore, structures that are efficient in time and space for these cases are preferred. Structures that are efficient for a fairly large number of entries per bucket are not needed or desirable. If these cases happen often, the hashing function needs to be fixed.
Chained hash tables with linked lists are popular because they require only basic data structures with simple algorithms, and can use simple hash functions that are unsuitable for other methods.
The cost of a table operation is that of scanning the entries of the selected bucket for the desired key. If the distribution of keys is sufficiently uniform, the "average" cost of a lookup depends only on the average number of keys per bucket—that is, it is roughly proportional to the load factor.
For this reason, chained hash tables remain effective even when the number of table entries "n" is much higher than the number of slots. For example, a chained hash table with 1000 slots and 10,000 stored keys (load factor 10) is five to ten times slower than a 10,000-slot table (load factor 1); but still 1000 times faster than a plain sequential list.
For separate-chaining, the worst-case scenario is when all entries are inserted into the same bucket, in which case the hash table is ineffective and the cost is that of searching the bucket data structure. If the latter is a linear list, the lookup procedure may have to scan all its entries, so the worst-case cost is proportional to the number "n" of entries in the table.
The bucket chains are often searched sequentially using the order the entries were added to the bucket. If the load factor is large and some keys are more likely to come up than others, then rearranging the chain with a move-to-front heuristic may be effective. More sophisticated data structures, such as balanced search trees, are worth considering only if the load factor is large (about 10 or more), or if the hash distribution is likely to be very non-uniform, or if one must guarantee good performance even in a worst-case scenario. However, using a larger table and/or a better hash function may be even more effective in those cases.
Chained hash tables also inherit the disadvantages of linked lists. When storing small keys and values, the space overhead of the codice_4 pointer in each entry record can be significant. An additional disadvantage is that traversing a linked list has poor cache performance, making the processor cache ineffective.
Some chaining implementations store the first record of each chain in the slot array itself.
The number of pointer traversals is decreased by one for most cases. The purpose is to increase cache efficiency of hash table access.
The disadvantage is that an empty bucket takes the same space as a bucket with one entry. To save space, such hash tables often have about as many slots as stored entries, meaning that many slots have two or more entries.
Instead of a list, one can use any other data structure that supports the required operations. For example, by using a self-balancing binary search tree, the theoretical worst-case time of common hash table operations (insertion, deletion, lookup) can be brought down to O(log "n") rather than O("n"). However, this introduces extra complexity into the implementation, and may cause even worse performance for smaller hash tables, where the time spent inserting into and balancing the tree is greater than the time needed to perform a linear search on all of the elements of a list. A real world example of a hash table that uses a self-balancing binary search tree for buckets is the codice_5 class in Java version 8.
The variant called uses a dynamic array to store all the entries that hash to the same slot. Each newly inserted entry gets appended to the end of the dynamic array that is assigned to the slot. The dynamic array is resized in an "exact-fit" manner, meaning it is grown only by as many bytes as needed. Alternative techniques such as growing the array by block sizes or "pages" were found to improve insertion performance, but at a cost in space. This variation makes more efficient use of CPU caching and the translation lookaside buffer (TLB), because slot entries are stored in sequential memory positions. It also dispenses with the codice_4 pointers that are required by linked lists, which saves space. Despite frequent array resizing, space overheads incurred by the operating system such as memory fragmentation were found to be small.
An elaboration on this approach is the so-called dynamic perfect hashing, where a bucket that contains "k" entries is organized as a perfect hash table with "k"2 slots. While it uses more memory ("n"2 slots for "n" entries, in the worst case and "n" × "k" slots in the average case), this variant has guaranteed constant worst-case lookup time, and low amortized time for insertion.
It is also possible to use a fusion tree for each bucket, achieving constant time for all operations with high probability.
In another strategy, called open addressing, all entry records are stored in the bucket array itself. When a new entry has to be inserted, the buckets are examined, starting with the hashed-to slot and proceeding in some "probe sequence", until an unoccupied slot is found. When searching for an entry, the buckets are scanned in the same sequence, until either the target record is found, or an unused array slot is found, which indicates that there is no such key in the table. The name "open addressing" refers to the fact that the location ("address") of the item is not determined by its hash value. (This method is also called closed hashing; it should not be confused with "open hashing" or "closed addressing" that usually mean separate chaining.)
Well-known probe sequences include:
A drawback of all these open addressing schemes is that the number of stored entries cannot exceed the number of slots in the bucket array. In fact, even with good hash functions, their performance dramatically degrades when the load factor grows beyond 0.7 or so. For many applications, these restrictions mandate the use of dynamic resizing, with its attendant costs.
Open addressing schemes also put more stringent requirements on the hash function: besides distributing the keys more uniformly over the buckets, the function must also minimize the clustering of hash values that are consecutive in the probe order. Using separate chaining, the only concern is that too many objects map to the "same" hash value; whether they are adjacent or nearby is completely irrelevant.
Open addressing only saves memory if the entries are small (less than four times the size of a pointer) and the load factor is not too small. If the load factor is close to zero (that is, there are far more buckets than stored entries), open addressing is wasteful even if each entry is just two words.
Open addressing avoids the time overhead of allocating each new entry record, and can be implemented even in the absence of a memory allocator. It also avoids the extra indirection required to access the first entry of each bucket (that is, usually the only one). It also has better locality of reference, particularly with linear probing. With small record sizes, these factors can yield better performance than chaining, particularly for lookups.
Hash tables with open addressing are also easier to serialize, because they do not use pointers.
On the other hand, normal open addressing is a poor choice for large elements, because these elements fill entire CPU cache lines (negating the cache advantage), and a large amount of space is wasted on large empty table slots. If the open addressing table only stores references to elements (external storage), it uses space comparable to chaining even for large records but loses its speed advantage.
Generally speaking, open addressing is better used for hash tables with small records that can be stored within the table (internal storage) and fit in a cache line. They are particularly suitable for elements of one word or less. If the table is expected to have a high load factor, the records are large, or the data is variable-sized, chained hash tables often perform as well or better.
A hybrid of chaining and open addressing, coalesced hashing links together chains of nodes within the table itself. Like open addressing, it achieves space usage and (somewhat diminished) cache advantages over chaining. Like chaining, it does not exhibit clustering effects; in fact, the table can be efficiently filled to a high density. Unlike chaining, it cannot have more elements than table slots.
Another alternative open-addressing solution is cuckoo hashing, which ensures constant lookup and deletion time in the worst case, and constant amortized time for insertions (with low probability that the worst-case will be encountered). It uses two or more hash functions, which means any key/value pair could be in two or more locations. For lookup, the first hash function is used; if the key/value is not found, then the second hash function is used, and so on. If a collision happens during insertion, then the key is re-hashed with the second hash function to map it to another bucket. If all hash functions are used and there is still a collision, then the key it collided with is removed to make space for the new key, and the old key is re-hashed with one of the other hash functions, which maps it to another bucket. If that location also results in a collision, then the process repeats until there is no collision or the process traverses all the buckets, at which point the table is resized. By combining multiple hash functions with multiple cells per bucket, very high space utilization can be achieved.
Another alternative open-addressing solution is hopscotch hashing, which combines the approaches of cuckoo hashing and linear probing, yet seems in general to avoid their limitations. In particular it works well even when the load factor grows beyond 0.9. The algorithm is well suited for implementing a resizable concurrent hash table.
The hopscotch hashing algorithm works by defining a neighborhood of buckets near the original hashed bucket, where a given entry is always found. Thus, search is limited to the number of entries in this neighborhood, which is logarithmic in the worst case, constant on average, and with proper alignment of the neighborhood typically requires one cache miss. When inserting an entry, one first attempts to add it to a bucket in the neighborhood. However, if all buckets in this neighborhood are occupied, the algorithm traverses buckets in sequence until an open slot (an unoccupied bucket) is found (as in linear probing). At that point, since the empty bucket is outside the neighborhood, items are repeatedly displaced in a sequence of hops. (This is similar to cuckoo hashing, but with the difference that in this case the empty slot is being moved into the neighborhood, instead of items being moved out with the hope of eventually finding an empty slot.) Each hop brings the open slot closer to the original neighborhood, without invalidating the neighborhood property of any of the buckets along the way. In the end, the open slot has been moved into the neighborhood, and the entry being inserted can be added to it.
One interesting variation on double-hashing collision resolution is Robin Hood hashing. The idea is that a new key may displace a key already inserted, if its probe count is larger than that of the key at the current position. The net effect of this is that it reduces worst case search times in the table. This is similar to ordered hash tables except that the criterion for bumping a key does not depend on a direct relationship between the keys. Since both the worst case and the variation in the number of probes is reduced dramatically, an interesting variation is to probe the table starting at the expected successful probe value and then expand from that position in both directions.
External Robin Hood hashing is an extension of this algorithm where the table is stored in an external file and each table position corresponds to a fixed-sized page or bucket with "B" records. In critical applications, a data structure with better worst-case guarantees can be used; however, universal hashing—a randomized algorithm that prevents the attacker from predicting which inputs cause worst-case behavior—may be preferable. The hash function used by the hash table in the Linux routing table cache was changed with Linux version 2.4.2 as a countermeasure against such attacks.
Hash tables are commonly used to implement many types of in-memory tables. They are used to implement associative arrays (arrays whose indices are arbitrary strings or other complicated objects), especially in interpreted programming languages like Ruby, Python, and PHP.
When storing a new item into a multimap and a hash collision occurs, the multimap unconditionally stores both items.
When storing a new item into a typical associative array and a hash collision occurs, but the actual keys themselves are different, the associative array likewise stores both items. However, if the key of the new item exactly matches the key of an old item, the associative array typically erases the old item and overwrites it with the new item, so every item in the table has a unique key.
Hash tables may also be used as disk-based data structures and database indices (such as in dbm) although B-trees are more popular in these applications. In multi-node database systems, hash tables are commonly used to distribute rows amongst nodes, reducing network traffic for hash joins.
Hash tables can be used to implement caches, auxiliary data tables that are used to speed up the access to data that is primarily stored in slower media. In this application, hash collisions can be handled by discarding one of the two colliding entries—usually erasing the old item that is currently stored in the table and overwriting it with the new item, so every item in the table has a unique hash value.
Besides recovering the entry that has a given key, many hash table implementations can also tell whether such an entry exists or not.
Those structures can therefore be used to implement a set data structure, which merely records whether a given key belongs to a specified set of keys. In this case, the structure can be simplified by eliminating all parts that have to do with the entry values. Hashing can be used to implement both static and dynamic sets.
Several dynamic languages, such as Perl, Python, JavaScript, Lua, and Ruby, use hash tables to implement objects. In this representation, the keys are the names of the members and methods of the object, and the values are pointers to the corresponding member or method.
Hash tables can be used by some programs to avoid creating multiple character strings with the same contents. For that purpose, all strings in use by the program are stored in a single "string pool" implemented as a hash table, which is checked whenever a new string has to be created. This technique was introduced in Lisp interpreters under the name hash consing, and can be used with many other kinds of data (expression trees in a symbolic algebra system, records in a database, files in a file system, binary decision diagrams, etc.).
A transposition table to a complex Hash Table which stores information about each section that has been searched.
Many programming languages provide hash table functionality, either as built-in associative arrays or as standard library modules. In C++11, for example, the codice_7 class provides hash tables for keys and values of arbitrary type.
The Java programming language (including the variant which is used on Android) includes the codice_8, codice_5, codice_10, and codice_11 generic collections.
In PHP 5 and 7, the Zend 2 engine and the Zend 3 engine (respectively) use one of the hash functions from Daniel J. Bernstein to generate the hash values used in managing the mappings of data pointers stored in a hash table. In the PHP source code, it is labelled as codice_12 (Daniel J. Bernstein, Times 33 with Addition).
Python's built-in hash table implementation, in the form of the codice_13 type, as well as Perl's hash type (%) are used internally to implement namespaces and therefore need to pay more attention to security, i.e., collision attacks. Python sets also use hashes internally, for fast lookup (though they store only keys, not values). CPython 3.6+ uses an insertion-ordered variant of the hash table, implemented by splitting out the value storage into an array and having the vanilla hash table only store a set of indices.
In the .NET Framework, support for hash tables is provided via the non-generic codice_14 and generic codice_15 classes, which store key-value pairs, and the generic codice_8 class, which stores only values.
In Ruby the hash table uses the open addressing model from Ruby 2.4 onwards.
In Rust's standard library, the generic codice_5 and codice_8 structs use linear probing with Robin Hood bucket stealing.
ANSI Smalltalk defines the classes codice_19 / codice_20 and codice_15 / codice_22. All Smalltalk implementations provide additional (not yet standardized) versions of codice_23, codice_24 and codice_25.
Tcl array variables are hash tables, and Tcl dictionaries are immutable values based on hashes. The functionality is also available as C library functions Tcl_InitHashTable et al. (for generic hash tables) and Tcl_NewDictObj et al. (for dictionary values). The performance has been independently benchmarked as extremely competitive.
In Wolfram language supports hash tables since version 10. They are implemented under the name codice_26.
Common Lisp provides the codice_27 class for efficient mappings. In spite of its naming, the language standard does not mandate the actual adherence to any hashing technique for implementations.
The idea of hashing arose independently in different places. In January 1953, Hans Peter Luhn wrote an internal IBM memorandum that used hashing with chaining. Gene Amdahl, Elaine M. McGraw, Nathaniel Rochester, and Arthur Samuel implemented a program using hashing at about the same time. Open addressing with linear probing (relatively prime stepping) is credited to Amdahl, but Ershov (in Russia) had the same idea.
There are several data structures that use hash functions but cannot be considered special cases of hash tables:
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"Hello, World!" program
A "Hello, World!" program generally is a computer program that outputs or displays the message "Hello, World!". Such a program is very simple in most programming languages, and is often used to illustrate the basic syntax of a programming language. It is often the first program written by people learning to code. It can also be used as a sanity test to make sure that a computer language is correctly installed, and that the operator understands how to use it.
While small test programs have existed since the development of programmable computers, the tradition of using the phrase "Hello, World!" as a test message was influenced by an example program in the seminal 1978 book "The C Programming Language". The example program in that book prints "", and was inherited from a 1974 Bell Laboratories internal memorandum by Brian Kernighan, "Programming in C: A Tutorial":
main( ) {
In the above example, the function defines where the program should start executing. The function body consists of a single statement, a call to the function, which stands for ""print f"ormatted". This function will cause the program output whatever is passed to it as the parameter, in this case the string , followed by a newline character.
The C language version was preceded by Kernighan's own 1972 "A Tutorial Introduction to the Language B", where the first known version of the program is found in an example used to illustrate external variables:
main( ) {
a 'hell';
b 'o, w';
c 'orld';
The program also prints ' on the terminal, including a newline character. The phrase is divided into multiple variables because in B, a character constant is limited to four ASCII characters. The previous example in the tutorial printed ' on the terminal, and the phrase "" was introduced as a slightly longer greeting that required several character constants for its expression.
The Jargon File claims that "Hello, World!" originated instead with BCPL (1967). This claim is supposedly supported by the archived notes of the inventors of BCPL, Brian Kernighan at Princeton and Martin Richards at Cambridge.
"Hello, World!" programs vary in complexity between different languages. In some languages, particularly scripting languages, the "Hello, World!" program can be written as a single statement, while in others (particularly many low-level languages) there can be many more statements required. For example, in Python, to print the string "" followed by a newline, one need only write . In contrast, the equivalent code in C++ requires the import of the input/output software library, the manual declaration of an entry point, and the explicit instruction that the output string should be sent to the standard output stream. Generally, programming languages that give the programmer more control over the machine will result in more complex "Hello, World" programs.
The phrase "Hello World!" has seen various deviations punctuation and casing, such as the presence of the comma and exclamation mark, and the capitalization of the leading "H" and "W". Some devices limit the format to specific variations, such as all-capitalized versions on systems that support only capital letters, while some esoteric programming languages may have to print a slightly modified string. For example, the first non-trivial Malbolge program printed "HEllO WORld", this having been determined to be good enough. Other human languages have been used as the output; for example, a tutorial for the Go programming language outputted both English and Chinese characters, demonstrating the programming language's built-in Unicode support.
Some languages change the functionality of the "Hello, World!" program while maintaining the spirit of demonstrating a simple example. Functional programming languages, such as Lisp, ML and Haskell, tend to substitute a factorial program for "Hello, World!", as functional programming emphasizes recursive techniques, whereas the original examples emphasize I/O, which violates the spirit of pure functional programming by producing side effects. Languages otherwise capable of printing "Hello, World!" (Assembly, C, VHDL) may also be used in embedded systems, where text output is either difficult (requiring additional components or communication with another computer) or nonexistent. For devices such as microcontrollers, field-programmable gate arrays, and CPLDs, "Hello, World!" may thus be substituted with a blinking LED, which demonstrates timing and interaction between components.
The Debian and Ubuntu Linux distributions provide the "Hello, World!" program through their software package manager systems, which can be invoked with the command "". It serves as a sanity check and a simple example of installing a software package. For developers, it provides an example of creating a .deb package, either traditionally or using "debhelper", and the version of used, GNU Hello, serves as an example of writing a GNU program.
Variations of the "Hello, World!" program that produce a graphical output (as opposed to text output) have also been shown. Sun demonstrated a "Hello, World!" program in Java based on scalable vector graphics, and the XL programming language features a spinning Earth "Hello, World!" using 3D computer graphics. Mark Guzdial and Elliot Soloway have suggested that the "hello, world" test message may be outdated now that graphics and sound can be manipulated as easily as text.
"Time to hello world" (TTHW) is the time it takes to author a "Hello, World!" program in a given programming language. This is one measure of a programming language's ease-of-use; since the program is meant as an introduction for people unfamiliar with the language, a more complex "Hello, World!" program may indicate that the programming language is less approachable. The concept has been extended beyond programming languages to APIs, as a measure of how simple it is for a new developer to get a basic example working; a faster time indicates an easier API for developers to adopt.
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Modern Hebrew phonology
Modern Hebrew is phonetically simpler than Biblical Hebrew and has fewer phonemes, but it is phonologically more complex. It has 25 to 27 consonants and 5 to 10 vowels, depending on the speaker and the analysis.
Hebrew has been used primarily for liturgical, literary, and scholarly purposes for most of the past two millennia. As a consequence, its pronunciation was strongly influenced by the vernacular of individual Jewish communities. With the revival of Hebrew as a native language, and especially with the establishment of Israel, the pronunciation of the modern language rapidly coalesced.
The two main accents of modern Hebrew are Oriental and Non-Oriental. Oriental Hebrew was chosen as the preferred accent for Israel by the Academy of the Hebrew Language, but has since declined in popularity. The description in this article follows the language as it is pronounced by native Israeli speakers of the younger generations.
According to the Academy of the Hebrew Language, in the 1880s (the time of the beginning of the Zionist movement and the Hebrew revival) there were three groups of Hebrew regional accents: Ashkenazi (Eastern European), Sephardi (Southern European), and Mizrahi (Middle Eastern, Iranian, and North African). Over time features of these systems of pronunciation merged, and nowadays we find two main pronunciations of colloquial – not liturgical – Hebrew: Oriental and Non-Oriental. Oriental Hebrew displays traits of an Arabic substrate.
Old oriental speakers tend to use an alveolar trill , preserve the pharyngeal consonants and (less commonly) , preserve gemination, and pronounce in some places where non-Oriental speakers do not have a vowel (the "shva na"). A limited number of Oriental speakers, for example old Yemenite Jews, even maintain some pharyngealized (emphatic) consonants also found in Arabic, such as for Biblical .
Non-Oriental (and General Israeli) pronunciation lost the emphatic and pharyngeal sounds of Biblical Hebrew under the influence of Indo-European languages (Germanic and Slavic for Ashkenazim and Romance for Sephardim). The pharyngeals and are preserved by older Oriental speakers.
Dialectally, Georgian Jews pronounce as , while Western European Sephardim and Dutch Ashkenazim traditionally pronounce it , a pronunciation that can also be found in the Italian tradition and, historically, in south-west Germany. However, according to Sephardic and Ashkenazic authorities, such as the Mishnah Berurah and the Shulchan Aruch and Mishneh Torah, is the proper pronunciation. Thus, it is still pronounced as such by some Sephardim and Ashkenazim.
The classical pronunciation associated with the consonant ר "rêš" was a flap , and was grammatically ungeminable. In most dialects of Hebrew among the Jewish diaspora, it remained a flap or a trill . However, in some Ashkenazi dialects of northern Europe it was a uvular rhotic, either a trill or a fricative . This was because most native dialects of Yiddish were spoken that way, and the liturgical Hebrew of these speakers carried the Yiddish pronunciation. Some Iraqi Jews also pronounce "rêš" as a guttural , reflecting Baghdad Jewish Arabic. An apparently unrelated uvular rhotic is believed to have appeared in the Tiberian pronunciation of Hebrew, where it may have coexisted with additional non-guttural articulations of depending on circumstances.
Though an Ashkenazi Jew in the Russian Empire, the Zionist Eliezer Ben-Yehuda based his Standard Hebrew on Sephardi Hebrew, originally spoken in Spain, and therefore recommended an alveolar . However, just like him, the first waves of Jews to resettle in the Holy Land were Ashkenazi, and Standard Hebrew would come to be spoken with their native pronunciation. Consequently, by now nearly all Israeli Jews pronounce the consonant ר "rêš" as a uvular approximant ()., which also exists in Yiddish.
Many Jewish immigrants to Israel spoke a variety of Arabic in their countries of origin, and pronounced the Hebrew rhotic consonant as an alveolar trill, identical to Arabic "", and which followed the conventions of old Hebrew. In modern Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Mizrahi poetry and folk music, as well as in the standard (or "standardised") Hebrew used in the Israeli media, an alveolar rhotic is sometimes used.
The following table lists the consonant phonemes of Israeli Hebrew in IPA transcription:
For some young speakers, obstruents assimilate in voicing. Voiceless obstruents (stops/affricates and fricatives ) become voiced () when they appear immediately before voiced obstruents, and vice versa. For example:
Standard Israeli Hebrew (SIH) phonology, based on the Sephardic Hebrew pronunciation tradition, has a number of differences from Biblical Hebrew (BH) and Mishnaic Hebrew (MH) in the form of splits and mergers.
The consonant pairs –, –, and – were historically allophonic, as a consequence of a phenomenon of spirantisation known as "begadkefat". In Modern Hebrew, the six sounds are phonemic. Similar allophonic alternation of BH/MH –, – and – was lost, with the allophones merging into simple .
These phonemic changes were partly due to the mergers noted above, to the loss of consonant gemination, which had distinguished stops from their fricative allophones in intervocalic position, and the introduction of syllable-initial and non-syllable-initial and in loan words. Spirantization still occurs in verbal and nominal derivation, but now the alternations –, –, and – are phonemic rather than allophonic.
In Traditional Hebrew words can end with an H consonant, e.g. when the suffix "-ah" is used, meaning "her" (see "Mappiq"). The final H sound is hardly ever pronounced in Modern Hebrew.
Modern Hebrew has five vowel phonemes:
Long vowels may occur where two identical vowels were historically separated by a pharyngeal or glottal consonant (this separation is preserved in writing, and is still pronounced by some), and the first was stressed. (Where the second was stressed, the result is a sequence of two short vowels.) They also often occur when morphology brings two identical vowels together, but they are not predictable in that environment.
Any of the five short vowels may be realized as a schwa when far from lexical stress.
There are two diphthongs, and .
In Biblical Hebrew, each vowel had three forms: short, long and interrupted (""). However, there is no audible distinction between the three in Modern Hebrew, except that is often pronounced as in Ashkenazi Hebrew.
Vowel length in Modern Hebrew is environmentally determined and not phonemic, it tends to be affected by the degree of stress, and pretonic lengthening may also occur, mostly in open syllables. When a glottal is lost, a two-vowel sequence arises, and they may be merged into a single long vowel:
Modern pronunciation does not follow traditional use of the niqqud (diacritic) "shva". In Modern Hebrew, words written with a shva may be pronounced with either or without any vowel (or sometimes as an actual schwa), and this does not correspond well to how the word was pronounced historically. For example, the first shva in the word 'you (fem.) crumpled' is pronounced () though historically it was silent, whereas the shva in ('time'), which was pronounced historically, is usually silent (). Orthographic "shva" is generally pronounced in prefixes such as "ve-" ('and') and "be-" ('in'), or when following another shva in grammatical patterns, as in ('you [f. sg.] will learn'). An epenthetic appears when necessary to avoid violating a phonological constraint, such as between two consonants that are identical or differ only in voicing (e.g. 'I learned', not ) or when an impermissible initial cluster would result (e.g. or , where "C" stands for any consonant).
Stress is phonemic in Modern Hebrew. There are two frequent patterns of lexical stress, on the last syllable (' מִלְּרַע) and on the penultimate syllable (' מִלְּעֵיל). Final stress has traditionally been more frequent, but in the colloquial language many words are shifting to penultimate stress. Contrary to the prescribed standard, some words exhibit stress on the antepenultimate syllable or even further back. This often occurs in loanwords, e.g. ('politics'), and sometimes in native colloquial compounds, e.g. ('somehow'). Colloquial stress has often shifted from the last syllable to the penultimate, e.g. 'hat', normative , colloquial ; ('dovecote'), normative , colloquial . This shift is common in the colloquial pronunciation of many personal names, for example ('David'), normative , colloquial .
Historically, stress was predictable, depending on syllable weight (that is, vowel length and whether a syllable ended with a consonant). Because spoken Israeli Hebrew has lost gemination (a common source of syllable-final consonants) as well as the original distinction between long and short vowels, but the position of the stress often remained where it had been, stress has become phonemic, as the following table illustrates. Phonetically, the following word pairs differ only in the location of the stress; orthographically they differ also in the written representation of vowel length of the vowels (assuming the vowels are even written):
When a vowel falls beyond two syllables from the main stress of a word or phrase, it may be reduced or elided in colloquial Hebrew. For example:
When follows an unstressed vowel, it is elided, sometimes with the surrounding vowels:
Syllables drop before except at the end of a prosodic unit:
but: ('he is on his way') at the end of a prosodic unit.
Sequences of dental stops reduce to a single consonant, again except at the end of a prosodic unit:
but: ('that I studied')
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House of Hohenzollern
The House of Hohenzollern (, also , ) is a German royal dynasty whose members were variously princes, electors, kings and emperors of Hohenzollern, Brandenburg, Prussia, the German Empire, and Romania. The family arose in the area around the town of Hechingen in Swabia during the 11th century and took their name from Hohenzollern Castle. The first ancestors of the Hohenzollerns were mentioned in 1061.
The Hohenzollern family split into two branches, the Catholic Swabian branch and the Protestant Franconian branch, which ruled the Burgraviate of Nuremberg and later became the Brandenburg-Prussian branch. The Swabian branch ruled the principalities of Hohenzollern-Hechingen and Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen until 1849, and also ruled Romania from 1866 to 1947. Members of the Franconian branch became Margrave of Brandenburg in 1415 and Duke of Prussia in 1525.
The Margraviate of Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia were ruled in personal union after 1618 and were called Brandenburg-Prussia. The Kingdom of Prussia was created in 1701, eventually leading to the unification of Germany and the creation of the German Empire in 1871, with the Hohenzollerns as hereditary German Emperors and Kings of Prussia.
Germany's defeat in World War I in 1918 led to the German Revolution. The Hohenzollerns were overthrown and the Weimar Republic was established, thus bringing an end to the German monarchy. Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia is the current head of the royal Prussian line, while Karl Friedrich, Prince of Hohenzollern is the head of the princely Swabian line.
Zollern, from 1218 Hohenzollern, was a county of the Holy Roman Empire. Later its capital was Hechingen.
The Hohenzollerns named their estates after Hohenzollern Castle in the Swabian Alps. The Hohenzollern Castle lies on an 855 meters high mountain called Hohenzollern. It still belongs to the family today.
The dynasty was first mentioned in 1061. According to the medieval chronicler Berthold of Reichenau, Burkhard I, Count of Zollern ("de Zolorin") was born before 1025 and died in 1061.
In 1095 Count Adalbert of Zollern founded the Benedictine monastery of Alpirsbach, situated in the Black Forest.
The Zollerns received the comital title from Emperor Henry V in 1111.
As loyal vassals of the Swabian Hohenstaufen dynasty, they were able to significantly enlarge their territory. Count Frederick III (c. 1139 – c. 1200) accompanied Emperor Frederick Barbarossa against Henry the Lion in 1180, and through his marriage was granted the Burgraviate of Nuremberg by Emperor Henry VI in 1192. In about 1185 he married Sophia of Raabs, the daughter of Conrad II, Burgrave of Nuremberg. After the death of Conrad II who left no male heirs, Frederick III was granted Nuremberg as Burgrave Frederick I.
In 1218 the burgraviate passed to Frederick's elder son Conrad I, he thereby became the ancestor of the Franconian Hohenzollern branch, which acquired the Electorate of Brandenburg in 1415.
After Frederick's death, his sons partitioned the family lands between themselves:
The senior Franconian branch of the House of Hohenzollern was founded by Conrad I, Burgrave of Nuremberg (1186–1261).
The family supported the Hohenstaufen and Habsburg rulers of the Holy Roman Empire during the 12th to 15th centuries, being rewarded with several territorial grants. Beginning in the 16th century, this branch of the family became Protestant and decided on expansion through marriage and the purchase of surrounding lands.
In the first phase, the family gradually added to their lands, at first with many small acquisitions in the Franconian region of Germany:
In the second phase, the family expanded their lands further with large acquisitions in the Brandenburg and Prussian regions of Germany and present-day Poland:
These acquisitions eventually transformed the Franconian Hohenzollerns from a minor German princely family into one of the most important dynasties in Europe.
At Frederick V's death on 21 January 1398, his lands were partitioned between his two sons:
After John III/I's death on 11 June 1420, the margraviates of Brandenburg-Ansbach and Brandenburg-Kulmbach were briefly reunited under Frederick VI/I/I. He ruled the Margraviate of Brandenburg-Ansbach after 1398. From 1420, he became Margrave of Brandenburg-Kulmbach. From 1411 Frederick VI became governor of Brandenburg and later Elector and Margrave of Brandenburg as Frederick I. Upon his death on 21 September 1440, his territories were divided among his sons:
In 1427 Frederick, Elector of Brandenburg sold Nuremberg Castle and his rights as burgrave to the Imperial City of Nuremberg. The territories of Brandenburg-Ansbach and Brandenburg-Kulmbach remained possessions of the family, once parts of the Burgraviate of Nuremberg.
On 2 December 1791, Christian II Frederick sold the sovereignty of his principalities to King Frederick William II of Prussia.
On 2 December 1791, Charles Alexander sold the sovereignty of his principalities to King Frederick William II of Prussia.
From 8 January 1701 the title of Elector of Brandenburg was attached to the title of King "in" Prussia and, from 13 September 1772, to that of King "of" Prussia.
The Duchy of Jägerndorf (Krnov) was purchased in 1523.
The duchy of Jägerndorf was confiscated by Emperor Ferdinand III in 1622.
In 1411 Frederick VI, Burgrave of Nuremberg was appointed governor of Brandenburg in order to restore order and stability. At the Council of Constance in 1415, King Sigismund elevated Frederick to the rank of Elector and Margrave of Brandenburg as Frederick I.
The short-lived Margraviate of Brandenburg-Küstrin was set up as a secundogeniture of the House of Hohenzollern.
Although recognised as a branch of the dynasty since 1688, the Margraviate of Brandenburg-Schwedt remained subordinate to the electors, and was never an independent principality.
In 1525 the Duchy of Prussia was established as a fief of the King of Poland. Albert of Prussia was the last Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights and the first Duke of Prussia. He belonged to the Ansbach branch of the dynasty. The Duchy of Prussia adopted Protestantism as the official state religion.
From 1701 the title of Duke of Prussia was attached to the title of King in and of Prussia.
In 1701 the title of King in Prussia was granted, without the Duchy of Prussia being elevated to a Kingdom within the Holy Roman Empire. From 1701 onwards the titles of Duke of Prussia and Elector of Brandenburg were always attached to the title of King in Prussia. The Duke of Prussia adopted the title of king as Frederick I, establishing his status as a monarch whose royal territory lay outside the boundaries of the Holy Roman Empire, with the assent of Emperor Leopold I: Frederick could not be "King of Prussia" because part of Prussia's lands were under the suzerainty of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland. In the age of absolutism, most monarchs were obsessed with the desire to emulate Louis XIV of France with his luxurious palace at Versailles.
In 1772 the Duchy of Prussia was elevated to a kingdom.
Frederick William's successor, Frederick the Great gained Silesia in the Silesian Wars so that Prussia emerged as a great power. The king was strongly influenced by French culture and civilization and preferred the French language.
In 1772 the title "King of Prussia" was assumed. From 1772 onwards the titles of Duke of Prussia and Elector of Brandenburg were always attached to the title King of Prussia.
In 1871 the Kingdom of Prussia became a constituent member of the German Empire, and the King of Prussia gained the additional title of German Emperor.
In 1871 the German Empire was proclaimed. With the accession of William I to the newly established imperial German throne, the titles of King of Prussia, Duke of Prussia and Elector of Brandenburg were always attached to the title of German Emperor.
Prussia's Minister President Otto von Bismarck convinced William that German Emperor instead of Emperor of Germany would be appropriate. He became "primus inter pares" among other German sovereigns.
William II intended to develop a German navy capable of challenging Britain's Royal Navy. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria on 28 June 1914 set off the chain of events that led to World War I. As a result of the war, the German, Russian, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires ceased to exist.
In 1918 the German empire was abolished and replaced by the Weimar Republic. After the outbreak of the German revolution in 1918, both Emperor Wilhelm II and Crown Prince Wilhelm signed the document of abdication.
In June 1926, a referendum on expropriating the formerly ruling princes of Germany without compensation failed and as a consequence, the financial situation of the Hohenzollern family improved considerably. A settlement between the state and the family made Cecilienhof property of the state but granted a right of residence to Crown Prince Wilhelm and his wife Cecilie. The family also kept the ownership of Monbijou Palace in Berlin, Oleśnica Castle in Silesia, Rheinsberg Palace, Schwedt Palace and other property until 1945.
Since the abolition of the German monarchy, no Hohenzollern claims to imperial or royal prerogatives are recognised by Germany's Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany of 1949, which guarantees a republic.
The communist government of the Soviet occupation zone depropriated all landowners and industrialists; the House of Hohenzollern lost almost all of its fortune, retaining a few company shares and Hohenzollern Castle in West Germany. The Polish government appropriated the Silesian property and the Dutch government seized Huis Doorn, the Emperor's seat in exile.
After German reunification however, the family was legally able to re-claim their portable property, namely art collections and parts of the interior of their former palaces. Negotiations on the return of or compensation for these assets are not yet completed.
Berlin's Old City Palace is being rebuilt and is scheduled to open in 2019. The Berlin Palace and the Humboldt Forum are located in the middle of Berlin.
The head of the house is the titular King of Prussia and German Emperor. He also bears a historical claim to the title of Prince of Orange. Members of this line style themselves princes of Prussia.
Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia, the current head of the royal Prussian House of Hohenzollern, was married to Princess Sophie of Isenburg on 27 August 2011. On 20 January 2013, she gave birth to twin sons, Carl Friedrich Franz Alexander and Louis Ferdinand Christian Albrecht, in Bremen. Carl Friedrich, the elder of the two, is the heir apparent.
The cadet Swabian branch of the House of Hohenzollern was founded by Frederick IV, Count of Zollern. The family ruled three territories with seats at, respectively, Hechingen, Sigmaringen and Haigerloch. The counts were elevated to princes in 1623. The Swabian branch of the Hohenzollerns is Roman Catholic.
Affected by economic problems and internal feuds, the Hohenzollern counts from the 14th century onwards came under pressure by their neighbors, the Counts of Württemberg and the cities of the Swabian League, whose troops besieged and finally destroyed Hohenzollern Castle in 1423. Nevertheless, the Hohenzollerns retained their estates, backed by their Brandenburg cousins and the Imperial House of Habsburg. In 1535, Count Charles I of Hohenzollern (1512–1576) received the counties of Sigmaringen and Veringen as Imperial fiefs.
In 1576, when Charles I, Count of Hohenzollern died, his county was divided to form the three Swabian branches. Eitel Frederick IV took Hohenzollern with the title of Hohenzollern-Hechingen, Karl II took Sigmaringen and Veringen, and Christopher got Haigerloch. Christopher's family died out in 1634.
In 1695, the remaining two Swabian branches entered into an agreement with the Margrave of Brandenburg which provided that if both branches became extinct, the principalities should fall to Brandenburg. Because of the Revolutions of 1848, Constantine, Prince of Hohenzollern-Hechingen and Karl Anton, Prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen abdicated their thrones in December 1849. The principalities were ruled by the Kings of Prussia from December 1849 onward, with the Hechingen and Sigmaringen branches obtaining official treatment as cadets of the Prussian royal family.
The Hohenzollern-Hechingen branch became extinct in 1869. A descendant of this branch was Countess Sophie Chotek, morganatic wife of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Este.
In 1204, the County of Hohenzollern was established out of the fusion of the County of Zollern and the Burgraviate of Nuremberg. The Swabian branch inherited the county of Zollern and, being descended from Frederick I of Nuremberg, were all named "Friedrich" down through the 11th generation. Each one's numeral is counted from the first Friedrich to rule his branch's appanage.
The most senior of these in the 12th century, Count Frederick VIII (d. 1333), had two sons, the elder of whom became Frederick IX (d. 1379), first Count of Hohenzollern, and fathered Friedrich X who left no sons when he died in 1412.
But the younger son of Friedrich VIII, called "Friedrich of Strassburg", uniquely, took no numeral of his own, retaining the old title "Count of Zollern" and pre-deceased his brother in 1364/65. Prince Wilhelm Karl zu Isenburg's 1957 genealogical series, "Europäische Stammtafeln", says Friedrich of Strassburg shared, rather, in the rule of Zollern with his elder brother until his premature death.
It appears, but is not stated, that Strassburg's son became the recognized co-ruler of his cousin Friedrich X (as compensation for having received no appanage and/or because of incapacity on the part of Friedrich X) and, as such, assumed (or is, historically, attributed) the designation Frederick XI although he actually pre-deceased Friedrich X, dying in 1401.
Friedrich XI, however, left two sons who jointly succeeded their cousin-once-removed, being Count Frederick XII (d. childless 1443) and Count Eitel Friedrich I (d. 1439), the latter becoming the ancestor of all subsequent branches of the Princes of Hohenzollern.
In the 12th century, a son of Frederick I secured the county of Hohenberg. The county remained in the possession of the family until 1486.
The influence of the Swabian line was weakened by several partitions of its lands. In the 16th century, the situation changed completely when Eitel Frederick II, a friend and adviser of the emperor Maximilian I, received the district of Haigerloch. His grandson Charles I was granted the counties of Sigmaringen and Vehringen by Charles V.
The County of Hohenzollern-Hechingen was established in 1576 with allodial rights. It included the original County of Zollern, with the Hohenzollern Castle and the monastery at Stetten.
In December 1849, the ruling princes of both Hohenzollern-Hechingen and Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen abdicated their thrones, and their principalities were incorporated as the Prussian province of Hohenzollern. The Hechingen branch became extinct in dynastic line with Konstantin's death in 1869.
The County of Hohenzollern-Haigerloch was established in 1576 without allodial rights.
Between 1634 and 1681, the county was temporarily integrated into the principality of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.
Upon the death of Francis Christopher Anton in 1767, the Haigerloch territory was incorporated into the principality of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.
The County of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was established in 1576 with allodial rights and a seat at Sigmaringen Castle.
In December 1849, sovereignty over the principality was yielded to the Franconian branch of the family and incorporated into the Kingdom of Prussia, which accorded status as cadets of the Prussian Royal Family to the Swabian Hohenzollerns. The last ruling Prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, Karl Anton, would later serve as Minister President of Prussia between 1858 and 1862.
The family continued to use the title of Prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen. After the Hechingen branch became extinct in 1869, the Sigmaringen branch adopted title of "Prince of Hohenzollern".
In 1866, Prince Charles of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was chosen prince of Romania, becoming King Carol I of Romania in 1881.
Charles's elder brother, Leopold, Prince of Hohenzollern, was offered the Spanish throne after a revolt exiled Isabella II in 1870. Although encouraged by Bismarck to accept, Leopold declined in the face of French opposition. Nonetheless, Bismarck altered and then published the Ems telegram to create a "casus belli": France declared war, but Bismarck's Germany won the Franco-Prussian War.
The head of the Sigmaringen branch (the only extant line of the Swabian branch of the dynasty) is Karl Friedrich, styled "His Serene Highness" The Prince of Hohenzollern. His official seat is Sigmaringen Castle.
The Principality of Romania was established in 1862, after the Ottoman vassal states of Wallachia and Moldavia had been united in 1859 under Alexandru Ioan Cuza as Prince of Romania in a personal union. He was deposed in 1866 by the Romanian parliament.
Prince Charles of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was invited to become reigning Prince of Romania in 1866. In 1881 he became Carol I, King of the Romanians. Carol I had an only daughter who died young, so the younger son of his brother Leopold, Prince Ferdinand of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, would succeed his uncle as King of the Romanians in 1914, and his descendants, having converted to the Orthodox Church, continued to reign there until the end of the monarchy in 1947.
In 1947 the Kingdom of Romania was abolished and replaced with the People's Republic of Romania. Michael did not press his claim to the defunct Romanian throne, but he was welcomed back to the country after half a century in exile as a private citizen, with substantial former royal properties being placed at his disposal. However, his dynastic claim was not recognised by post-Communist Romanians.
On 10 May 2011, Michael severed the dynastic ties between the House of Romania and the House of Hohenzollern.
After that the branch of the Hohenzollerns was dynastically represented only by the last king Michael, and his daughters. Having no sons, he declared that his dynastic heir, instead of being a male member of the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen princely family to which he belongs patrilineally and in accordance with the last Romanian monarchical constitution, should be his eldest daughter Margareta.
The royal house is still very popular and in 2014 Prime Minister Victor Ponta promised a referendum on whether or not to reinstate the monarchy if he were re-elected.
In mid-2019 it was revealed that Georg Friedrich Hohenzollern had filed claims for permanent right of residency for his family in Cecilienhof, or one of two other Hohenzollern palaces in Potsdam, as well as return of the family library, 266 paintings, an imperial crown and sceptre, and the letters of Empress Auguste Victoria.
Central to the argument was that Monbijou Palace, which had been permanently given to the family following the fall of the Kaiser, was demolished by the East German government in 1959. Lawyers for the German state argued that the involvement of members of the family in National Socialism had voided any such rights.
In June 2019, a claim made by Georg Friedrich that Rheinfels Castle be returned to the Hohenzollern family was dismissed by a court. In 1924, the ruined Castle had been given by the state of Rhineland-Palatinate to the town of St Goar, under the proviso it was not sold. In 1998 the town leased the ruins to a nearby hotel. His case made the claim that this constituted a breach of the bequest.
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Hang gliding
Hang gliding is an air sport or recreational activity in which a pilot flies a light, non-motorised foot-launched heavier-than-air aircraft called a hang glider. Most modern hang gliders are made of an aluminium alloy or composite frame covered with synthetic sailcloth to form a wing. Typically the pilot is in a harness suspended from the airframe, and controls the aircraft by shifting body weight in opposition to a control frame.
Early hang gliders had a low lift-to-drag ratio, so pilots were restricted to gliding down small hills. By the 1980s this ratio significantly improved, and since then pilots can soar for hours, gain thousands of feet of altitude in thermal updrafts, perform aerobatics, and glide cross-country for hundreds of kilometers. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale and national airspace governing organisations control some regulatory aspects of hang gliding. Obtaining the safety benefits of being instructed is highly recommended.
By the end of the sixth century A.D., the Chinese had managed to build kites large and aerodynamic enough to sustain the weight of an average-sized person. It was only a matter of time before someone decided to simply remove the kite strings and see what happened.
Most early glider designs did not ensure safe flight; the problem was that early flight pioneers did not sufficiently understand the underlying principles that made a bird's wing work. Starting in the 1880s technical and scientific advancements were made that led to the first truly practical gliders, such as those developed in the United States by John Joseph Montgomery. Otto Lilienthal built controllable gliders in the 1890s, with which he could ridge soar. His rigorously documented work influenced later designers, making Lilienthal one of the most influential early aviation pioneers. His aircraft was controlled by weight shift and is similar to a modern hang glider.
Hang gliding saw a stiffened flexible wing hang glider in 1904, when Jan Lavezzari flew a double lateen sail hang glider off Berck Beach, France. In 1910 in Breslau, the triangle control frame with hang glider pilot hung behind the triangle in a hang glider, was evident in a gliding club's activity. The biplane hang glider was very widely publicized in public magazines with plans for building; such biplane hang gliders were constructed and flown in several nations since Octave Chanute and his tailed biplane hang gliders were demonstrated. In April 1909, a how-to article by Carl S. Bates proved to be a seminal hang glider article that seemingly affected builders even of contemporary times, as several builders would have their first hang glider made by following the plan in his article. Volmer Jensen with a biplane hang glider in 1940 called VJ-11 allowed safe three-axis control of a foot-launched hang glider.
On November 23, 1948, Francis Rogallo and Gertrude Rogallo applied for a kite patent for a fully flexible kited wing with approved claims for its stiffenings and gliding uses; the "flexible wing" or Rogallo wing, which in 1957 the American space agency NASA began testing in various flexible and semi-rigid configurations in order to use it as a recovery system for the Gemini space capsules. The various stiffening formats and the wing's simplicity of design and ease of construction, along with its capability of slow flight and its gentle landing characteristics, did not go unnoticed by hang glider enthusiasts. In 1960–1962 Barry Hill Palmer adapted the flexible wing concept to make foot-launched hang gliders with four different control arrangements. In 1963 Mike Burns adapted the flexible wing to build a towable kite-hang glider he called Skiplane. In 1963, John W. Dickenson adapted the flexible wing airfoil concept to make another water-ski kite glider; for this, the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale vested Dickenson with the Hang Gliding Diploma (2006) for the invention of the "modern" hang glider. Since then, the Rogallo wing has been the most used airfoil of hang gliders.
There are basically two types of sail materials used in hang glider sails: woven polyester fabrics, and composite laminated fabrics made of some combinations.
Woven polyester sailcloth is a very tight weave of small diameter polyester fibers that has been stabilized by the hot-press impregnation of a polyester resin. The resin impregnation is required to provide resistance to distortion and stretch. This resistance is important in maintaining the aerodynamic shape of the sail. Woven polyester provides the best combination of light weight and durability in a sail with the best overall handling qualities.
Laminated sail materials using polyester film achieve superior performance by using a lower stretch material that is better at maintaining sail shape but is still relatively light in weight. The disadvantages of polyester film fabrics is that the reduced elasticity under load generally results in stiffer and less responsive handling, and polyester laminated fabrics are generally not as durable or long lasting as the woven fabrics.
In most hang gliders, the pilot is ensconced in a harness suspended from the airframe, and exercises control by shifting body weight in opposition to a stationary control frame, also known as triangle control frame, control bar or base bar. This bar is usually pulled to allow for greater speed. Either end of the control bar is attached to an upright pipe, where both extend and are connected to the main body of the glider. This creates the shape of a triangle or 'A-frame'. In many of these configurations additional wheels or other equipment can be suspended from the bottom bar or rod ends.
Images showing a triangle control frame on Otto Lilienthal's 1892 hang glider shows that the technology of such frames has existed since the early design of gliders, but he did not mention it in his patents. A control frame for body weight shift was also shown in Octave Chanute's designs. It was a major part of the now common design of hang gliders by George A. Spratt from 1929. The most simple A-frame that is cable-stayed was demonstrated in a Breslau gliding club hang gliding meet in a battened wing foot-launchable hang glider in the year 1908 by W. Simon; hang glider historian Stephan Nitsch has collected instances also of the U control frame used in the first decade of the 1900s; the U is variant of the A-frame.
Due to the poor safety record of early hang gliding pioneers, the sport has traditionally been considered unsafe. Advances in pilot training and glider construction have led to a much improved safety record. Modern hang gliders are very sturdy when constructed to Hang Glider Manufacturers Association, BHPA, Deutscher Hängegleiterverband, or other certified standards using modern materials. Although lightweight they can be easily damaged, either through misuse or by continued operation in unsafe wind and weather conditions. All modern gliders have built-in dive recovery mechanisms such as luff lines in kingposted gliders, or "sprogs" in topless gliders.
Pilots fly in harnesses that support their bodies. Several different types of harnesses exist. Pod harnesses are put on like a jacket and the leg portion is behind the pilot during launch. Once in the air the feet are tucked into the bottom of the harness. They are zipped up in the air with a rope and unzipped before landing with a separate rope. A cocoon harness is slipped over the head and lies in front of the legs during launch. After takeoff, the feet are tucked into it and the back is left open. A knee hanger harness is also slipped over the head but the knee part is wrapped around the knees before launch and just pick up the pilots leg automatically after launch. A supine or suprone harness is a seated harness. The shoulder straps are put on before launch and after takeoff the pilot slides back into the seat and flies in a seated position.
Pilots carry a parachute enclosed in the harness. In case of serious problems, the parachute is manually deployed and carries both pilot and glider down to earth. Pilots also wear helmets and generally carry other safety items such as knives (for cutting their parachute bridle after impact or cutting their harness lines and straps in case of a tree or water landing), light ropes (for lowering from trees to haul up tools or climbing ropes), radios (for communication with other pilots or ground crew), and first-aid equipment.
The accident rate from hang glider flying has been dramatically decreased by pilot training. Early hang glider pilots learned their sport through trial and error and gliders were sometimes home-built. Training programs have been developed for today's pilot with emphasis on flight within safe limits, as well as the discipline to cease flying when weather conditions are unfavorable, for example: excess wind or risk cloud suck.
In the UK, a 2011 study reported there is one death per 116,000 flights, a risk comparable to sudden cardiac death from running a marathon or playing tennis. An estimate of worldwide mortality rate is one death per 1,000 active pilots per year.
Most pilots learn at recognised courses which lead to the internationally recognised International Pilot Proficiency Information card issued by the FAI.
Launch techniques include launching from a hill on foot, tow-launching from a ground-based tow system, aerotowing (behind a powered aircraft), powered harnesses, and being towed up by a boat. Modern winch tows typically utilize hydraulic systems designed to regulate line tension, this reduces scenarios for lock out as strong winds result in additional length of rope spooling out rather than direct tension on the tow line. Other more exotic launch techniques have also been used successfully, such as hot air balloon drops from very high altitude. When weather conditions are unsuitable to sustain a soaring flight, this results in a top-to-bottom flight and is referred to as a "sled run". In addition to typical launch configurations, a hang glider may be so constructed for alternative launching modes other than being foot launched; one practical avenue for this is for people who physically cannot foot-launch.
In 1983 Denis Cummings re-introduced a safe tow system that was designed to tow through the centre of mass and had a gauge that displayed the towing tension, it also integrated a 'weak link' that broke when the safe tow tension was exceeded. After initial testing, in the Hunter Valley, Denis Cummings, pilot, John Clark, (Redtruck), driver and Bob Silver, officianado, began the Flatlands Hang gliding competition at Parkes, NSW. The competition quickly grew, from 16 pilots the first year to hosting a World Championship with 160 pilots towing from several wheat paddocks in western NSW.
In 1986 Denis and 'Redtruck' took a group of international pilots to Alice Springs to take advantage of the massive thermals. Using the new system many world records were set. With the growing use of the system, other launch methods were incorporated, static winch and towing behind an ultralight trike or an ultralight airplane.
A glider in flight is continuously descending, so to achieve an extended flight, the pilot must seek air currents rising faster than the sink rate of the glider. Selecting the sources of rising air currents is the skill that has to be mastered if the pilot wants to achieve flying long distances, known as cross-country (XC). Rising air masses derive from the following sources:
With each generation of materials and with the improvements in aerodynamics, the performance of hang gliders has increased. One measure of performance is the glide ratio. For example, a ratio of 12:1 means that in smooth air a glider can travel forward 12 metres while only losing 1 metre of altitude.
Some performance figures as of 2006:
Because hang gliders are most often used for recreational flying, a premium is placed on gentle behaviour especially at the stall and natural pitch stability. The wing loading must be very low in order to allow the pilot to run fast enough to get above stall speed. Unlike a traditional aircraft with an extended fuselage and empennage for maintaining stability, hang gliders rely on the natural stability of their flexible wings to return to equilibrium in yaw and pitch. Roll stability is generally set to be near neutral. In calm air, a properly designed wing will maintain balanced trimmed flight with little pilot input. The flex wing pilot is suspended beneath the wing by a strap attached to his harness. The pilot lies prone (sometimes supine) within a large, triangular, metal control frame. Controlled flight is achieved by the pilot pushing and pulling on this control frame thus shifting his weight fore or aft, and right or left in coordinated maneuvers.
Furthermore, the fact that the wing is designed to bend and flex, provides favourable dynamics analogous to a spring suspension. This provides a gentler flying experience than a similarly sized rigid-winged hang glider.
To maximize a pilot's understanding of how the hang glider is flying, most pilots carry flight instruments. The most basic being a variometer and altimeter—often combined. Some more advanced pilots also carry airspeed indicators and radios. When flying in competition or "cross country", pilots often also carry maps and/or GPS units. Hang gliders do not have instrument panels as such, so all the instruments are mounted to the control frame of the glider or occasionally strapped to the pilot's forearm.
Gliding pilots are able to sense the acceleration forces when they first hit a thermal, but have difficulty gauging constant motion. Thus it is difficult to detect the difference between constantly rising air and constantly sinking air. A variometer is a very sensitive vertical speed indicator. The variometer indicates climb rate or sink rate with audio signals (beeps) and/or a visual display. These units are generally electronic, vary in sophistication, and often include an altimeter and an airspeed indicator. More advanced units often incorporate a barograph for recording flight data and/or a built-in GPS. The main purpose of a variometer is in helping a pilot find and stay in the 'core' of a thermal to maximize height gain, and conversely indicating when he or she is in sinking air and needs to find rising air. Variometers are sometimes capable of electronic calculations to indicate the optimal speed to fly for given conditions. The MacCready theory answers the question on how fast a pilot should cruise between thermals, given the average lift the pilot expects in the next thermal climb and the amount of lift or sink he encounters in cruise mode. Some electronic variometers make the calculations automatically, allowing for factors such as the glider's theoretical performance (glide ratio), altitude, hook in weight, and wind direction.
Pilots use 2-way radio for training purposes, for communicating with other pilots in the air, and with their ground crew when traveling on cross-country flights.
One type of radios used are PTT (push-to-talk) handheld transceivers, operating in VHF FM. Usually a microphone is incorporated in the helmet, and the PTT switch is either fixed to the outside of the helmet, or strapped to a finger. Operating a VHF band radio without an appropriate license is illegal in most countries that have regulated airwaves (including United States, Canada, Brazil, etc.), so additional informations must be obtained with the national or local Hang Gliding association.
As aircraft operating in airspace occupied by other aircraft, hang glider pilots also use the appropriate type of radio (i.e. the aircraft transceiver into Aero Mobile Service VHF band). It can, of course, be fitted with a PTT switch to a finger and speakers inside the helmet. The use of aircraft transceivers is subject to regulations specific to the use in the air such as frequencies restrictions, but has several advantages over FM (i.e. frequency modulated) radios used in other services. First is the great range it has (without repeaters) because of its amplitude modulation (i.e. AM). Second is the ability to contact, inform and be informed directly by other aircraft pilots of their intentions thereby improving collision avoidance and increasing safety. Third is to allow greater liberty regarding distance flights in regulated airspaces, in which the aircraft radio is normally a legal requirement. Fourth is the universal emergency frequency monitored by all other users and satellites and used in case of emergency or impending emergency.
GPS (global positioning system) can be used to aid in navigation. For competitions, it is used to verify the contestant reached the required check-points.
Records are sanctioned by the FAI. The world record for straight distance is held by Dustin B. Martin, with a distance of in 2012, originating from Zapata, Texas.
Judy Leden (GBR) holds the altitude record for a balloon-launched hang glider: 11,800 m (38,800 ft) at Wadi Rum, Jordan on October 25, 1994. Leden also holds the gain of height record: 3,970 m (13,025 ft), set in 1992.
The altitude records for balloon-launched hang gliders:
Competitions started with "flying as long as possible" and spot landings. With increasing performance, cross-country flying replaced them. Usually two to four waypoints have to be passed with a landing at a goal. In the late 1990s low-power GPS units were introduced and have completely replaced photographs of the goal. Every two years there is a world championship. The Rigid and Women's World Championship in 2006 was hosted by Quest Air in Florida. Big Spring, Texas hosted the 2007 World Championship. Hang gliding is also one of the competition categories in World Air Games organized by Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (World Air Sports Federation - FAI), which maintains a chronology of the FAI World Hang Gliding Championships.
For competitive purposes, there are three classes of hang glider:
There are four basic aerobatic maneuvers in a hang glider:
There can be confusion between gliders, hang gliders, and paragliders. Paragliders and hang gliders are both foot-launched glider aircraft and in both cases the pilot is suspended ("hangs") below the lift surface, but "hang glider" is the default term for those where the airframe contains rigid structures. The primary structure of paragliders is supple, consisting mainly of woven material.
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History of France
The first written records for the history of France appeared in the Iron Age. What is now France made up the bulk of the region known to the Romans as Gaul. Greek writers noted the presence of three main ethno-linguistic groups in the area: the Gauls, the Aquitani, and the Belgae. The Gauls, the largest and best attested group, were Celtic people speaking what is known as the Gaulish language.
Over the course of the first millennium BC the Greeks, Romans and Carthaginians established colonies on the Mediterranean coast and the offshore islands. The Roman Republic annexed southern Gaul as the province of Gallia Narbonensis in the late 2nd century BC, and Roman Legions under Julius Caesar conquered the rest of Gaul in the Gallic Wars of 58–51 BC. Afterwards a Gallo-Roman culture emerged and Gaul was increasingly integrated into the Roman Empire.
In the later stages of the Roman Empire, Gaul was subject to barbarian raids and migration, most importantly by the Germanic Franks. The Frankish king Clovis I united most of Gaul under his rule in the late 5th century, setting the stage for Frankish dominance in the region for hundreds of years. Frankish power reached its fullest extent under Charlemagne. The medieval Kingdom of France emerged from the western part of Charlemagne's Carolingian Empire, known as West Francia, and achieved increasing prominence under the rule of the House of Capet, founded by Hugh Capet in 987.
A succession crisis following the death of the last direct Capetian monarch in 1328 led to the series of conflicts known as the Hundred Years' War between the House of Valois and the House of Plantagenet. The war formally began in 1337 following Philip VI's attempt to seize the Duchy of Aquitaine from its hereditary holder, Edward III of England, the Plantagenet claimant to the French throne. Despite early Plantagenet victories, including the capture and ransom of John II of France, fortunes turned in favor of the Valois later in the war. Among the notable figures of the war was Joan of Arc, a French peasant girl who led French forces against the English, establishing herself as a national heroine. The war ended with a Valois victory in 1453.
Victory in the Hundred Years' War had the effect of strengthening French nationalism and vastly increasing the power and reach of the French monarchy. During the period known as the "Ancien Régime", France transformed into a centralized absolute monarchy. During the next centuries, France experienced the Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation. At the height of the French Wars of Religion, France became embroiled in another succession crisis, as the last Valois king, Henry III, fought against rival factions the House of Bourbon and the House of Guise. Henry, King of Navarre, scion of the Bourbon family, would be victorious in the conflict and establish the French Bourbon dynasty. A burgeoning worldwide colonial empire was established in the 16th century. French political power reached a zenith under the rule of Louis XIV, "The Sun King", builder of Versailles Palace.
In the late 18th century the monarchy and associated institutions were overthrown in the French Revolution. The country was governed for a period as a Republic, until the French Empire was declared by Napoleon Bonaparte. Following Napoleon's defeat in the Napoleonic Wars, France went through several further regime changes, being ruled as a monarchy, then briefly as a Second Republic, and then as a Second Empire, until a more lasting French Third Republic was established in 1870.
France was one of the Triple Entente powers in World War I, fighting alongside the United Kingdom, Russia, Italy, Japan, the United States and smaller allies against Germany and the Central Powers.
France was one of the Allied Powers in World War II, but was conquered by Nazi Germany in 1940. The Third Republic was dismantled, and most of the country was controlled directly by Germany while the south was controlled until 1942 by the collaborationist Vichy government. Living conditions were harsh as Germany drained away food and manpower, and many Jews were killed. Charles de Gaulle led the Free France movement that one-by-one took over the colonial empire, and coordinated the wartime Resistance. Following liberation in summer 1944, a Fourth Republic was established. France slowly recovered economically, and enjoyed a baby boom that reversed its very low fertility rate. Long wars in Indochina and Algeria drained French resources and ended in political defeat. In the wake of the Algerian Crisis of 1958, Charles de Gaulle set up the French Fifth Republic. Into the 1960s decolonization saw most of the French colonial empire become independent, while smaller parts were incorporated into the French state as overseas departments and collectivities. Since World War II France has been a permanent member in the UN Security Council and NATO. It played a central role in the unification process after 1945 that led to the European Union. Despite slow economic growth in recent years, it remains a strong economic, cultural, military and political factor in the 21st century.
Stone tools discovered at Chilhac (1968) and Lézignan-la-Cèbe in 2009 indicate that pre-human ancestors may have been present in France at least 1.6 million years ago.
Neanderthals were present in Europe from about 400,000 BC, but died out about 30,000 years ago, possibly out-competed by the modern humans during a period of cold weather. The earliest modern humans"Homo sapiens"entered Europe by 43,000 years ago (the Upper Palaeolithic). The cave paintings of Lascaux and Gargas (Gargas in the Hautes-Pyrénées) as well as the Carnac stones are remains of the local prehistoric activity. The first written records for the history of France appear in the Iron Age. What is now France made up the bulk of the region known to the Romans as Gaul. Roman writers noted the presence of three main ethno-linguistic groups in the area: the Gauls, the Aquitani, and the Belgae. The Gauls, the largest and best attested group, were Celtic people speaking what is known as the Gaulish language.
Over the course of the 1st millennium BC the Greeks, Romans, and Carthaginians established colonies on the Mediterranean coast and the offshore islands. The Roman Republic annexed southern Gaul as the province of Gallia Narbonensis in the late 2nd century BC, and Roman forces under Julius Caesar conquered the rest of Gaul in the Gallic Wars of 58–51 BC. Afterwards a Gallo-Roman culture emerged and Gaul was increasingly integrated into the Roman empire.
In 600 BC, Ionian Greeks from Phocaea founded the colony of Massalia (present-day Marseille) on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, making it the oldest city of France. At the same time, some Celtic tribes penetrated the eastern parts (Germania superior) of the current territory of France, but this occupation spread in the rest of France only between the 5th and 3rd century BC.
Covering large parts of modern-day France, Belgium, northwest Germany and northern Italy, Gaul was inhabited by many Celtic and Belgae tribes whom the Romans referred to as Gauls and who spoke the Gaulish language roughly between the Oise and the Garonne ("Gallia Celtica"), according to Julius Caesar. On the lower Garonne the people spoke Aquitanian, a Pre-Indo-European language related to (or a direct ancestor of) Basque whereas a Belgian language was spoken north of Lutecia but north of the Loire according to other authors like Strabo. The Celts founded cities such as Lutetia Parisiorum (Paris) and Burdigala (Bordeaux) while the Aquitanians founded Tolosa (Toulouse).
Long before any Roman settlements, Greek navigators settled in what would become Provence. The Phoceans founded important cities such as Massalia (Marseille) and Nikaia (Nice), bringing them into conflict with the neighboring Celts and Ligurians. Some Phocean great navigators, such as Pytheas, were born in Marseille. The Celts themselves often fought with Aquitanians and Germans, and a Gaulish war band led by Brennus invaded Rome c. 393 or 388 BC following the Battle of the Allia.
However, the tribal society of the Gauls did not change fast enough for the centralized Roman state, who would learn to counter them. The Gaulish tribal confederacies were then defeated by the Romans in battles such as Sentinum and Telamon during the 3rd century BC. In the early 3rd century BC, some Belgae (Germani cisrhenani) conquered the surrounding territories of the Somme in northern Gaul after battles supposedly against the Armoricani (Gauls) near Ribemont-sur-Ancre and Gournay-sur-Aronde, where sanctuaries were found.
When Carthaginian commander Hannibal Barca fought the Romans, he recruited several Gaulish mercenaries who fought on his side at Cannae. It was this Gaulish participation that caused Provence to be annexed in 122 BC by the Roman Republic. Later, the Consul of Gaul — Julius Caesar — conquered all of Gaul. Despite Gaulish opposition led by Vercingetorix, the Gauls succumbed to the Roman onslaught. The Gauls had some success at first at Gergovia, but were ultimately defeated at Alesia in 52 BC. The Romans founded cities such as Lugdunum (Lyon), Narbonensis (Narbonne) and allow in a correspondence between Lucius Munatius Plancus and Cicero to formalize the existence of Cularo (Grenoble).
Gaul was divided into several different provinces. The Romans displaced populations to prevent local identities from becoming a threat to Roman control. Thus, many Celts were displaced in Aquitania or were enslaved and moved out of Gaul. There was a strong cultural evolution in Gaul under the Roman Empire, the most obvious one being the replacement of the Gaulish language by Vulgar Latin. It has been argued the similarities between the Gaulish and Latin languages favoured the transition. Gaul remained under Roman control for centuries and Celtic culture was then gradually replaced by Gallo-Roman culture.
The Gauls became better integrated with the Empire with the passage of time. For instance, generals Marcus Antonius Primus and Gnaeus Julius Agricola were both born in Gaul, as were emperors Claudius and Caracalla. Emperor Antoninus Pius also came from a Gaulish family. In the decade following Valerian's capture by the Persians in 260, Postumus established a short-lived Gallic Empire, which included the Iberian Peninsula and Britannia, in addition to Gaul itself. Germanic tribes, the Franks and the Alamanni, entered Gaul at this time. The Gallic Empire ended with Emperor Aurelian's victory at Châlons in 274.
A migration of Celts appeared in the 4th century in Armorica. They were led by the legendary king Conan Meriadoc and came from Britain. They spoke the now extinct British language, which evolved into the Breton, Cornish, and Welsh languages.
In 418 the Aquitanian province was given to the Goths in exchange for their support against the Vandals. Those same Goths had sacked Rome in 410 and established a capital in Toulouse.
The Roman Empire had difficulty responding to all the barbarian raids, and Flavius Aëtius had to use these tribes against each other in order to maintain some Roman control.
He first used the Huns against the Burgundians, and these mercenaries destroyed Worms, killed king Gunther, and pushed the Burgundians westward. The Burgundians were resettled by Aëtius near Lugdunum in 443. The Huns, united by Attila, became a greater threat, and Aëtius used the Visigoths against the Huns. The conflict climaxed in 451 at the Battle of Châlons, in which the Romans and Goths defeated Attila.
The Roman Empire was on the verge of collapsing. Aquitania was definitely abandoned to the Visigoths, who would soon conquer a significant part of southern Gaul as well as most of the Iberian Peninsula. The Burgundians claimed their own kingdom, and northern Gaul was practically abandoned to the Franks. Aside from the Germanic peoples, the Vascones entered Wasconia from the Pyrenees and the Bretons formed three kingdoms in Armorica: Domnonia, Cornouaille and Broërec.
In 486, Clovis I, leader of the Salian Franks, defeated Syagrius at Soissons and subsequently united most of northern and central Gaul under his rule. Clovis then recorded a succession of victories against other Germanic tribes such as the Alamanni at Tolbiac. In 496, pagan Clovis adopted Catholicism. This gave him greater legitimacy and power over his Christian subjects and granted him clerical support against the Arian Visigoths. He defeated Alaric II at Vouillé in 507 and annexed Aquitaine, and thus Toulouse, into his Frankish kingdom.
The Goths retired to Toledo in what would become Spain. Clovis made Paris his capital and established the Merovingian Dynasty but his kingdom would not survive his death in 511. Under Frankish inheritance traditions, all sons inherit part of the land, so four kingdoms emerged: centered on Paris, Orléans, Soissons, and Rheims. Over time, the borders and numbers of Frankish kingdoms were fluid and changed frequently. Also during this time, the Mayors of the Palace, originally the chief advisor to the kings, would become the real power in the Frankish lands; the Merovingian kings themselves would be reduced to little more than figureheads.
By this time Muslims had conquered Hispania and Septimania became part of the Islamic Iberi, which were threatening the Frankish kingdoms. Duke Odo the Great defeated a major invading force at Toulouse in 721 but failed to repel a raiding party in 732. The mayor of the palace, Charles Martel, defeated that raiding party at the Battle of Tours and earned respect and power within the Frankish Kingdom. The assumption of the crown in 751 by Pepin the Short (son of Charles Martel) established the Carolingian dynasty as the Kings of the Franks.
Carolingian power reached its fullest extent under Pepin's son, Charlemagne. In 771, Charlemagne reunited the Frankish domains after a further period of division, subsequently conquering the Lombards under Desiderius in what is now northern Italy (774), incorporating Bavaria (788) into his realm, defeating the Avars of the Danubian plain (796), advancing the frontier with Islamic Spain as far south as Barcelona (801), and subjugating Lower Saxony after a prolonged campaign (804).
In recognition of his successes and his political support for the Papacy, Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the Romans, or Roman Emperor in the West, by Pope Leo III in 800. Charlemagne's son Louis the Pious (emperor 814–840) kept the empire united; however, this Carolingian Empire would not survive Louis I's death. Two of his sons Charles the Bald and Louis the German swore allegiance to each other against their brother Lothair I in the Oaths of Strasbourg, and the empire was divided among Louis's three sons (Treaty of Verdun, 843). After a last brief reunification (884–887), the imperial title ceased to be held in the western realm, which was to form the basis of the future French kingdom. The eastern realm, which would become Germany, elected the Saxon dynasty of Henry the Fowler.
Under the Carolingians, the kingdom was ravaged by Viking raiders. In this struggle some important figures such as Count Odo of Paris and his brother King Robert rose to fame and became kings. This emerging dynasty, whose members were called the Robertines, were the predecessors of the Capetian Dynasty. Led by Rollo, some Vikings had settled in Normandy and were granted the land, first as counts and then as dukes, by King Charles the Simple, in order to protect the land from other raiders. The people that emerged from the interactions between the new Viking aristocracy and the already mixed Franks and Gallo-Romans became known as the Normans.
France was a very decentralised state during the Middle Ages. The authority of the king was more religious than administrative. The 11th century in France marked the apogee of princely power at the expense of the king when states like Normandy, Flanders or Languedoc enjoyed a local authority comparable to kingdoms in all but name. The Capetians, as they were descended from the Robertians, were formerly powerful princes themselves who had successfully unseated the weak and unfortunate Carolingian kings.
The Carolingian kings had nothing more than a royal title when the Capetian kings added their principality to that title. The Capetians, in a way, held a dual status of King and Prince; as king they held the Crown of Charlemagne and as Count of Paris they held their personal fiefdom, best known as Île-de-France.
The fact that the Capetians held lands as both Prince and King gave them a complicated status. They were involved in the struggle for power within France as princes, but they also had a religious authority over Roman Catholicism in France as King. The Capetian kings treated other princes more as enemies and allies than as subordinates: their royal title was recognised yet frequently disrespected. Capetian authority was so weak in some remote places that bandits were the effective power.
Some of the king's vassals would grow sufficiently powerful that they would become some of the strongest rulers of western Europe. The Normans, the Plantagenets, the Lusignans, the Hautevilles, the Ramnulfids, and the House of Toulouse successfully carved lands outside France for themselves. The most important of these conquests for French history was the Norman Conquest of England by William the Conqueror, following the Battle of Hastings and immortalised in the Bayeux Tapestry, because it linked England to France through Normandy. Although the Normans were now both vassals of the French kings and their equals as kings of England, their zone of political activity remained centered in France.
An important part of the French aristocracy also involved itself in the crusades, and French knights founded and ruled the Crusader states. An example of the legacy left in the Middle East by these nobles is the Krak des Chevaliers' enlargement by the Counts of Tripoli and Toulouse.
The monarchy overcame the powerful barons over ensuing centuries, and established absolute sovereignty over France in the 16th century. A number of factors contributed to the rise of the French monarchy. The dynasty established by Hugh Capet continued uninterrupted until 1328, and the laws of primogeniture ensured orderly successions of power. Secondly, the successors of Capet came to be recognised as members of an illustrious and ancient royal house and therefore socially superior to their politically and economically superior rivals. Thirdly, the Capetians had the support of the Church, which favoured a strong central government in France. This alliance with the Church was one of the great enduring legacies of the Capetians. The First Crusade was composed almost entirely of Frankish Princes. As time went on, the power of the King was expanded by conquests, seizures and successful feudal political battles.
The history of France starts with the election of Hugh Capet (940–996) by an assembly summoned in Reims in 987. Capet had been "Duke of the Franks" and then became "King of the Franks" (Rex Francorum). Hugh's lands extended little beyond the Paris basin; his political unimportance weighed against the powerful barons who elected him. Many of the king's vassals (who included for a long time the kings of England) ruled over territories far greater than his own. He was recorded to be recognised king by the Gauls, Bretons, Danes, Aquitanians, Goths, Spanish and Gascons.
Count Borell of Barcelona called for Hugh's help against Islamic raids, but even if Hugh intended to help Borell, he was otherwise occupied in fighting Charles of Lorraine. The loss of other Spanish principalities then followed, as the Spanish marches grew more and more independent. Hugh Capet, the first Capetian king, is not a well documented figure, his greatest achievement being certainly to survive as king and defeating the Carolingian claimant, thus allowing him to establish what would become one of Europe's most powerful house of kings.
Hugh's son—Robert the Pious—was crowned King of the Franks before Capet's demise. Hugh Capet decided so in order to have his succession secured. Robert II, as King of the Franks, met Emperor Henry II in 1023 on the borderline. They agreed to end all claims over each other's realm, setting a new stage of Capetian and Ottonian relationships. Although a king weak in power, Robert II's efforts were considerable. His surviving charters imply he relied heavily on the Church to rule France, much like his father did. Although he lived with a mistress—Bertha of Burgundy—and was excommunicated because of this, he was regarded as a model of piety for monks (hence his nickname, Robert the Pious). The reign of Robert II was quite important because it involved the Peace and Truce of God (beginning in 989) and the Cluniac Reforms.
Under King Philip I, the kingdom enjoyed a modest recovery during his extraordinarily long reign (1060–1108). His reign also saw the launch of the First Crusade to regain the Holy Land, which heavily involved his family although he personally did not support the expedition.
It is from Louis VI (reigned 1108–37) onward that royal authority became more accepted. Louis VI was more a soldier and warmongering king than a scholar. The way the king raised money from his vassals made him quite unpopular; he was described as greedy and ambitious and that is corroborated by records of the time. His regular attacks on his vassals, although damaging the royal image, reinforced the royal power. From 1127 onward Louis had the assistance of a skilled religious statesman, Abbot Suger. The abbot was the son of a minor family of knights, but his political advice was extremely valuable to the king. Louis VI successfully defeated, both military and politically, many of the robber barons. Louis VI frequently summoned his vassals to the court, and those who did not show up often had their land possessions confiscated and military campaigns mounted against them. This drastic policy clearly imposed some royal authority on Paris and its surrounding areas. When Louis VI died in 1137, much progress had been made towards strengthening Capetian authority.
Thanks to Abbot Suger's political advice, King Louis VII (junior king 1131–37, senior king 1137–80) enjoyed greater moral authority over France than his predecessors. Powerful vassals paid homage to the French king. Abbot Suger arranged the 1137 marriage between Louis VII and Eleanor of Aquitaine in Bordeaux, which made Louis VII Duke of Aquitaine and gave him considerable power. However, the couple disagreed over the burning of more than a thousand people in Vitry during the conflict against the Count of Champagne.
King Louis VII was deeply horrified by the event and sought penitence by going to the Holy Land. He later involved the Kingdom of France in the Second Crusade but his relationship with Eleanor did not improve. The marriage was ultimately annulled by the pope and Eleanor soon married the Duke of Normandy Henry Fitzempress, who would become King of England as Henry II two years later. Louis VII was once a very powerful monarch and was now facing a much stronger vassal, who was his equal as King of England and his strongest prince as Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine.
Abbot Suger's vision of construction became what is now known as Gothic architecture. This style became standard for most European cathedrals built in the late Middle Ages.
The late direct Capetian kings were considerably more powerful and influential than the earliest ones. While Philip I could hardly control his Parisian barons, Philip IV could dictate popes and emperors. The late Capetians, although they often ruled for a shorter time than their earlier peers, were often much more influential. This period also saw the rise of a complex system of international alliances and conflicts opposing, through dynasties, Kings of France and England and Holy Roman Emperor.
The reign of Philip II Augustus (junior king 1179–80, senior king 1180–1223) marked an important step in the history of French monarchy. His reign saw the French royal domain and influence greatly expanded. He set the context for the rise of power to much more powerful monarchs like Saint Louis and Philip the Fair.
Philip II spent an important part of his reign fighting the so-called Angevin Empire, which was probably the greatest threat to the King of France since the rise of the Capetian dynasty. During the first part of his reign Philip II tried using Henry II of England's son against him. He allied himself with the Duke of Aquitaine and son of Henry II—Richard Lionheart—and together they launched a decisive attack on Henry's castle and home of Chinon and removed him from power.
Richard replaced his father as King of England afterward. The two kings then went crusading during the Third Crusade; however, their alliance and friendship broke down during the crusade. The two men were once again at odds and fought each other in France until Richard was on the verge of totally defeating Philip II.
Adding to their battles in France, the Kings of France and England were trying to install their respective allies at the head of the Holy Roman Empire. If Philip II Augustus supported Philip of Swabia, member of the House of Hohenstaufen, then Richard Lionheart supported Otto IV, member of the House of Welf. Otto IV had the upper hand and became the Holy Roman Emperor at the expense of Philip of Swabia. The crown of France was saved by Richard's demise after a wound he received fighting his own vassals in Limousin.
John Lackland, Richard's successor, refused to come to the French court for a trial against the Lusignans and, as Louis VI had done often to his rebellious vassals, Philip II confiscated John's possessions in France. John's defeat was swift and his attempts to reconquer his French possession at the decisive Battle of Bouvines (1214) resulted in complete failure. Philip II had annexed Normandy and Anjou, plus capturing the Counts of Boulogne and Flanders, although Aquitaine and Gascony remained loyal to the Plantagenet King. In an additional aftermath of the Battle of Bouvines, John's ally Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV was overthrown by Frederick II, member of the House of Hohenstaufen and ally of Philip. Philip II of France was crucial in ordering Western European politics in both England and France.
Philip Augustus founded the Sorbonne and made Paris a city for scholars.
Prince Louis (the future Louis VIII, reigned 1223–26) was involved in the subsequent English civil war as French and English (or rather Anglo-Norman) aristocracies were once one and were now split between allegiances. While the French kings were struggling against the Plantagenets, the Church called for the Albigensian Crusade. Southern France was then largely absorbed in the royal domains.
France became a truly centralised kingdom under Louis IX (reigned 1226–70). Saint Louis has often been portrayed as a one-dimensional character, a flawless example of the faith and an administrative reformer who cared for the governed. However, his reign was far from perfect for everyone: he made unsuccessful crusades, his expanding administrations raised opposition, and he burned Jewish books at the Pope's urging. Louis had a strong sense of justice and always wanted to judge people himself before applying any sentence. This was said about Louis and French clergy asking for excommunications of Louis' vassals:
Louis IX was only twelve years old when he became King of France. His mother — Blanche of Castile — was the effective power as regent (although she did not formally use the title). Blanche's authority was strongly opposed by the French barons yet she maintained her position until Louis was old enough to rule by himself.
In 1229 the King had to struggle with a long lasting strike at the University of Paris. The Quartier Latin was strongly hit by these strikes.
The kingdom was vulnerable: war was still going on in the County of Toulouse, and the royal army was occupied fighting resistance in Languedoc. Count Raymond VII of Toulouse finally signed the Treaty of Paris in 1229, in which he retained much of his lands for life, but his daughter, married to Count Alfonso of Poitou, produced him no heir and so the County of Toulouse went to the King of France.
King Henry III of England had not yet recognized the Capetian overlordship over Aquitaine and still hoped to recover Normandy and Anjou and reform the Angevin Empire. He landed in 1230 at Saint-Malo with a massive force. Henry III's allies in Brittany and Normandy fell down because they did not dare fight their king, who led the counterstrike himself. This evolved into the Saintonge War (1242).
Ultimately, Henry III was defeated and had to recognise Louis IX's overlordship, although the King of France did not seize Aquitaine from Henry III. Louis IX was now the most important landowner of France, adding to his royal title. There were some opposition to his rule in Normandy, yet it proved remarkably easy to rule, especially compared to the County of Toulouse which had been brutally conquered. The Conseil du Roi, which would evolve into the Parlement, was founded in these times. After his conflict with King Henry III of England, Louis established a cordial relation with the Plantagenet King.
Saint Louis also supported new forms of art such as Gothic architecture; his Sainte-Chapelle became a very famous gothic building, and he is also credited for the Morgan Bible. The Kingdom was involved in two crusades under Saint Louis: the Seventh Crusade and the Eighth Crusade. Both proved to be complete failures for the French King.
Philip III became king when Saint Louis died in 1270 during the Eighth Crusade. Philip III was called "the Bold" on the basis of his abilities in combat and on horseback, and not because of his character or ruling abilities. Philip III took part in another crusading disaster: the Aragonese Crusade, which cost him his life in 1285.
More administrative reforms were made by Philip IV, also called Philip the Fair (reigned 1285–1314). This king was responsible for the end of the Knights Templar, signed the Auld Alliance, and established the Parlement of Paris. Philip IV was so powerful that he could name popes and emperors, unlike the early Capetians. The papacy was moved to Avignon and all the contemporary popes were French, such as Philip IV's puppet Bertrand de Goth, Pope Clement V.
The tensions between the Houses of Plantagenet and Capet climaxed during the so-called Hundred Years' War (actually several distinct wars over the period 1337 to 1453) when the Plantagenets claimed the throne of France from the Valois. This was also the time of the Black Death, as well as several civil wars. The French population suffered much from these wars. In 1420 by the Treaty of Troyes Henry V was made heir to Charles VI. Henry V failed to outlive Charles so it was Henry VI of England and France who consolidated the Dual-Monarchy of England and France.
It has been argued that the difficult conditions the French population suffered during the Hundred Years' War awakened French nationalism, a nationalism represented by Joan of Arc (1412–1431). Although this is debatable, the Hundred Years' War is remembered more as a Franco-English war than as a succession of feudal struggles. During this war, France evolved politically and militarily.
Although a Franco-Scottish army was successful at the Battle of Baugé (1421), the humiliating defeats of Poitiers (1356) and Agincourt (1415) forced the French nobility to realise they could not stand just as armoured knights without an organised army. Charles VII (reigned 1422–61) established the first French standing army, the Compagnies d'ordonnance, and defeated the Plantagenets once at Patay (1429) and again, using cannons, at Formigny (1450). The Battle of Castillon (1453) was the last engagement of this war; Calais and the Channel Islands remained ruled by the Plantagenets.
The Early Modern period in French history spans the following reigns, from 1461 to the Revolution, breaking in 1789:
France in the Ancien Régime covered a territory of around . This land supported 13 million people in 1484 and 20 million people in 1700. France had the second largest population in Europe around 1700. Britain had 5 or 6 million, Spain had 8 million, and the Austrian Habsburgs had around 8 million. Russia was the most populated European country at the time. France's lead slowly faded after 1700, as other countries grew faster.
The sense of "being French" was uncommon in 1500, as people clung to their local identities. By 1600, however, people were starting to call themselves "bon françois."
Political power was widely dispersed. The law courts ("Parlements") were powerful, especially that of France. However, the king had only about 10,000 officials in royal service — very few indeed for such a large country, and with very slow internal communications over an inadequate road system. Travel was usually faster by ocean ship or river boat. The different estates of the realm the clergy, the nobility, and commoners occasionally met together in the "Estates General", but in practice the Estates General had no power, for it could petition the king but could not pass laws.
The Catholic Church controlled about 40% of the wealth, tied up in long-term endowments that could be added to but not reduced. The king (not the pope) nominated bishops, but typically had to negotiate with noble families that had close ties to local monasteries and church establishments.
The nobility came second in terms of wealth, but there was no unity. Each noble had his own lands, his own network of regional connections, and his own military force.
The cities had a quasi-independent status, and were largely controlled by the leading merchants and guilds. Paris was by far the largest city with 220,000 people in 1547 and a history of steady growth. Lyon and Rouen each had about 40,000 population, but Lyon had a powerful banking community and a vibrant culture. Bordeaux was next with only 20,000 population in 1500.
Peasants made up the vast majority of population, who in many cases had well-established rights that the authorities had to respect. In 1484, about 97% of France's 13 million people lived in rural villages; in 1700, at least 80% of the 20 million people population were peasants.
In the 17th century peasants had ties to the market economy, provided much of the capital investment necessary for agricultural growth, and frequently moved from village to village (or town). Geographic mobility, directly tied to the market and the need for investment capital, was the main path to social mobility. The "stable" core of French society, town guildspeople and village labourers, included cases of staggering social and geographic continuity, but even this core required regular renewal.
Accepting the existence of these two societies, the constant tension between them, and extensive geographic and social mobility tied to a market economy holds the key to a clearer understanding of the evolution of the social structure, economy, and even political system of early modern France. Collins (1991) argues that the Annales School paradigm underestimated the role of the market economy; failed to explain the nature of capital investment in the rural economy; and grossly exaggerated social stability.
Although most peasants in France spoke local dialects, an official language emerged in Paris and the French language became the preferred language of Europe's aristocracy. Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (born in 1500) quipped, "I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse."
Because of its international status, there was a desire to regulate the French language. Several reforms of the French language worked to make it more uniform. The Renaissance writer François Rabelais (born 1494) helped to shape French as a literary language, Rabelais' French is characterised by the re-introduction of Greek and Latin words. Jacques Peletier du Mans (born 1517) was one of the scholars who reformed the French language. He improved Nicolas Chuquet's long scale system by adding names for intermediate numbers ("milliards" instead of "thousand million", etc.).
With the death in 1477 of Charles the Bold, France and the Habsburgs began a long process of dividing his rich Burgundian lands, leading to numerous wars. In 1532, Brittany was incorporated into the Kingdom of France.
France engaged in the long Italian Wars (1494–1559), which marked the beginning of early modern France. Francis I faced powerful foes, and he was captured at Pavia. The French monarchy then sought for allies and found one in the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Admiral Barbarossa captured Nice in 1543 and handed it down to Francis I.
During the 16th century, the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs were the dominant power in Europe. The many domains of Charles V encircled France. The Spanish Tercio was used with great success against French knights. Finally, on 7 January 1558, the Duke of Guise seized Calais from the English.
Economic historians call the era from about 1475 to 1630 the "beautiful 16th century" because of the return of peace, prosperity and optimism across the nation, and the steady growth of population. Paris, for example, flourished as never before, as its population rose to 200,000 by 1550. In Toulouse the Renaissance of the 16th century brought wealth that transformed the architecture of the town, such as building of the great aristocratic houses.
The Protestant Reformation, inspired in France mainly by John Calvin, began to challenge the legitimacy and rituals of the Catholic Church. It reached an elite audience.
Calvin, based securely in Geneva Switzerland, was a Frenchman deeply committed to reforming his homeland. The Protestant movement had been energetic, but lacked central organizational direction. With financial support from the church in Geneva, Calvin turned his enormous energies toward uplifting the French Protestant cause. As one historian explains:
Between 1555 and 1562, more than 100 ministers were sent to France. Nevertheless, French King Henry II severely persecuted Protestants under the Edict of Chateaubriand and when the French authorities complained about the missionary activities, the city fathers of Geneva disclaimed official responsibility. The two main Calvinist strongholds were southwest France and Normandy, but even in these districts the Catholics were a majority. Renewed Catholic reaction headed by the powerful Francis, Duke of Guise led to a massacre of Huguenots at Vassy in 1562, starting the first of the French Wars of Religion, during which English, German, and Spanish forces intervened on the side of rival Protestant ("Huguenot") and Catholic forces.
King Henry II died in 1559 in a jousting tournament; he was succeeded in turn by his three sons, each of which assumed the throne as minors or were weak, ineffectual rulers. In the power vacuum entered Henry's widow, Catherine de' Medici, who became a central figure in the early years of the Wars of Religion. She is often blamed for the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of 1572, when thousands of Huguenots were murdered in Paris and the provinces of France.
The Wars of Religion culminated in the War of the Three Henrys (1584–98), at the height of which bodyguards of the King Henry III assassinated Henry de Guise, leader of the Spanish-backed Catholic league. In revenge, a priest assassinated Henry III. This led to the ascension of the Huguenot Henry IV; in order to bring peace to a country beset by religious and succession wars, he converted to Catholicism. "Paris is worth a Mass," he reputedly said. He issued the Edict of Nantes in 1598, which guaranteed religious liberties to the Protestants, thereby effectively ending the civil war. The main provisions of the Edict of Nantes were as follows: a) Huguenots were allowed to hold religious services in certain towns in each province, b) They were allowed to control and fortify eight cities (including La Rochelle and Montauban), c) Special courts were established to try Huguenot offenders, d) Huguenots were to have equal civil rights with the Catholics.
When in 1620 the Huguenots proclaimed a constitution for the 'Republic of the Reformed Churches of France', the chief minister Cardinal Richelieu (1585–1642) invoked the entire powers of the state to stop it. Religious conflicts therefore resumed under Louis XIII when Richelieu forced Protestants to disarm their army and fortresses. This conflict ended in the Siege of La Rochelle (1627–28), in which Protestants and their English supporters were defeated. The following Peace of Alais (1629) confirmed religious freedom yet dismantled the Protestant military defences.
In the face of persecution, Huguenots dispersed widely throughout Protestant kingdoms in Europe and America.
The religious conflicts that plagued France also ravaged the Habsburg-led Holy Roman Empire. The Thirty Years' War eroded the power of the Catholic Habsburgs. Although Cardinal Richelieu, the powerful chief minister of France, had mauled the Protestants, he joined this war on their side in 1636 because it was in the "raison d'État" (national interest). Imperial Habsburg forces invaded France, ravaged Champagne, and nearly threatened Paris.
Richelieu died in 1642 and was succeeded by Cardinal Mazarin, while Louis XIII died one year later and was succeeded by Louis XIV. France was served by some very efficient commanders such as Louis II de Bourbon (Condé) and Henry de la Tour d'Auvergne (Turenne). The French forces won a decisive victory at Rocroi (1643), and the Spanish army was decimated; the Tercio was broken. The Truce of Ulm (1647) and the Peace of Westphalia (1648) brought an end to the war.
Some challenges remained. France was hit by civil unrest known as the Fronde which in turn evolved into the Franco-Spanish War in 1653. Louis II de Bourbon joined the Spanish army this time, but suffered a severe defeat at Dunkirk (1658) by Henry de la Tour d'Auvergne. The terms for the peace inflicted upon the Spanish kingdoms in the Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659) were harsh, as France annexed Northern Catalonia.
Amidst this turmoil, René Descartes sought answers to philosophical questions through the use of logic and reason and formulated what would be called Cartesian Dualism in 1641.
During the 16th century, the king began to claim North American territories and established several colonies. Jacques Cartier was one of the great explorers who ventured deep into American territories during the 16th century.
The early 17th century saw the first successful French settlements in the New World with the voyages of Samuel de Champlain. The largest settlement was New France, with the towns of Quebec City (1608) and Montreal (fur trading post in 1611, Roman Catholic mission established in 1639, and colony founded in 1642).
Louis XIV, known as the "Sun King", reigned over France from 1643 until 1715 although his strongest period of personal rule did not begin until 1661 after the death of his Italian chief minister Cardinal Mazarin. Louis believed in the divine right of kings, which asserts that a monarch is above everyone except God, and is therefore not answerable to the will of his people, the aristocracy, or the Church. Louis continued his predecessors' work of creating a centralized state governed from Paris, sought to eliminate remnants of feudalism in France, and subjugated and weakened the aristocracy. By these means he consolidated a system of absolute monarchical rule in France that endured until the French Revolution. However, Louis XIV's long reign saw France involved in many wars that drained its treasury.
His reign began during the Thirty Years' War and during the Franco-Spanish war. His military architect, Vauban, became famous for his pentagonal fortresses, and Jean-Baptiste Colbert supported the royal spending as much as possible. French dominated League of the Rhine fought against the Ottoman Turks at the Battle of Saint Gotthard in 1664. The battle was won by the Christians, chiefly through the brave attack of 6,000 French troops led by La Feuillade and Coligny.
France fought the War of Devolution against Spain in 1667. France's defeat of Spain and invasion of the Spanish Netherlands alarmed England and Sweden. With the Dutch Republic they formed the Triple Alliance to check Louis XIV's expansion. Louis II de Bourbon had captured Franche-Comté, but in face of an indefensible position, Louis XIV agreed to a peace at Aachen. Under its terms, Louis XIV did not annex Franche-Comté but did gain Lille.
Peace was fragile, and war broke out again between France and the Dutch Republic in the Franco-Dutch War (1672–78). Louis XIV asked for the Dutch Republic to resume war against the Spanish Netherlands, but the republic refused. France attacked the Dutch Republic and was joined by England in this conflict. Through targeted inundations of polders by breaking dykes, the French invasion of the Dutch Republic was brought to a halt. The Dutch Admiral Michiel de Ruyter inflicted a few strategic defeats on the Anglo-French naval alliance and forced England to retire from the war in 1674. Because the Netherlands could not resist indefinitely, it agreed to peace in the Treaties of Nijmegen, according to which France would annex France-Comté and acquire further concessions in the Spanish Netherlands.
On 6 May 1682, the royal court moved to the lavish Palace of Versailles, which Louis XIV had greatly expanded. Over time, Louis XIV compelled many members of the nobility, especially the noble elite, to inhabit Versailles. He controlled the nobility with an elaborate system of pensions and privileges, and replaced their power with himself.
Peace did not last, and war between France and Spain again resumed. The War of the Reunions broke out (1683–84), and again Spain, with its ally the Holy Roman Empire, was easily defeated. Meanwhile, in October 1685 Louis signed the Edict of Fontainebleau ordering the destruction of all Protestant churches and schools in France. Its immediate consequence was a large Protestant exodus from France. Over two million people died in two famines in 1693 and 1710.
France would soon be involved in another war, the War of the Grand Alliance. This time the theatre was not only in Europe but also in North America. Although the war was long and difficult (it was also called the Nine Years' War), its results were inconclusive. The Treaty of Ryswick in 1697 confirmed French sovereignty over Alsace, yet rejected its claims to Luxembourg. Louis also had to evacuate Catalonia and the Palatinate. This peace was considered a truce by all sides, thus war was to start again.
In 1701 the War of the Spanish Succession began. The Bourbon Philip of Anjou was designated heir to the throne of Spain as Philip V. The Habsburg Emperor Leopold opposed a Bourbon succession, because the power that such a succession would bring to the Bourbon rulers of France would disturb the delicate balance of power in Europe. Therefore, he claimed the Spanish thrones for himself. England and the Dutch Republic joined Leopold against Louis XIV and Philip of Anjou. The allied forces were led by John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, and by Prince Eugene of Savoy. They inflicted a few resounding defeats on the French army; the Battle of Blenheim in 1704 was the first major land battle lost by France since its victory at Rocroi in 1643. Yet, the extremely bloody battles of Ramillies (1706) and Malplaquet (1709) proved to be Pyrrhic victories for the allies, as they had lost too many men to continue the war. Led by Villars, French forces recovered much of the lost ground in battles such as Denain (1712). Finally, a compromise was achieved with the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Philip of Anjou was confirmed as Philip V, king of Spain; Emperor Leopold did not get the throne, but Philip V was barred from inheriting France.
Louis XIV wanted to be remembered as a patron of the arts, like his ancestor Louis IX. He invited Jean-Baptiste Lully to establish the French opera, and a tumultuous friendship was established between Lully and playwright and actor Molière. Jules Hardouin Mansart became France's most important architect of the period, bringing the pinnacle of French Baroque architecture.
The wars were so expensive, and so inconclusive, that although France gained some territory to the east, its enemies gained more strength than it did, Vauban, France's leading military strategist, warned the King in 1689 that a hostile "Alliance" was too powerful at sea. He recommended the best way for France to fight back was to license French merchants ships to privateer and seize enemy merchant ships, while avoiding its navies:
Vauban was pessimistic about France's so-called friends and allies and recommended against expensive land wars, or hopeless naval wars:
Louis XIV died in 1715 and was succeeded by his five-year-old great grandson who reigned as Louis XV until his death in 1774. In 1718, France was once again at war, as Philip II of Orléans's regency joined the War of the Quadruple Alliance against Spain. King Philip V of Spain had to withdraw from the conflict, confronted with the reality that Spain was no longer a great power of Europe. Under Cardinal Fleury's administration, peace was maintained as long as possible.
However, in 1733 another war broke in central Europe, this time about the Polish succession, and France joined the war against the Austrian Empire. This time there was no invasion of the Netherlands, and Britain remained neutral. As a consequence, Austria was left alone against a Franco-Spanish alliance and faced a military disaster. Peace was settled in the Treaty of Vienna (1738), according to which France would annex, through inheritance, the Duchy of Lorraine.
Two years later, in 1740, war broke out over the Austrian succession, and France seized the opportunity to join the conflict. The war played out in North America and India as well as Europe, and inconclusive terms were agreed to in the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748). Once again, no one regarded this as a peace, but rather as a mere truce. Prussia was then becoming a new threat, as it had gained substantial territory from Austria. This led to the Diplomatic Revolution of 1756, in which the alliances seen during the previous war were mostly inverted. France was now allied to Austria and Russia, while Britain was now allied to Prussia.
In the North American theatre, France was allied with various Native American peoples during the Seven Years' War and, despite a temporary success at the battles of the Great Meadows and Monongahela, French forces were defeated at the disastrous Battle of the Plains of Abraham in Quebec. In Europe, repeated French attempts to overwhelm Hanover failed. In 1762 Russia, France, and Austria were on the verge of crushing Prussia, when the Anglo-Prussian Alliance was saved by the Miracle of the House of Brandenburg. At sea, naval defeats against British fleets at Lagos and Quiberon Bay in 1759 and a crippling blockade forced France to keep its ships in port. Finally peace was concluded in the Treaty of Paris (1763), and France lost its North American empire.
Britain's success in the Seven Years' War had allowed them to eclipse France as the leading colonial power. France sought revenge for this defeat, and under Choiseul France started to rebuild. In 1766 the French Kingdom annexed Lorraine and the following year bought Corsica from Genoa.
Having lost its colonial empire, France saw a good opportunity for revenge against Britain in signing an alliance with the Americans in 1778, and sending an army and navy that turned the American Revolution into a world war. Spain, allied to France by the Family Compact, and the Dutch Republic also joined the war on the French side. Admiral de Grasse defeated a British fleet at Chesapeake Bay while Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau and Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette joined American forces in defeating the British at Yorktown. The war was concluded by the Treaty of Paris (1783); the United States became independent. The British Royal Navy scored a major victory over France in 1782 at the Battle of the Saintes and France finished the war with huge debts and the minor gain of the island of Tobago.
While the state expanded, new Enlightenment ideas flourished. Montesquieu proposed the separation of powers. Many other French philosophes (intellectuals) exerted philosophical influence on a continental scale, including Voltaire, Denis Diderot and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose essay The Social Contract, Or Principles of Political Right was a catalyst for governmental and societal reform throughout Europe. Diderot's great "Encyclopédie" reshaped the European world view.
Astronomy, chemistry, mathematics and technology flourished. French scientists such as Antoine Lavoisier worked to replace the archaic units of weights and measures by a coherent scientific system. Lavoisier also formulated the law of Conservation of mass and discovered oxygen and hydrogen.
The "Philosophes" were 18th-century French intellectuals who dominated the French Enlightenment and were influential across Europe. Their interests were diverse, with experts in scientific, literary, philosophical and sociological matters. The ultimate goal of the philosophers was human progress; by concentrating on social and material sciences, they believed that a rational society was the only logical outcome of a freethinking and reasoned populace. They also advocated Deism and religious tolerance. Many believed religion had been used as a source of conflict since time eternal, and that logical, rational thought was the way forward for mankind.
The philosopher Denis Diderot was editor in chief of the famous Enlightenment accomplishment, the 72,000-article "Encyclopédie" (1751–72). It sparked a revolution in learning throughout the enlightened world.
In the early part of the 18th century the movement was dominated by Voltaire and Montesquieu, but the movement grew in momentum as the century moved on. Overall the philosophers were inspired by the thoughts of René Descartes, the skepticism of the Libertins and the popularization of science by Bernard de Fontenelle. Sectarian dissensions within the church, the gradual weakening of the absolute monarch and the numerous wars of Louis XIV allowed their influence to spread. Between 1748 and 1751 the Philosophes reached their most influential period, as Montesquieu published "Spirit of Laws" (1748) and Jean Jacques Rousseau published "Discourse on the Moral Effects of the Arts and Sciences" (1750).
The leader of the French Enlightenment and a writer of enormous influence across Europe, was Voltaire (1694–1778). His many books included poems and plays; works of satire ("Candide" [1759]); books on history, science, and philosophy, including numerous (anonymous) contributions to the "Encyclopédie"; and an extensive correspondence. A witty, tireless antagonist to the alliance between the French state and the church, he was exiled from France on a number of occasions. In exile in England he came to appreciate British thought and he popularized Isaac Newton in Europe.
When King Louis XV died in 1774 he left his grandson, Louis XVI, "A heavy legacy, with ruined finances, unhappy subjects, and a faulty and incompetent government." Regardless, "the people, meanwhile, still had confidence in royalty, and the accession of Louis XVI was welcomed with enthusiasm."
A decade later, recent wars, especially the Seven Years' War (1756–63) and the American Revolutionary War (1775–83), had effectively bankrupted the state. The taxation system was highly inefficient. Several years of bad harvests and an inadequate transportation system had caused rising food prices, hunger, and malnutrition; the country was further destabilized by the lower classes' increased feeling that the royal court was isolated from, and indifferent to, their hardships.
In February 1787, the king's finance minister, Charles Alexandre de Calonne, convened an Assembly of Notables, a group of nobles, clergy, bourgeoisie, and bureaucrats selected in order to bypass the local parliaments. This group was asked to approve a new land tax that would, for the first time, include a tax on the property of nobles and clergy. The assembly did not approve the tax, and instead demanded that Louis XVI call the Estates-General.
In August 1788, the King agreed to convene the Estates-General in May 1789. While the Third Estate demanded and was granted "double representation" so as to balance the First and Second Estate, voting was to occur "by orders" votes of the Third Estate were to be weighted effectively canceling double representation. This eventually led to the Third Estate breaking away from the Estates-General and, joined by members of the other estates, proclaiming the creation of the National Assembly, an assembly not of the Estates but of "the People."
In an attempt to keep control of the process and prevent the Assembly from convening, Louis XVI ordered the closure of the Salle des États where the Assembly met. After finding the door to their chamber locked and guarded, the Assembly met nearby on a tennis court and pledged the Tennis Court Oath on 20 June 1789, binding them "never to separate, and to meet wherever circumstances demand, until the constitution of the kingdom is established and affirmed on solid foundations." They were joined by some sympathetic members of the Second and First estates. After the king fired his finance minister, Jacques Necker, for giving his support and guidance to the Third Estate, worries surfaced that the legitimacy of the newly formed National Assembly might be threatened by royalists.
Paris was soon in a state of anarchy. It was consumed with riots and widespread looting. Because the royal leadership essentially abandoned the city, the mobs soon had the support of the French Guard, including arms and trained soldiers. On 14 July 1789, the insurgents set their eyes on the large weapons and ammunition cache inside the Bastille fortress, which also served as a symbol of royal tyranny. Insurgents seized the Bastille prison, killing the governor and several of his guards. The French now celebrate 14 July each year as 'Bastille day' or, as the French say: "Quatorze Juillet (the Fourteenth of July)", as a symbol of the shift away from the Ancien Régime to a more modern, democratic state.
Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, a hero of the American War of Independence, on 15 July took command of the National Guard, and the king on 17 July accepted to wear the two-colour cockade (blue and red), later adapted into the tricolour cockade, as the new symbol of revolutionary France.
Although peace was made, several nobles did not regard the new order as acceptable and emigrated in order to push the neighboring, aristocratic kingdoms to war against the new regime. The state was now struck for several weeks in July and August 1789 by violence against aristocracy, also called 'the Great Fear'.
On 4 and 11 August 1789, the National Constituent Assembly abolished privileges and feudalism, sweeping away personal serfdom, exclusive hunting rights and other seigneurial rights of the Second Estate (nobility). The tithe was also abolished which had been the main source of income for many clergymen.
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was adopted by the National Assembly on 27 August 1789, as a first step in their effort to write a constitution. Considered to be a precursor to modern international rights instruments and using the U.S. Declaration of Independence as a model, it defined a set of individual rights and collective rights of all of the estates as one. Influenced by the doctrine of natural rights, these rights were deemed universal and valid in all times and places, pertaining to human nature itself. The Assembly also replaced France's historic provinces with eighty-three departments, uniformly administered and approximately equal to one another in extent and population.
When a mob from Paris attacked the royal palace at Versailles in October 1789 seeking redress for their severe poverty, the royal family was forced to move to the Tuileries Palace in Paris.
Under the Ancien Régime, the Roman Catholic Church had been the largest landowner in the country. In November ’89, the Assembly decided to nationalize and sell all church property, thus in part addressing the financial crisis.
In July 1790, the Assembly adopted the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. This law reorganized the French Catholic Church, arranged that henceforth the salaries of the priests would be paid by the state, abolished the Church's authority to levy a tax on crops and again cancelled some privileges for the clergy. In October a group of 30 bishops wrote a declaration saying they could not accept the law, and this fueled civilian opposition against it. The Assembly then in late November 1790 decreed that all clergy should take an oath of loyalty to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. This stiffened the resistance, especially in the west of France including Normandy, Brittany and the Vendée, where few priests took the oath and the civilian population turned against the revolution. Priests swearing the oath were designated 'constitutional', and those not taking the oath as 'non-juring' or 'refractory' clergy.
In June 1791, the royal family secretly fled Paris in disguise for Varennes near France's northeastern border in order to seek royalist support the king believed he could trust, but they were soon discovered en route. They were brought back to Paris, after which they were essentially kept under house arrest at the Tuileries.
In August 1791, Emperor Leopold II of Austria and King Frederick William II of Prussia in the Declaration of Pillnitz declared their intention to bring the French king in a position "to consolidate the basis of a monarchical government", and that they were preparing their own troops for action. Instead of cowing the French, this infuriated them, and they militarised the borders.
With most of the Assembly still favoring a constitutional monarchy rather than a republic, the various groups reached a compromise. Under the Constitution of 3 September 1791, France would function as a constitutional monarchy with Louis XVI as little more than a figurehead. The King had to share power with the elected Legislative Assembly, although he still retained his royal veto and the ability to select ministers. He had perforce to swear an oath to the constitution, and a decree declared that retracting the oath, heading an army for the purpose of making war upon the nation or permitting anyone to do so in his name would amount to de facto abdication.
On 1 October 1791, the Legislative Assembly was formed, elected by those 4 million men out of a population of 25 million who paid a certain minimum amount of taxes.
A group of Assembly members who propagated war against Austria and Prussia was, after a remark by politician Maximilien Robespierre, henceforth designated the 'Girondins', although not all of them really came from the southern province of Gironde. A group around Robespierre later called 'Montagnards' or 'Jacobins' pleaded against war; this opposition between those groups would harden and become bitter in the next 1½ years.
In response to the threat of war of August 1791 from Austria and Prussia, leaders of the Assembly saw such a war as a means to strengthen support for their revolutionary government, and the French people as well as the Assembly thought that they would win a war against Austria and Prussia. On 20 April 1792, France declared war on Austria. Late April 1792, France invaded and conquered the Austrian Netherlands (roughly present-day Belgium and Luxembourg).
Nevertheless, in the summer of 1792, all of Paris was against the king, and hoped that the Assembly would depose the king, but the Assembly hesitated. At dawn of 10 August 1792, a large, angry crowd of Parisians and soldiers from all over France marched on the Tuileries Palace where the king resided. Around 8:00am the king decided to leave his palace and seek safety with his wife and children in the Assembly that was gathered in permanent session in Salle du Manège opposite to the Tuileries. After 11:00am, the Assembly 'temporarily relieved the king from his task'. In reaction, on 19 August an army under Prussian general Duke of Brunswick invaded France and besieged Longwy. Late August 1792, elections were held, now under male universal suffrage, for the new National Convention. On 26 August, the Assembly decreed the deportation of refractory priests in the west of France, as "causes of danger to the fatherland", to destinations like French Guiana. In reaction, peasants in the Vendée took over a town, in another step toward civil war.
On 2, 3 and 4 September 1792, some three hundred volunteers and supporters of the revolution, infuriated by Verdun being captured by the Prussian enemy, and rumours that the foreign enemy were conspiring with the incarcerated prisoners in Paris, raided the Parisian prisons. Jean-Paul Marat had called for preemptive action and between 1,200 and 1,400 prisoners were murdered within 20 hours (September Massacres), many of them Catholic nonjuring priests but also aristocrats, forgers and common criminals. In an open letter on 3 September the radical Marat incited the rest of France to follow the Parisian example. Danton and Robespierre kept a low profile in regard to the murder orgy. The Assembly and the city council of Paris ("la Commune") seemed inapt and hardly motivated to call a halt to the unleashed bloodshed.
On 20 September 1792, the French won a battle against Prussian troops near Valmy and the new National Convention replaced the Legislative Assembly. From the start the Convention suffered from the bitter division between a group around Robespierre, Danton and Marat referred to as 'Montagnards' or 'Jacobins' or 'left' and a group referred to as 'Girondins' or 'right'. But the majority of the representatives, referred to as 'la Plaine', were member of neither of those two antagonistic groups and managed to preserve some speed in the Convention's debates. Right away on 21 September the Convention abolished the monarchy, making France the French First Republic. A new French Republican Calendar was introduced to replace the Christian Gregorian calendar, renaming the year 1792 as year 1 of the Republic.
With wars against Prussia and Austria having started earlier in 1792, in November France also declared war on the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Dutch Republic. Ex-king Louis XVI was tried, convicted, and guillotined in January 1793.
Introduction of a nationwide conscription for the army in February 1793 was the spark that in March made the Vendée, already rebellious since 1790 because of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, ignite into civil war against Paris. Meanwhile, France in March also declared war on Spain. That month, the Vendée rebels won some victories against Paris and the French army was defeated in Belgium by Austria with the French general Dumouriez defecting to the Austrians: the French Republic's survival was now in real danger.
On 6 April 1793, to prevent the Convention from losing itself in abstract debate and to streamline government decisions, the "Comité de salut public" (Committee of Public Safety) was created of nine, later twelve members, as executive government which was accountable to the Convention. That month the 'Girondins' group indicted Jean-Paul Marat before the Revolutionary Tribunal for 'attempting to destroy the sovereignty of the people' and 'preaching plunder and massacre', referring to his behaviour during the September 1792 Paris massacres. Marat was quickly acquitted but the incident further acerbated the 'Girondins' versus 'Montagnards' party strife in the Convention.
In the spring of 1793, Austrian, British, Dutch and Spanish troops invaded France.
With rivalry, even enmity, in the National Convention and its predecessors between so-called 'Montagnards' and 'Girondins' smouldering ever since late 1791, Jacques Hébert, Convention member leaning to the 'Montagnards' group, on 24 May 1793 called on the "sans-culottes"—the idealized simple, non-aristocratic, hard-working, upright, patriotic, republican, Paris labourers—to rise in revolt against the "henchmen of Capet [= the killed ex-king] and Dumouriez [= the defected general]". Hébert was arrested immediately by a Convention committee investigating Paris rebelliousness. While that committee consisted only of members from la Plaine and the Girondins, the anger of the sans-culottes was directed towards the Girondins. 25 May, a delegation of "la Commune" (the Paris city council) protested against Hébert's arrest. The Convention's President Isnard, a Girondin, answered them: "Members of "la Commune" (…) If by your incessant rebellions something befalls to the representatives of the nation, I declare, in the name of France, that Paris will be totally obliterated".
On 29 May 1793, in Lyon an uprising overthrew a group of Montagnards ruling the city; Marseille, Toulon and more cities saw similar events.
On 2 June 1793, the Convention's session in Tuileries Palace—since early May their venue—not for the first time degenerated into chaos and pandemonium. This time crowds of people including 80,000 armed soldiers swarmed in and around the palace. Incessant screaming from the public galleries, always in favour of the Montagnards, suggested that all of Paris was against the Girondins, which was not really the case. Petitions circulated, indicting and condemning 22 Girondins. Barère, member of the Committee of Public Safety, suggested: to end this division which is harming the Republic, the Girondin leaders should lay down their offices voluntarily. A decree was adopted that day by the Convention, after much tumultuous debate, expelling 22 leading Girondins from the Convention. Late that night, indeed dozens of Girondins had resigned and left the Convention.
In the course of 1793, the Holy Roman Empire, the kings of Portugal and Naples and the Grand-Duke of Tuscany declared war against France.
By the summer of 1793, most French departments in one way or another opposed the central Paris government, and in many cases 'Girondins', fled from Paris after 2 June, led those revolts. In Brittany's countryside, the people rejecting the Civil Constitution of the Clergy of 1790 had taken to a guerrilla warfare known as "Chouannerie". But generally, the French opposition against 'Paris' had now evolved into a plain struggle for power over the country against the 'Montagnards' around Robespierre and Marat now dominating Paris.
In June–July 1793, Bordeaux, Marseilles, Brittany, Caen and the rest of Normandy gathered armies to march on Paris and against 'the revolution'. In July, Lyon guillotined the deposed 'Montagnard' head of the city council. Barère, member of the Committee of Public Safety, on 1 August incited the Convention to tougher measures against the Vendée, at war with Paris since March: "We'll have peace only when no Vendée remains … we'll have to exterminate that rebellious people". In August, Convention troops besieged Lyon.
In August–September 1793, militants urged the Convention to do more to quell the counter-revolution. A delegation of the "Commune" (Paris city council) suggested to form revolutionary armies to arrest hoarders and conspirators. Bertrand Barère, member of the Committee of Public Safety—the "de facto" executive government—ever since April 1793, among others on 5 September reacted favorably, saying: let's "make terror the order of the day!" On 17 September, the National Convention passed the Law of Suspects, a decree ordering the arrest of all declared opponents of the current form of government and suspected "enemies of freedom". This decree was one of the causes for 17,000 death sentences until the end of July 1794, reason for historians to label those 10½ months 'the (Reign of) Terror'.
On 19 September the Vendée rebels again defeated a Republican Convention army. On 1 October Barère repeated his plea to subdue the Vendée: "refuge of fanaticism, where priests have raised their altars…". In October the Convention troops captured Lyon and reinstated a Montagnard government there.
Criteria for bringing someone before the Revolutionary Tribunal, created March 1793, had always been vast and vague. By August, political disagreement seemed enough to be summoned before the Tribunal; appeal against a Tribunal verdict was impossible. Late August 1793, an army general had been guillotined on the accusation of choosing too timid strategies on the battlefield. Mid-October, the widowed former queen Marie Antoinette was on trial for a long list of charges such as "teaching [her husband] Louis Capet the art of dissimulation" and incest with her son, she too was guillotined. In October, 21 former 'Girondins' Convention members who hadn't left Paris after June were convicted to death and executed, on the charge of verbally supporting the preparation of an insurrection in Caen by fellow-Girondins.
17 October 1793, the 'blue' Republican army near Cholet defeated the 'white' Vendéan insubordinate army and all surviving Vendée residents, counting in tens of thousands, fled over the river Loire north into Brittany. A Convention's representative on mission in Nantes commissioned in October to pacify the region did so by simply drowning prisoners in the river Loire: until February 1794 he drowned at least 4,000. By November 1793, the revolts in Normandy, Bordeaux and Lyon were overcome, in December also that in Toulon. Two representatives on mission sent to punish Lyon between November 1793 and April 1794 executed 2,000 people by guillotine or firing-squad. The Vendéan army since October roaming through Brittany on 12 December 1793 again ran up against Republican troops and saw 10,000 of its rebels perish, meaning the end of this once threatening army. Some historians claim that after that defeat Convention Republic armies in 1794 massacred 117,000 Vendéan civilians to obliterate the Vendéan people, but others contest that claim. Some historians consider the civil war to have lasted until 1796 with a toll of 450,000 lives.
Maximilien Robespierre, since July 1793 member of the Committee of Public Prosperity, on 5 February 1794 in a speech in the Convention identified Jacques Hébert and his faction as "internal enemies" working toward the triumph of tyranny. After a dubious trial Hébert and some allies were guillotined in March. On 5 April, again at the instigation of Robespierre, Danton and 13 associated politicians were executed. A week later again 19 politicians. This hushed the Convention deputies: if henceforth they disagreed with Robespierre they hardly dared to speak out. A law enacted on 10 June 1794 (22 Prairial II) further streamlined criminal procedures: if the Revolutionary Tribunal saw sufficient proof of someone being an "enemy of the people" a counsel for defence would not be allowed. The frequency of guillotine executions in Paris now rose from on average three a day to an average of 29 a day.
Meanwhile, France's external wars were going well, with victories over Austrian and British troops in May and June 1794 opening up Belgium for French conquest. However, cooperation within the Committee of Public Safety, since April 1793 the "de facto" executive government, started to break down. On 29 June 1794, three colleagues of Robespierre at the Committee called him a dictator in his face Robespierre baffled left the meeting. This encouraged other Convention members to also defy Robespierre. On 26 July, a long and vague speech of Robespierre wasn't met with thunderous applause as usual but with hostility; some deputies yelled that Robespierre should have the courage to say which deputies he deemed necessary to be killed next, which Robespierre refused to do.
In the Convention session of 27 July 1794, Robespierre and his allies hardly managed to say a word as they were constantly interrupted by a row of critics such as Tallien, Billaud-Varenne, Vadier, Barère and acting president Thuriot. Finally, even Robespierre's own voice failed on him: it faltered at his last attempt to beg permission to speak. A decree was adopted to arrest Robespierre, Saint-Just and Couthon. 28 July, they and 19 others were beheaded. 29 July, again 70 Parisians were guillotined. Subsequently, the Law of 22 Prairial (10 June 1794) was repealed, and the 'Girondins' expelled from the Convention in June 1793, if not dead yet, were reinstated as Convention deputies.
After July 1794, most civilians henceforth ignored the Republican calendar and returned to the traditional seven-day weeks. The government in a law of 21 February 1795 set steps of return to freedom of religion and reconciliation with the since 1790 refractory Catholic priests, but any religious signs outside churches or private homes, such as crosses, clerical garb, bell ringing, remained prohibited. When the people's enthousiasm for attending church grew to unexpected levels the government backed out and in October 1795 again, like in 1790, required all priests to swear oaths on the Republic.
In the very cold winter of 1794–95, with the French army demanding more and more bread, same was getting scarce in Paris as was wood to keep houses warm, and in an echo of the October 1789 March on Versailles, on 1 April 1795 (12 Germinal III) a mostly female crowd marched on the Convention calling for bread. But no Convention member sympathized, they just told the women to return home. Again in May a crowd of 20,000 men and 40,000 women invaded the Convention and even killed a deputy in the halls, but again they failed to make the Convention take notice of the needs of the lower classes. Instead, the Convention banned women from all political assemblies, and deputies who had solidarized with this insurrection were sentenced to death: such allegiance between parliament and street fighting was no longer tolerated.
Late 1794, France conquered present-day Belgium. In January 1795 they subdued the Dutch Republic with full consent and cooperation of the influential Dutch "patriottenbeweging" ('patriots movement'), resulting in the Batavian Republic, a satellite and puppet state of France.
In April 1795, France concluded a peace agreement with Prussia, later that year peace was agreed with Spain.
In October 1795, the Republic was reorganised, replacing the one-chamber parliament (the National Convention) by a bi-cameral system: the first chamber called the 'Council of 500' initiating the laws, the second the 'Council of Elders' reviewing and approving or not the passed laws. Each year, one-third of the chambers was to be renewed. The executive power lay with five directors hence the name 'Directory' for this form of government with a five-year mandate, each year one of them being replaced.
The early directors did not much understand the nation they were governing; they especially had an innate inability to see Catholicism as anything else than counter-revolutionary and royalist. Local administrators had a better sense of people's priorities, and one of them wrote to the minister of the interior: "Give back the crosses, the church bells, the Sundays, and everyone will cry: "’vive la République!’""
French armies in 1796 advanced into Germany, Austria and Italy. In 1797, France conquered Rhineland, Belgium and much of Italy, and unsuccessfully attacked Wales.
Parliamentary elections in the spring of 1797 resulted in considerable gains for the royalists. This frightened the republican directors and they staged a coup d'état on 4 September 1797 (Coup of 18 Fructidor V) to remove two supposedly pro-royalist directors and some prominent royalists from both Councils.
The new, 'corrected' government, still strongly convinced that Catholicism and royalism were equally dangerous to the Republic, started a fresh campaign to promote the Republican calendar officially introduced in 1792, with its ten-day week, and tried to hallow the tenth day, "décadi", as substitute for the Christian Sunday. Not only citizens opposed and even mocked such decrees, also local government officials refused to enforce such laws.
France was still waging wars, in 1798 in Egypt, Switzerland, Rome, Ireland, Belgium and against the U.S.A., in 1799 in Baden-Württemberg. In 1799, when the French armies abroad experienced some setbacks, the newly chosen director Sieyes considered a new overhaul necessary for the Directory's form of government because in his opinion it needed a stronger executive. Together with successful general Napoleon Bonaparte who had just returned to France, Sieyes began preparing another coup d'état, which took place on 9–10 November 1799 (18–19 Brumaire VIII), replacing the five directors now with three "consuls": Napoleon, Sieyes, and Roger Ducos.
During the War of the First Coalition (1792–97), the Directoire had replaced the National Convention. Five directors then ruled France. As Great Britain was still at war with France, a plan was made to take Egypt from the Ottoman Empire, a British ally. This was Napoleon's idea and the Directoire agreed to the plan in order to send the popular general away from the mainland. Napoleon defeated the Ottoman forces during the Battle of the Pyramids (21 July 1798) and sent hundreds of scientists and linguists out to thoroughly explore modern and ancient Egypt. Only a few weeks later the British fleet under Admiral Horatio Nelson unexpectedly destroyed the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile (1–3 August 1798). Napoleon planned to move into Syria but was defeated and he returned to France without his army, which surrendered.
The Directoire was threatened by the Second Coalition (1798–1802). Royalists and their allies still dreamed of restoring the monarchy to power, while the Prussian and Austrian crowns did not accept their territorial losses during the previous war. In 1799 the Russian army expelled the French from Italy in battles such as Cassano, while the Austrian army defeated the French in Switzerland at Stockach and Zurich. Napoleon then seized power through a coup and established the Consulate in 1799. The Austrian army was defeated at the Battle of Marengo (1800) and again at the Battle of Hohenlinden (1800).
While at sea the French had some success at Boulogne but Nelson's Royal Navy destroyed an anchored Danish and Norwegian fleet at the Battle of Copenhagen (1801) because the Scandinavian kingdoms were against the British blockade of France. The Second Coalition was beaten and peace was settled in two distinct treaties: the Treaty of Lunéville and the Treaty of Amiens. A brief interlude of peace ensued in 1802–3, during which Napoleon sold French Louisiana to the United States because it was indefensible.
In 1801 Napoleon concluded a "Concordat" with Pope Pius VII that opened peaceful relations between church and state in France. The policies of the Revolution were reversed, except the Church did not get its lands back. Bishops and clergy were to receive state salaries, and the government would pay for the building and maintenance of churches. Napoleon reorganized higher learning by dividing the "Institut National" into four (later five) academies.
In 1804 Napoleon was titled Emperor by the senate, thus founding the First French Empire. Napoleon's rule was constitutional, and although autocratic, it was much more advanced than traditional European monarchies of the time. The proclamation of the French Empire was met by the Third Coalition. The French army was renamed "La Grande Armée" in 1805 and Napoleon used propaganda and nationalism to control the French population. The French army achieved a resounding victory at Ulm (16–19 October 1805), where an entire Austrian army was captured.
A Franco-Spanish fleet was defeated at Trafalgar (21 October 1805) and all plans to invade Britain were then made impossible. Despite this naval defeat, it was on the ground that this war would be won; Napoleon inflicted on the Austrian and Russian Empires one of their greatest defeats at Austerlitz (also known as the "Battle of the Three Emperors" on 2 December 1805), destroying the Third Coalition. Peace was settled in the Treaty of Pressburg; the Austrian Empire lost the title of Holy Roman Emperor and the Confederation of the Rhine was created by Napoleon over former Austrian territories.
Prussia joined Britain and Russia, thus forming the Fourth Coalition. Although the Coalition was joined by other allies, the French Empire was also not alone since it now had a complex network of allies and subject states. The largely outnumbered French army crushed the Prussian army at Jena-Auerstedt in 1806; Napoleon captured Berlin and went as far as Eastern Prussia. There the Russian Empire was defeated at the Battle of Friedland (14 June 1807). Peace was dictated in the Treaties of Tilsit, in which Russia had to join the Continental System, and Prussia handed half of its territories to France. The Duchy of Warsaw was formed over these territorial losses, and Polish troops entered the Grande Armée in significant numbers.
In order to ruin the British economy, Napoleon set up the Continental System in 1807, and tried to prevent merchants across Europe from trading with British. The large amount of smuggling frustrated Napoleon, and did more harm to his economy than to his enemies.
Freed from his obligation in the east, Napoleon then went back to the west, as the French Empire was still at war with Britain. Only two countries remained neutral in the war: Sweden and Portugal, and Napoleon then looked toward the latter. In the Treaty of Fontainebleau (1807), a Franco-Spanish alliance against Portugal was sealed as Spain eyed Portuguese territories. French armies entered Spain in order to attack Portugal, but then seized Spanish fortresses and took over the kingdom by surprise. Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's brother, was made King of Spain after Charles IV abdicated.
This occupation of the Iberian peninsula fueled local nationalism, and soon the Spanish and Portuguese fought the French using guerilla tactics, defeating the French forces at the Battle of Bailén (June and July 1808). Britain sent a short-lived ground support force to Portugal, and French forces evacuated Portugal as defined in the Convention of Sintra following the Allied victory at Vimeiro (21 August 1808). France only controlled Catalonia and Navarre and could have been definitely expelled from the Iberian peninsula had the Spanish armies attacked again, but the Spanish did not.
Another French attack was launched on Spain, led by Napoleon himself, and was described as "an avalanche of fire and steel." However, the French Empire was no longer regarded as invincible by European powers. In 1808 Austria formed the War of the Fifth Coalition in order to break down the French Empire. The Austrian Empire defeated the French at Aspern-Essling, yet was beaten at Wagram while the Polish allies defeated the Austrian Empire at Raszyn (April 1809). Although not as decisive as the previous Austrian defeats, the peace treaty in October 1809 stripped Austria of a large amount of territories, reducing it even more.
In 1812 war broke out with Russia, engaging Napoleon in the disastrous French invasion of Russia (1812). Napoleon assembled the largest army Europe had ever seen, including troops from all subject states, to invade Russia, which had just left the continental system and was gathering an army on the Polish frontier. Following an exhausting march and the bloody but inconclusive Battle of Borodino, near Moscow, the Grande Armée entered and captured Moscow, only to find it burning as part of the Russian scorched earth tactics.
Although there still were battles, the Napoleonic army left Russia in late 1812 annihilated, most of all by the Russian winter, exhaustion, and scorched earth warfare. On the Spanish front the French troops were defeated at Vitoria (June 1813) and then at the Battle of the Pyrenees (July–August 1813). Since the Spanish guerrillas seemed to be uncontrollable, the French troops eventually evacuated Spain.
Since France had been defeated on these two fronts, states that had been conquered and controlled by Napoleon saw a good opportunity to strike back. The Sixth Coalition was formed under British leadership. The German states of the Confederation of the Rhine switched sides, finally opposing Napoleon. Napoleon was largely defeated in the Battle of the Nations outside Leipzig in October 1813, his forces heavily outnumbered by the Allied coalition armies and was overwhelmed by much larger armies during the Six Days Campaign (February 1814), although, the Six Days Campaign is often considered a tactical masterpiece because the allies suffered much higher casualties. Napoleon abdicated on 6 April 1814, and was exiled to Elba.
The conservative Congress of Vienna reversed the political changes that had occurred during the wars. Napoleon suddenly returned, seized control of France, raised an army, and marched on his enemies in the Hundred Days. It ended with his final defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, and his exile to a remote island.
The monarchy was subsequently restored and Louis XVIII, Younger brother of Louis XVI became king, and the exiles returned. However many of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic reforms were kept in place.
Napoleon centralized power in Paris, with all the provinces governed by all-powerful prefects whom he selected. They were more powerful than royal intendants of the ancien régime and had a long-term impact in unifying the nation, minimizing regional differences, and shifting all decisions to Paris.
Religion had been a major issue during the Revolution, and Napoleon resolved most of the outstanding problems. Thereby he moved the clergy and large numbers of devout Catholics from hostility to the government to support for him. The Catholic system was reestablished by the Concordat of 1801 (signed with Pope Pius VII), so that church life returned to normal; the church lands were not restored, but the Jesuits were allowed back in and the bitter fights between the government and Church ended. Protestant, Jews and atheists were tolerated.
The French taxation system had collapsed in the 1780s. In the 1790s the government seized and sold church lands and lands of exiles aristocrats. Napoleon instituted a modern, efficient tax system that guaranteed a steady flow of revenues and made long-term financing possible.
Napoleon kept the system of conscription that had been created in the 1790s, so that every young man served in the army, which could be rapidly expanded even as it was based on a core of careerists and talented officers. Before the Revolution the aristocracy formed the officer corps. Now promotion was by merit and achievement—every private carried a marshal's baton, it was said.
The modern era of French education began in the 1790s. The Revolution in the 1790s abolished the traditional universities. Napoleon sought to replace them with new institutions, the École Polytechnique, focused on technology. The elementary schools received little attention.
Of permanent importance was the Napoleonic Code created by eminent jurists under Napoleon's supervision. Praised for its Gallic clarity, it spread rapidly throughout Europe and the world in general, and marked the end of feudalism and the liberation of serfs where it took effect. The Code recognized the principles of civil liberty, equality before the law, and the secular character of the state. It discarded the old right of primogeniture (where only the eldest son inherited) and required that inheritances be divided equally among all the children. The court system was standardized; all judges were appointed by the national government in Paris.
The century after the fall of Napoleon I was politically unstable. As Tombs points out:
France was no longer the dominant power it had been before 1814, but it played a major role in European economics, culture, diplomacy and military affairs. The Bourbons were restored, but left a weak record and one branch was overthrown in 1830 and the other branch in 1848 as Napoleon's nephew was elected president. He made himself emperor as Napoleon III, but was overthrown when he was defeated and captured by Prussians in an 1870 war that humiliated France and made the new nation of Germany dominant in the continent. The Third Republic was established, but the possibility of a return to monarchy remained into the 1880s. The French built up an empire, especially in Africa and Indochina. The economy was strong, with a good railway system. The arrival of the Rothschild banking family of France in 1812 guaranteed the role of Paris alongside London as a major center of international finance.
The French Revolution and Napoleonic eras brought a series of major changes to France which the Bourbon restoration did not reverse. First of all, France became highly centralized, with all decisions made in Paris. The political geography was completely reorganized and made uniform. France was divided into 80+ departments, which have endured into the 21st century. Each department had the identical administrative structure, and was tightly controlled by a prefect appointed by Paris. The complex multiple overlapping legal jurisdictions of the old regime had all been abolished, and there was now one standardized legal code, administered by judges appointed by Paris, and supported by police under national control. Education was centralized, with the Grand Master of the University of France controlling every element of the entire educational system from Paris. Newly technical universities were opened in Paris which to this day have a critical role in training the elite.
Conservatism was bitterly split into the old aristocracy that returned, and the new elites that arose after 1796. The old aristocracy was eager to regain its land but felt no loyalty to the new regime. The new elite — the "noblesse d'empire" — ridiculed the other group as an outdated remnant of a discredited regime that had led the nation to disaster. Both groups shared a fear of social disorder, but the level of distrust as well as the cultural differences were too great and the monarchy too inconsistent in its policies for political cooperation to be possible.
The old aristocracy had returned, and recovered much of the land they owned directly. However they completely lost all their old seigneurial rights to the rest of the farmland, and the peasants no longer were under their control. The old aristocracy had dallied with the ideas of the Enlightenment and rationalism. Now the aristocracy was much more conservative, and much more supportive of the Catholic Church. For the best jobs meritocracy was the new policy, and aristocrats had to compete directly with the growing business and professional class. Anti-clerical sentiment became much stronger than ever before, but was now based in certain elements of the middle class and indeed the peasantry as well.
In France, as in most of Europe, the sum total of wealth was concentrated. The richest 10 percent of families owned between 80 and 90 percent of the wealth from 1810 to 1914. Their share then fell to about 60 percent, where it remained into the 21st century. The share of the top one percent of the population grew from 45 percent in 1810 to 60 percent in 1914, then fell steadily to 20 percent in 1970 to the present.
The "200 families" controlled much of the nation's wealth after 1815. The "200" is based on the policy that of the 40,000 shareholders of the Bank of France, only 200 were allowed to attend the annual meeting and they cast all the votes. Out of a nation of 27 million people, only 80,000 to 90,000 were allowed to vote in 1820, and the richest one-fourth of them had two votes.
The great masses of the French people were peasants in the countryside, or impoverished workers in the cities. They gained new rights, and a new sense of possibilities. Although relieved of many of the old burdens, controls, and taxes, the peasantry was still highly traditional in its social and economic behavior. Many eagerly took on mortgages to buy as much land as possible for their children, so debt was an important factor in their calculations. The working class in the cities was a small element, and had been freed of many restrictions imposed by medieval guilds. However France was very slow to industrialize (in the sense of large factories using modern machinery), and much of the work remained drudgery without machinery or technology to help. This provided a good basis for small-scale expensive luxury crafts that attracted an international upscale market. France was still localized, especially in terms of language, but now there was an emerging French nationalism that showed its national pride in the Army, and foreign affairs.
The Catholic Church lost all its lands and buildings during the Revolution, and these were sold off or came under the control of local governments. The bishop still ruled his diocese (which was aligned with the new department boundaries), but could only communicate with the pope through the government in Paris. Bishops, priests, nuns and other religious people were paid salaries by the state. All the old religious rites and ceremonies were retained, and the government maintained the religious buildings. The Church was allowed to operate its own seminaries and to some extent local schools as well, although this became a central political issue into the 20th century. Bishops were much less powerful than before, and had no political voice. However, the Catholic Church reinvented itself and put a new emphasis on personal religiosity that gave it a hold on the psychology of the faithful.
France remained basically Catholic. The 1872 census counted 36 million people, of whom 35.4 million were listed as Catholics, 600,000 as Protestants, 50,000 as Jews and 80,000 as freethinkers. The Revolution failed to destroy the Catholic Church, and Napoleon's concordat of 1801 restored its status. The return of the Bourbons in 1814 brought back many rich nobles and landowners who supported the Church, seeing it as a bastion of conservatism and monarchism. However the monasteries with their vast land holdings and political power were gone; much of the land had been sold to urban entrepreneurs who lacked historic connections to the land and the peasants.
Few new priests were trained in the 1790–1814 period, and many left the church. The result was that the number of parish clergy plunged from 60,000 in 1790 to 25,000 in 1815, many of them elderly. Entire regions, especially around Paris, were left with few priests. On the other hand, some traditional regions held fast to the faith, led by local nobles and historic families.
The comeback was very slow in the larger cities and industrial areas. With systematic missionary work and a new emphasis on liturgy and devotions to the Virgin Mary, plus support from Napoleon III, there was a comeback. In 1870 there were 56,500 priests, representing a much younger and more dynamic force in the villages and towns, with a thick network of schools, charities and lay organizations. Conservative Catholics held control of the national government, 1820–30, but most often played secondary political roles or had to fight the assault from republicans, liberals, socialists and seculars.
French economic history since its late-18th century Revolution was tied to three major events and trends: the Napoleonic Era, the competition with Britain and its other neighbors in regards to 'industrialization', and the 'total wars' of the late-19th and early 20th centuries. Quantitative analysis of output data shows the French per capita growth rates were slightly smaller than Britain. However the British population tripled in size, while France grew by only third—so the overall British economy grew much faster. François Crouzet has succinctly summarized the ups and downs of French per capita economic growth in 1815–1913 as follows:
1815–1840: irregular, but sometimes fast growth
1840–1860: fast growth;
1860–1882: slowing down;
1882–1896: stagnation;
1896–1913: fast growth
For the 1870–1913 era, the growth rates for 12 Western advanced countries—10 in Europe plus the United States and Canada show that in terms of per capita growth, France was about average. However its population growth was very slow, so as far as the growth rate in total size of the economy France was in next to the last place, just ahead of Italy. The 12 countries averaged 2.7% per year in total output, but France only averaged 1.6%. Crouzet concludes that the:
This period of time is called the Bourbon Restoration and was marked by conflicts between reactionary Ultra-royalists, who wanted to restore the pre-1789 system of absolute monarchy, and liberals, who wanted to strengthen constitutional monarchy. Louis XVIII was the younger brother of Louis XVI, and reigned from 1814 to 1824. On becoming king, Louis issued a constitution known as the Charter which preserved many of the liberties won during the French Revolution and provided for a parliament composed of an elected Chamber of Deputies and a Chamber of Peers that was nominated by the king.
After two decades of war and revolution, the restoration brought peace and quiet, and general prosperity. Gordon Wright says, "Frenchmen were, on the whole, well governed, prosperous, contented during the 15 year period; one historian even describes the restoration era as 'one of the happiest periods in [France's] history."
France had recovered from the strain and disorganization, the wars, the killings, and the horrors of two decades of disruption. It was at peace throughout the period. It paid a large war indemnity to the winners, but managed to finance that without distress; the occupation soldiers left peacefully. Population increased by 3 million, and prosperity was strong from 1815 to 1825, with the depression of 1825 caused by bad harvests. The national credit was strong, there was significant increase in public wealth, and the national budget showed a surplus every year. In the private sector, banking grew dramatically, making Paris a world center for finance, along with London. The Rothschild family was world-famous, with the French branch led by James Mayer de Rothschild (1792–1868). The communication system was improved, as roads were upgraded, canals were lengthened, and steamboat traffic became common. Industrialization was delayed in comparison to Britain and Belgium. The railway system had yet to make an appearance. Industry was heavily protected with tariffs, so there was little demand for entrepreneurship or innovation.
Culture flourished with the new romantic impulses. Oratory was highly regarded, and debates were very high standard. Châteaubriand and Madame de Stael (1766–1817) enjoyed Europe-wide reputations for their innovations in romantic literature. She made important contributions to political sociology, and the sociology of literature. History flourished; François Guizot, Benjamin Constant and Madame de Staël drew lessons from the past to guide the future. The paintings of Eugène Delacroix set the standards for romantic art. Music, theater, science, and philosophy all flourished. The higher learning flourished at the Sorbonne. Major new institutions gave France world leadership in numerous advanced fields, as typified by the École Nationale des Chartes (1821) for historiography, the École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures in 1829 for innovative engineering; and the École des Beaux-Arts for the fine arts, reestablished in 1830.
Overall, the Bourbon government's handling of foreign affairs was successful. France kept a low profile, and Europe forgot of its animosities. Louis and Charles had little interest in foreign affairs, so France played only minor roles. Its army helped restore the Spanish monarch in 1823. It helped the other powers deal with Greece and Turkey. King Charles X, an ultra reactionary, mistakenly thought that foreign glory would cover domestic frustration, so he made an all-out effort to conquer Algiers in 1830. He sent a massive force of 38,000 soldiers and 4500 horses carried by 103 warships and 469 merchant ships. The expedition was a dramatic military success in only three weeks. The invasion paid for itself with 48 million francs from the captured treasury. The episode launched the second French colonial empire, but it did not provide desperately needed political support for the King at home. Charles X repeatedly exacerbated internal tensions, and tried to neutralize his enemies with repressive measures. He depended too heavily upon his inept chief minister Polignac. Repression failed and a quick sudden revolution forced Charles into exile for the third time.
Protest against the absolute monarchy was in the air. The elections of deputies to 16 May 1830 had gone very badly for King Charles X. In response, he tried repression but that only aggravated the crisis as suppressed deputies, gagged journalists, students from the University and many working men of Paris poured into the streets and erected barricades during the "three glorious days" (French "Les Trois Glorieuses") of 26–29 July 1830. Charles X was deposed and replaced by King Louis-Philippe in the July Revolution. It is traditionally regarded as a rising of the bourgeoisie against the absolute monarchy of the Bourbons. Participants in the July Revolution included Marie Joseph Paul Ives Roch Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette. Working behind the scenes on behalf of the bourgeois propertied interests was Louis Adolphe Thiers.
Louis-Philippe's "July Monarchy" (1830–1848) was dominated by the "haute bourgeoisie" (high bourgeoisie) of bankers, financiers, industrialists and merchants.
During the reign of the July Monarchy, the Romantic Era was starting to bloom. Driven by the Romantic Era, an atmosphere of protest and revolt was all around in France. On 22 November 1831 in Lyon (the second largest city in France) the silk workers revolted and took over the town hall in protest of recent salary reductions and working conditions. This was one of the first instances of a workers revolt in the entire world.
Because of the constant threats to the throne, the July Monarchy began to rule with a stronger and stronger hand. Soon political meetings were outlawed. However, "banquets" were still legal and all through 1847, there was a nationwide campaign of republican banquets demanding more democracy. The climaxing banquet was scheduled for 22 February 1848 in Paris but the government banned it. In response citizens of all classes poured out onto the streets of Paris in a revolt against the July Monarchy. Demands were made for abdication of "Citizen King" Louis-Philippe and for establishment of a representative democracy in France. The king abdicated, and the French Second Republic was proclaimed. Alphonse Marie Louis de Lamartine, who had been a leader of the moderate republicans in France during the 1840s, became the Minister of Foreign Affairs and in effect the premier in the new Provisional government. In reality Lamartine was the virtual head of government in 1848.
Frustration among the laboring classes arose when the Constituent Assembly did not address the concerns of the workers. Strikes and worker demonstrations became more common as the workers gave vent to these frustrations. These demonstrations reached a climax when on 15 May 1848, workers from the secret societies broke out in armed uprising against the anti-labor and anti-democratic policies being pursued by the Constituent Assembly and the Provisional Government. Fearful of a total breakdown of law and order, the Provisional Government invited General Louis Eugene Cavaignac back from Algeria, in June 1848, to put down the workers' armed revolt. From June 1848 until December 1848 General Cavaignac became head of the executive of the Provisional Government.
On 10 December 1848, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte was elected president by a landslide. His support came from a wide section of the French public. Various classes of French society voted for Louis Napoleon for very different and often contradictory reasons. Louis Napoleon himself encouraged this contradiction by "being all things to all people." One of his major promises to the peasantry and other groups was that there would be no new taxes.
The new National Constituent Assembly was heavily composed of royalist sympathizers of both the Legitimist (Bourbon) wing and the Orleanist (Citizen King Louis Philippe) wing. Because of the ambiguity surrounding Louis Napoleon's political positions, his agenda as president was very much in doubt. For prime minister, he selected Odilon Barrot, an unobjectionable middle-road parliamentarian who had led the "loyal opposition" under Louis Philippe. Other appointees represented various royalist factions.
The Pope had been forced out of Rome as part of the Revolutions of 1848, and Louis Napoleon sent a 14,000-man expeditionary force of troops to the Papal State under General Nicolas Charles Victor Oudinot to restore him. In late April 1849, it was defeated and pushed back from Rome by Giuseppe Garibaldi's volunteer corps, but then it recovered and recaptured Rome.
In June 1849, demonstrations against the government broke out and were suppressed. The leaders, including prominent politicians, were arrested. The government banned several democratic and socialist newspapers in France; the editors were arrested. Karl Marx was at risk, so in August he moved to London.
The government sought ways to balance its budget and reduce its debts. Toward this end, Hippolyte Passy was appointed Finance Minister. When the Legislative Assembly met at the beginning of October 1849, Passy proposed an income tax to help balance the finances of France. The bourgeoisie, who would pay most of the tax, protested. The furor over the income tax caused the resignation of Barrot as prime minister, but a new wine tax also caused protests.
The 1850 elections resulted in a conservative body. It passed the Falloux Laws, putting education into the hands of the Catholic clergy. It opened an era of cooperation between Church and state that lasted until the Jules Ferry laws reversed course in 1879. The Falloux Laws provided universal primary schooling in France and expanded opportunities for secondary schooling. In practice, the curricula were similar in Catholic and state schools. Catholic schools were especially useful in schooling for girls, which had long been neglected. Although a new electoral law was passed that respected the principle of universal (male) suffrage, the stricter residential requirement of the new law actually had the effect of disenfranchising 3,000,000 of 10,000,000 voters.
The president rejected the constitution and made himself emperor as Napoleon III. He is known for working to modernize the French economy, the rebuilding of Paris, expanding the overseas empire, and engaging in numerous wars. His effort to build an empire in Mexico was a fiasco. Autocratic at first, he opened the political system somewhat in the 1860s. He lost all his allies and recklessly declared war on a much more powerful Prussia in 1870; he was captured and deposed.
As 1851 opened, Louis Napoleon was not allowed by the Constitution of 1848 to seek re-election as President of France. He proclaimed himself Emperor of the French in 1852, with almost dictatorial powers. He made completion of a good railway system a high priority. He consolidated three dozen small, incomplete lines into six major companies using Paris as a hub. Paris grew dramatically in terms of population, industry, finance, commercial activity, and tourism. Napoleon working with Georges-Eugène Haussmann spent lavishly to rebuild the city into a world-class showpiece. The financial soundness for all six companies was solidified by government guarantees. Although France had started late, by 1870 it had an excellent railway system, supported as well by good roads, canals and ports.
Despite his promises in 1852 of a peaceful reign, the Emperor could not resist the temptations of glory in foreign affairs. He was visionary, mysterious and secretive; he had a poor staff, and kept running afoul of his domestic supporters. In the end he was incompetent as a diplomat. Napoleon did have some successes: he strengthened French control over Algeria, established bases in Africa, began the takeover of Indochina, and opened trade with China. He facilitated a French company building the Suez Canal, which Britain could not stop. In Europe, however, Napoleon failed again and again. The Crimean war of 1854–56 produced no gains. Napoleon had long been an admirer of Italy and wanted to see it unified, although that might create a rival power. He plotted with Cavour of the Italian kingdom of Piedmont to expel Austria and set up an Italian confederation of four new states headed by the pope. Events in 1859 ran out of his control. Austria was quickly defeated, but instead of four new states a popular uprising united all of Italy under Piedmont. The pope held onto Rome only because Napoleon sent troops to protect him. His reward was the County of Nice (which included the city of Nice and the rugged Alpine territory to its north and east) and the Duchy of Savoy. He angered Catholics when the pope lost most of his domains. Napoleon then reversed himself and angered both the anticlerical liberals at home and his erstwhile Italian allies when he protected the pope in Rome.
The British grew annoyed at Napoleon's humanitarian intervention in Syria in 1860–61. Napoleon lowered the tariffs, which helped in the long run but in the short run angered owners of large estates and the textile and iron industrialists, while leading worried workers to organize. Matters grew worse in the 1860s as Napoleon nearly blundered into war with the United States in 1862, while his takeover of Mexico in 1861–67 was a total disaster. The puppet emperor he put on the Mexican throne was overthrown and executed. Finally in the end he went to war with the Germans in 1870 when it was too late to stop German unification. Napoleon had alienated everyone; after failing to obtain an alliance with Austria and Italy, France had no allies and was bitterly divided at home. It was disastrously defeated on the battlefield, losing Alsace and Lorraine. A. J. P. Taylor is blunt: "he ruined France as a great power."
In 1854, The Second Empire joined the Crimean War, which saw France and Britain opposed to the Russian Empire, which was decisively defeated at Sevastopol in 1854–55 and at Inkerman in 1854. In 1856 France joined the Second Opium War on the British side against China; a missionary's murder was used as a pretext to take interests in southwest Asia in the Treaty of Tientsin.
When France was negotiating with the Netherlands about purchasing Luxembourg in 1867, the Prussian Kingdom threatened the French government with war. This "Luxembourg Crisis" came as a shock to French diplomats as there had been an agreement between the Prussian and French governments about Luxembourg. Napoleon III suffered stronger and stronger criticism from Republicans like Jules Favre, and his position seemed more fragile with the passage of time.
France was looking for more interests in Asia. When French imperial ambitions revived, Africa and Indochina would be the main targets, and commercial incentives, which had driven the creation of the pre-revolutionary empire, were secondary. The country interfered in Korea in 1866 taking, once again, missionaries' murders as a pretext. The French finally withdrew from the war with little gain but war's booty. The next year a French expedition to Japan was formed to help the Tokugawa shogunate to modernize its army. However, Tokugawa was defeated during the Boshin War at the Battle of Toba–Fushimi by large Imperial armies.
Rising tensions in 1869 about the possible candidacy of Prince Leopold von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen to the throne of Spain caused a rise in the scale of animosity between France and Germany. Prince Leopold was a part of the Prussian royal family. He had been asked by the Spanish Cortes to accept the vacant throne of Spain.
Such an event was more than France could possibly accept. Relations between France and Germany deteriorated, and finally the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71) broke out. German nationalism united the German states, with the exception of Austria, against Napoleon III. The French Empire was defeated decisively at Metz and Sedan. Emperor Louis Napoleon III surrendered himself and 100,000 French troops to the German troops at Sedan on 1–2 September 1870.
Two days later, on 4 September 1870, Léon Gambetta proclaimed a new republic in France. Later, when Paris was encircled by German troops, Gambetta fled Paris by means of a hot air balloon and he became the virtual dictator of the war effort which was carried on from the rural provinces. Metz remained under siege until 27 October 1870, when 173,000 French troops there finally surrendered. Surrounded, Paris was forced to surrender on 28 January 1871. The Treaty of Frankfurt allowed the newly formed German Empire to annex the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine.
The seemingly timeless world of the French peasantry swiftly changed from 1870 to 1914. French peasants had been poor and locked into old traditions until railroads, republican schools, and universal (male) military conscription modernized rural France. The centralized government in Paris had the goal of creating a unified nation-state, so it required all students be taught standardized French. In the process, a new national identity was forged.
Railways became a national medium for the modernization of traditionalistic regions, and a leading advocate of this approach was the poet-politician Alphonse de Lamartine. In 1857 an army colonel hoped that railways might improve the lot of "populations two or three centuries behind their fellows" and eliminate "the savage instincts born of isolation and misery." Consequently, France built a centralized system that radiated from Paris (plus in the south some lines that cut east to west). This design was intended to achieve political and cultural goals rather than maximize efficiency. After some consolidation, six companies controlled monopolies of their regions, subject to close control by the government in terms of fares, finances, and even minute technical details.
The central government department of Ponts et Chaussées (bridges and roads) brought in British engineers, handled much of the construction work, provided engineering expertise and planning, land acquisition, and construction of permanent infrastructure such as the track bed, bridges and tunnels. It also subsidized militarily necessary lines along the German border. Private operating companies provided management, hired labor, laid the tracks, and built and operated stations. They purchased and maintained the rolling stock—6,000 locomotives were in operation in 1880, which averaged 51,600 passengers a year or 21,200 tons of freight. Much of the equipment was imported from Britain and therefore did not stimulate machinery makers.
Although starting the whole system at once was politically expedient, it delayed completion, and forced even more reliance on temporary experts brought in from Britain. Financing was also a problem. The solution was a narrow base of funding through the Rothschilds and the closed circles of the Paris Bourse, so France did not develop the same kind of national stock exchange that flourished in London and New York. The system did help modernize the parts of rural France it reached, but it did not help create local industrial centers. Critics such as Émile Zola complained that it never overcame the corruption of the political system, but rather contributed to it.
The railways probably helped the industrial revolution in France by facilitating a national market for raw materials, wines, cheeses, and imported manufactured products. Yet the goals set by the French for their railway system were moralistic, political, and military rather than economic. As a result, the freight trains were shorter and less heavily loaded than those in such rapidly industrializing nations such as Britain, Belgium or Germany. Other infrastructure needs in rural France, such as better roads and canals, were neglected because of the expense of the railways, so it seems likely that there were net negative effects in areas not served by the trains.
Following the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck proposed harsh terms for peace — including the German occupation of the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. A new French National Assembly was elected to consider the German terms for peace. Elected on 8 February 1871, this new National Assembly was composed of 650 deputies.
Sitting in Bordeaux, the French National Assembly established the Third Republic. However, 400 members of the new Assembly were monarchists. (Léon Gambetta was one of the "non-monarchist" Republicans that were elected to the new National Assembly from Paris.) On 16 February 1871, Adolphe Thiers was elected as the chief executive of the new Republic. Because of the revolutionary unrest in Paris, the centre of the Thiers government was located at Versailles.
In late 1870 to early 1871, the workers of Paris rose up in premature and unsuccessful small-scale uprisings. The National Guard within Paris had become increasingly restive and defiant of the police, the army chief of staff, and even their own National Guard commanders. Thiers immediately recognized a revolutionary situation and, on 18 March 1871, sent regular army units to take control of artillery that belonged to the National Guard of Paris. Some soldiers of the regular army units fraternized with the rebels and the revolt escalated.
The barricades went up just as in 1830 and 1848. The Paris Commune was born. Once again the "Hôtel de Ville", or Town Hall, became the center of attention for the people in revolt; this time the "Hôtel de Ville" became the seat of the revolutionary government. Other cities in France followed the example of the Paris Commune, as in Lyon, Marseille, and Toulouse. All of the Communes outside Paris were promptly crushed by the Thiers government.
An election on 26 March 1871 in Paris produced a government based on the working class. Louis Auguste Blanqui was in prison but a majority of delegates were his followers, called "Blanquists." The minority comprised anarchists and followers of Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809–1855); as anarchists, the "Proudhonists" were supporters of limited or no government and wanted the revolution to follow an "ad hoc" course with little or no planning. Analysis of arrests records indicate the typical communard was opposed to the military, the clerics, the rural aristocrats. He saw the bourgeoisie as the enemy.
After two months the French army moved in to retake Paris, with pitched battles fought in working-class neighbourhoods. Hundreds were executed in front of the Communards' Wall, while thousands of others were marched to Versailles for trials. The number killed during "La Semaine Sanglante" ("The Bloody Week" of 21–28 May 1871) was perhaps 30,000, with as many as 50,000 later executed or imprisoned; 7,000 were exiled to New Caledonia; thousands more escaped to exile. The government won approval for its actions in a national referendum with 321,000 in favor and only 54,000 opposed.
The Republican government next had to confront counterrevolutionaries who rejected the legacy of the 1789 Revolution. Both the Legitimists (embodied in the person of Henri, Count of Chambord, grandson of Charles X) and the Orleanist royalists rejected republicanism, which they saw as an extension of modernity and atheism, breaking with France's traditions. This conflict became increasingly sharp in 1873, when Thiers himself was censured by the National Assembly as not being "sufficiently conservative" and resigned to make way for Marshal Patrice MacMahon as the new president. Amidst the rumors of right-wing intrigue and/or coups by the Bonapartists or Bourbons in 1874, the National Assembly set about drawing up a new constitution that would be acceptable to all parties.
The new constitution provided for universal male suffrage and called for a bi-cameral legislature, consisting of a Senate and a Chamber of Deputies. The initial republic was in effect led by pro-royalists, but republicans (the "Radicals") and Bonapartists scrambled for power. The first election under this new constitutionheld in early 1876resulted in a republican victory, with 363 republicans elected as opposed to 180 monarchists. However, 75 of the monarchists elected to the new Chamber of Deputies were Bonapartists.
The possibility of a coup d'état was an ever-present factor. Léon Gambetta chose moderate Armand Dufaure as premier but he failed to form a government. MacMahon next chose conservative Jules Simon. He too failed, setting the stage for the 16 May 1877 crisis, which led to the resignation of MacMahon. A restoration of the king now seemed likely, and royalists agreed on Henri, comte de Chambord, the grandson of Charles X. He insisted on an impossible demand and ruined the royalist cause. Its turn never came again as the Orleanist faction rallied themselves to the Republic, behind Adolphe Thiers. The new President of the Republic in 1879 was Jules Grevy. In January 1886, Georges Boulanger became Minister of War. Georges Clemanceau was instrumental in obtaining this appointment for Boulanger. This was the start of the Boulanger era and another time of threats of a coup.
The Legitimist (Bourbon) faction mostly left politics but one segment founded "L'Action Française" in 1898, during the Dreyfus Affair; it became an influential movement throughout the 1930s, in particular among the conservative Catholic intellectuals.
While liberalism was individualistic and laissez-faire in Britain and the United States, in France liberalism was based instead on a solidaristic conception of society, following the theme of the French Revolution, "Liberté, égalité, fraternité" ("liberty, equality, fraternity"). In the Third Republic, especially between 1895 and 1914 "Solidarité" ["solidarism"] was the guiding concept of a liberal social policy, whose chief champions were the prime ministers Leon Bourgeois (1895–96) and Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau (1899–1902)
The period from 1879 to 1914 saw power mostly in the hands of moderate republicans and "radicals"; they avoided state ownership of industry and had a middle class political base. Their main policies were governmental intervention (financed by a progressive income tax) to provide a social safety net. They opposed church schools. They expanded educational opportunities and promoted consumers' and producers' cooperatives. In terms of foreign policy they supported the League of Nations, compulsory arbitration, controlled disarmament, and economic sanctions to keep the peace.
The French welfare state expanded when it tried to followed some of Bismarck's policies, starting with relief for the poor.
French foreign policy from 1871 to 1914 showed a dramatic transformation from a humiliated power with no friends and not much of an empire in 1871, to the centerpiece of the European alliance system in 1914, with a flourishing empire that was second in size only to Great Britain. Although religion was a hotly contested matter and domestic politics, the Catholic Church made missionary work and church building a specialty in the colonies. Most Frenchman ignored foreign policy; its issues were a low priority in politics.
French foreign policy was based on a fear of Germany—whose larger size and fast-growing economy could not be matched—combined with a revanchism that demanded the return of Alsace and Lorraine. At the same time, in the midst of the Scramble for Africa, French and British interest in Africa came into conflict. The most dangerous episode was the Fashoda Incident of 1898 when French troops tried to claim an area in the Southern Sudan, and a British force purporting to be acting in the interests of the Khedive of Egypt arrived. Under heavy pressure the French withdrew securing Anglo-Egyptian control over the area. The status quo was recognised by an agreement between the two states acknowledging British control over Egypt, while France became the dominant power in Morocco, but France suffered a humiliating defeat overall.
The Suez Canal, initially built by the French, became a joint British-French project in 1875, as both saw it as vital to maintaining their influence and empires in Asia. In 1882, ongoing civil disturbances in Egypt prompted Britain to intervene, extending a hand to France. France's leading expansionist Jules Ferry was out of office, and the government allowed Britain to take effective control of Egypt.
France had colonies in Asia and looked for alliances and found in Japan a possible ally. During his visit to France, Iwakura Tomomi asked for French assistance in reforming Japan. French military missions were sent to Japan in 1872–80, in 1884–89 and the last one much later in 1918–19 to help modernize the Japanese army. Conflicts between the Chinese Emperor and the French Republic over Indochina climaxed during the Sino-French War (1884–85). Admiral Courbet destroyed the Chinese fleet anchored at Foochow. The treaty ending the war, put France in a protectorate over northern and central Vietnam, which it divided into Tonkin and Annam.
In an effort to isolate Germany, France went to great pains to woo Russia and Great Britain, first by means of the Franco-Russian Alliance of 1894, then the 1904 Entente Cordiale with Great Britain, and finally the Anglo-Russian Entente in 1907, which became the Triple Entente. This alliance with Britain and Russia against Germany and Austria eventually led Russia and Britain to enter World War I as France's Allies.
Distrust of Germany, faith in the army, and native French anti-semitism combined to make the Dreyfus Affair (the unjust trial and condemnation of a Jewish military officer for "treason" in 1894) a political scandal of the utmost gravity. For a decade, the nation was divided between "dreyfusards" and "anti-dreyfusards", and far-right Catholic agitators inflamed the situation even when proofs of Dreyfus's innocence came to light. The writer Émile Zola published an impassioned editorial on the injustice ("J'Accuse…!") and was himself condemned by the government for libel. Dreyfus was finally pardoned in 1906. The upshot was a weakening of the conservative element in politics. Moderates were deeply divided over the Dreyfus Affair, and this allowed the Radicals to hold power from 1899 until World War I. During this period, crises like the threatened "Boulangist" coup d'état (1889) showed the fragility of the republic.
Throughout the lifetime of the Third Republic there were battles over the status of the Catholic Church. The French clergy and bishops were closely associated with the Monarchists and many of its hierarchy were from noble families. Republicans were based in the anticlerical middle class who saw the Church's alliance with the monarchists as a political threat to republicanism, and a threat to the modern spirit of progress. The Republicans detested the church for its political and class affiliations; for them, the church represented outmoded traditions, superstition and monarchism. The Republicans were strengthened by Protestant and Jewish support. Numerous laws were passed to weaken the Catholic Church. In 1879, priests were excluded from the administrative committees of hospitals and of boards of charity. In 1880, new measures were directed against the religious congregations. From 1880 to 1890 came the substitution of lay women for nuns in many hospitals. Napoleon's 1801 Concordat continued in operation but in 1881, the government cut off salaries to priests it disliked.
The 1882 school laws of Republican Jules Ferry set up a national system of public schools that taught strict puritanical morality but no religion. For a while privately funded Catholic schools were tolerated. Civil marriage became compulsory, divorce was introduced and chaplains were removed from the army.
When Leo XIII became pope in 1878 he tried to calm Church-State relations. In 1884 he told French bishops not to act in a hostile manner to the State. In 1892 he issued an encyclical advising French Catholics to rally to the Republic and defend the Church by participating in Republican politics. This attempt at improving the relationship failed.
Deep-rooted suspicions remained on both sides and were inflamed by the Dreyfus Affair. Catholics were for the most part anti-dreyfusard. The Assumptionists published anti-Semitic and anti-republican articles in their journal "La Croix". This infuriated Republican politicians, who were eager to take revenge. Often they worked in alliance with Masonic lodges. The Waldeck-Rousseau Ministry (1899–1902) and the Combes Ministry (1902–05) fought with the Vatican over the appointment of bishops. Chaplains were removed from naval and military hospitals (1903–04), and soldiers were ordered not to frequent Catholic clubs (1904). Combes as Prime Minister in 1902, was determined to thoroughly defeat Catholicism. He closed down all parochial schools in France. Then he had parliament reject authorisation of all religious orders. This meant that all fifty four orders were dissolved and about 20,000 members immediately left France, many for Spain.
In 1905 the 1801 Concordat was abrogated; Church and State were separated. All Church property was confiscated. Public worship was given over to associations of Catholic laymen who controlled access to churches. In practise, Masses and rituals continued. The Church was badly hurt and lost half its priests. In the long run, however, it gained autonomy—for the State no longer had a voice in choosing bishops and Gallicanism was dead. Conservative Catholics regain control of Parliament In 1919 and reversed most of the penalties imposed on the Church, and gave bishops back control of church lands and buildings. The new pope was eager to assist the changes, and diplomatic relations were restored with the Vatican, However, the long-term secularization of French society continued, as most people only attended ceremonies for such major events as birth, marriage and funerals.
The end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century was the "Belle Époque" because of peace, prosperity and the cultural innovations of Monet, Bernhardt, and Debussy, and popular amusements cabaret, can-can, the cinema, new art forms such as Impressionism and Art Nouveau.
In 1889 the Exposition Universelle showed off newly modernised Paris to the world, which could look over it all from atop the new Eiffel Tower. Meant to last only a few decades, the tower was never removed and became France's most iconic landmark.
France was nevertheless a nation divided internally on notions of ideology, religion, class, regionalisms, and money. On the international front, France came repeatedly to the brink of war with the other imperial powers, such as the 1898 Fashoda Incident with Great Britain over East Africa.
The second colonial empire constituted the overseas colonies, protectorates and mandate territories that came under French rule from the 16th century onward. A distinction is generally made between the "first colonial empire", that existed until 1814, by which time most of it had been lost, and the "second colonial empire", which began with the conquest of Algiers in 1830. The second colonial empire came to an end after the loss in later wars of Vietnam (1954) and Algeria (1962), and relatively peaceful decolonizations elsewhere after 1960.
France lost wars to Britain that stripped away nearly all of its colonies by 1765. France rebuilt a new empire mostly after 1850, concentrating chiefly in Africa as well as Indochina and the South Pacific. Republicans, at first hostile to empire, only became supportive when Germany after 1880 started to build their own colonial empire. As it developed, the new empire took on roles of trade with France, especially supplying raw materials and purchasing manufactured items as well as lending prestige to the motherland and spreading French civilization and language and the Catholic religion. It also provided manpower in the World Wars.
It became a moral mission to lift the world up to French standards by bringing Christianity and French culture. In 1884, the leading proponent of colonialism, Jules Ferry, declared; "The higher races have a right over the lower races, they have a duty to civilize the inferior races." Full citizenship rights"assimilation"were offered. In reality the French settlers were given full rights and the natives given very limited rights. Apart from Algeria few settlers permanently settled in its colonies. Even in Algeria, the "Pied-Noir" (French settlers) always remained a small minority.
At its apex, it was one of the largest empires in history. Including metropolitan France, the total amount of land under French sovereignty reached in 1920, with a population of 110 million people in 1939. In World War II, Charles de Gaulle and the Free French used the overseas colonies as bases from which they fought to liberate France. Historian Tony Chafer argues: "In an effort to restore its world-power status after the humiliation of defeat and occupation, France was eager to maintain its overseas empire at the end of the Second World War." However, after 1945 anti-colonial movements successfully challenged European authority. The French constitution of 27 October 1946 (Fourth Republic), established the French Union which endured until 1958. Newer remnants of the colonial empire were integrated into France as overseas departments and territories within the French Republic. These now total about 1% of the pre-1939 colonial area, with 2.7 million people living in them in 2013. By the 1970s, says Robert Aldrich, the last "vestiges of empire held little interest for the French." He argues, "Except for the traumatic decolonization of Algeria, however, what is remarkable is how few long-lasting effects on France the giving up of empire entailed."
The population held steady from 40.7 million in 1911, to 41.5 million in 1936. The sense that the population was too small, especially in regard to the rapid growth of more powerful Germany, was a common theme in the early twentieth century. Natalist policies were proposed in the 1930s, and implemented in the 1940s.
France experienced a baby boom after 1945; it reversed a long-term record of low birth rates. In addition, there was a steady immigration, especially from former French colonies in North Africa. The population grew from 41 million in 1946, to 50 million in 1966, and 60 million by 1990. The farming population declined sharply, from 35% of the workforce in 1945 to under 5% by 2000. By 2004, France had the second highest birthrate in Europe, behind only Ireland.
France did not expect war in 1914, but when it came in August the entire nation rallied enthusiastically for two years. It specialized in sending infantry forward again and again, only to be stopped again and again by German artillery, trenches, barbed wire and machine guns, with horrific casualty rates. Despite the loss of major industrial districts France produced an enormous output of munitions that armed both the French and the American armies. By 1917 the infantry was on the verge of mutiny, with a widespread sense that it was now the American turn to storm the German lines. But they rallied and defeated the greatest German offensive, which came in spring 1918, then rolled over the collapsing invaders. November 1918 brought a surge of pride and unity, and an unrestrained demand for revenge.
Preoccupied with internal problems, France paid little attention to foreign policy in the 1911–14 period, although it did extend military service to three years from two over strong Socialist objections in 1913. The rapidly escalating Balkan crisis of 1914 caught France unaware, and it played only a small role in the coming of World War I. The Serbian crisis triggered a complex set of military alliances between European states, causing most of the continent, including France, to be drawn into war within a few short weeks. Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia in late July, triggering Russian mobilization. On 1 August both Germany and France ordered mobilization. Germany was much better prepared militarily than any of the other countries involved, including France. The German Empire, as an ally of Austria, declared war on Russia. France was allied with Russia and so was ready to commit to war against the German Empire. On 3 August Germany declared war on France, and sent its armies through neutral Belgium. Britain entered the war on 4 August, and started sending in troops on 7 August. Italy, although tied to Germany, remained neutral and then joined the Allies in 1915.
Germany's "Schlieffen Plan" was to quickly defeat the French. They captured Brussels, Belgium by 20 August and soon had captured a large portion of northern France. The original plan was to continue southwest and attack Paris from the west. By early September they were within of Paris, and the French government had relocated to Bordeaux. The Allies finally stopped the advance northeast of Paris at the Marne River (5–12 September 1914).
The war now became a stalemate — the famous "Western Front" was fought largely in France and was characterized by very little movement despite extremely large and violent battles, often with new and more destructive military technology. On the Western Front, the small improvised trenches of the first few months rapidly grew deeper and more complex, gradually becoming vast areas of interlocking defensive works. The land war quickly became dominated by the muddy, bloody stalemate of Trench warfare, a form of war in which both opposing armies had static lines of defense. The war of movement quickly turned into a war of position. Neither side advanced much, but both sides suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties. German and Allied armies produced essentially a matched pair of trench lines from the Swiss border in the south to the North Sea coast of Belgium. Meanwhile, large swaths of northeastern France came under the brutal control of German occupiers.
Trench warfare prevailed on the Western Front from September 1914 until March 1918. Famous battles in France include Battle of Verdun (spanning 10 months from 21 February to 18 December 1916), Battle of the Somme (1 July to 18 November 1916), and five separate conflicts called the Battle of Ypres (from 1914 to 1918).
After Socialist leader Jean Jaurès, a pacifist, was assassinated at the start of the war, the French socialist movement abandoned its antimilitarist positions and joined the national war effort. Prime Minister Rene Viviani called for unity—for a "Union sacrée" ("Sacred Union")--Which was a wartime truce between the right and left factions that had been fighting bitterly. France had few dissenters. However, war-weariness was a major factor by 1917, even reaching the army. The soldiers were reluctant to attack; Mutiny was a factor as soldiers said it was best to wait for the arrival of millions of Americans. The soldiers were protesting not just the futility of frontal assaults in the face of German machine guns but also degraded conditions at the front lines and at home, especially infrequent leaves, poor food, the use of African and Asian colonials on the home front, and concerns about the welfare of their wives and children.
After defeating Russia in 1917, Germany now could concentrate on the Western Front, and planned an all-out assault in the spring of 1918, but had to do it before the very rapidly growing American army played a role. In March 1918 Germany launched its offensive and by May had reached the Marne and was again close to Paris. However, in the Second Battle of the Marne (15 July to 6 August 1918), the Allied line held. The Allies then shifted to the offensive. The Germans, out of reinforcements, were overwhelmed day after day and the high command saw it was hopeless. Austria and Turkey collapsed, and the Kaiser's government fell. Germany signed "The Armistice" that ended the fighting effective 11 November 1918, "the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month."
The war was fought in large part on French soil, with 1.4 million French dead including civilians, and four times as many military casualties. The economy was hurt by the German invasion of major industrial areas in the northeast. While the occupied area in 1913 contained only 14% of France's industrial workers, it produced 58% of the steel, and 40% of the coal. In 1914 the government implemented a war economy with controls and rationing. By 1915 the war economy went into high gear, as millions of French women and colonial men replaced the civilian roles of many of the 3 million soldiers. Considerable assistance came with the influx of American food, money and raw materials in 1917. This war economy would have important reverberations after the war, as it would be a first breach of liberal theories of non-interventionism. The damages caused by the war amounted to about 113% of the GDP of 1913, chiefly the destruction of productive capital and housing. The national debt rose from 66% of GDP in 1913 to 170% in 1919, reflecting the heavy use of bond issues to pay for the war. Inflation was severe, with the franc losing over half its value against the British pound.
The richest families were hurt, as the top 1 percent saw their share of wealth drop from about 60% in 1914 to 36% in 1935, then plunge to 20 percent in 1970 to the present. A great deal of physical and financial damage was done during the world wars, foreign investments were cashed in to pay for the wars, the Russian Bolsheviks expropriated large-scale investments, postwar inflation demolished cash holdings, stocks and bonds plunged during the Great Depression, and progressive taxes ate away at accumulated wealth.
Peace terms were imposed by the Big Four, meeting in Paris in 1919: David Lloyd George of Britain, Vittorio Orlando of Italy, Georges Clemenceau of France, and Woodrow Wilson of the United States. Clemenceau demanded the harshest terms and won most of them in the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. Germany was forced to admit its guilt for starting the war, and was permanently weakened militarily. Germany had to pay huge sums in war reparations to the Allies (who in turn had large loans from the U.S. to pay off).
France regained Alsace-Lorraine and occupied the German industrial Saar Basin, a coal and steel region. The German African colonies were put under League of Nations mandates, and were administered by France and other victors. From the remains of the Ottoman Empire, France acquired the Mandate of Syria and the Mandate of Lebanon. French Marshal Ferdinand Foch wanted a peace that would never allow Germany to be a threat to France again, but after the Treaty of Versailles was signed he said, "This is not a peace. It is an armistice for 20 years."
France was part of the Allied force that occupied the Rhineland following the Armistice. Foch supported Poland in the Greater Poland Uprising and in the Polish–Soviet War and France also joined Spain during the Rif War. From 1925 until his death in 1932, Aristide Briand, as prime minister during five short intervals, directed French foreign policy, using his diplomatic skills and sense of timing to forge friendly relations with Weimar Germany as the basis of a genuine peace within the framework of the League of Nations. He realized France could neither contain the much larger Germany by itself nor secure effective support from Britain or the League.
As a response to the failure of the Weimar Republic to pay reparations in the aftermath of World War I, France occupied the industrial region of the Ruhr as a means of ensuring repayments from Germany. The intervention was a failure, and France accepted the American solution to the reparations issues, as expressed in the Dawes Plan and the Young Plan.
In the 1920s, France established an elaborate system of border defences called the Maginot Line, designed to fight off any German attack. (Unfortunately, the Maginot Line did not extend into Belgium, where Germany attacked in 1940.) Military alliances were signed with weak powers in 1920–21, called the "Little Entente".
The crisis affected France a bit later than other countries, hitting around 1931. While the GDP in the 1920s grew at the very strong rate of 4.43% per year, the 1930s rate fell to only 0.63%. The depression was relatively mild: unemployment peaked under 5%, the fall in production was at most 20% below the 1929 output; there was no banking crisis.
By contrast to the mild economic upheaval, the political upheaval was enormous. Socialist Leon Blum, leading the Popular Front, brought together Socialists and Radicals to become Prime Minister from 1936 to 1937; he was the first Jew and the first Socialist to lead France. The Communists in the Chamber of Deputies (parliament) voted to keep the government in power, and generally supported the government's economic policies, but rejected its foreign policies. The Popular Front passed numerous labor reforms, which increased wages, cut working hours to 40 hours with overtime illegal and provided many lesser benefits to the working class such as mandatory two-week paid vacations. However, renewed inflation canceled the gains in wage rates, unemployment did not fall, and economic recovery was very slow. Historians agree that the Popular Front was a failure in terms of economics, foreign policy, and long-term stability. "Disappointment and failure," says Jackson, "was the legacy of the Popular Front." There is general agreement that at first the Popular Front created enormous excitement and expectations on the left—including very large scale sitdown strikes—but in the end it failed to live up to its promise. In the long run, however, later Socialists took some inspiration from the attempts of the Popular Front to set up a welfare state.
The government joined Britain in establishing an arms embargo during the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). Blum rejected support for the Spanish Republicans because of his fear that civil war might spread to deeply divided France. Financial support in military cooperation with Poland was also a policy. The government nationalized arms suppliers, and dramatically increased its program of rearming the French military in a last-minute catch up with the Germans.
Appeasement of Germany, in cooperation with Britain, was the policy after 1936, as France sought peace even in the face of Hitler's escalating demands. Édouard Daladier refused to go to war against Germany and Italy without British support as Neville Chamberlain wanted to save peace at Munich in 1938.
Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939 finally caused France and Britain to declare war against Germany. But the Allies did not launch massive assaults and instead kept a defensive stance: this was called the Phoney War in Britain or "Drôle de guerre"the funny sort of warin France. It did not prevent the German army from conquering Poland in a matter of weeks with its innovative Blitzkrieg tactics, also helped by the Soviet Union's attack on Poland.
When Germany had its hands free for an attack in the west, the Battle of France began in May 1940, and the same Blitzkrieg tactics proved just as devastating there. The Wehrmacht bypassed the Maginot Line by marching through the Ardennes forest. A second German force was sent into Belgium and the Netherlands to act as a diversion to this main thrust. In six weeks of savage fighting the French lost 90,000 men.
Many civilians sought refuge by taking to the roads of France: some 2 million refugees from Belgium and the Netherlands were joined by between 8 and 10 million French civilians, representing a quarter of the French population, all heading south and west. This movement may well have been the largest single movement of civilians in history prior to 1947.
Paris fell to the Germans on 14 June 1940, but not before the British Expeditionary Force was evacuated from Dunkirk, along with many French soldiers.
Vichy France was established on 10 July 1940 to govern the unoccupied part of France and its colonies. It was led by Philippe Pétain, the aging war hero of the First World War. Petain's representatives signed a harsh Armistice on 22 June 1940 whereby Germany kept most of the French army in camps in Germany, and France had to pay out large sums in gold and food supplies. Germany occupied three-fifths of France's territory, leaving the rest in the southeast to the new Vichy government. However, in practice, most local government was handled by the traditional French officialdom. In November 1942 all of Vichy France was finally occupied by German forces. Vichy continued in existence but it was closely supervised by the Germans.
The Vichy regime sought to collaborate with Germany, keeping peace in France to avoid further occupation although at the expense of personal freedom and individual safety. Some 76,000 Jews were deported during the German occupation, often with the help of the Vichy authorities, and murdered in the Nazis' extermination camps.
General Charles de Gaulle in London declared himself on BBC radio to be the head of a rival government in exile, and gathered the Free French Forces around him, finding support in some French colonies and recognition from Britain but not the United States. After the Attack on Mers-el-Kébir in 1940, where the British fleet destroyed a large part of the French navy, still under command of Vichy France, that killed about 1,100 sailors, there was nationwide indignation and a feeling of distrust in the French forces, leading to the events of the Battle of Dakar. Eventually, several important French ships joined the Free French Forces. The United States maintained diplomatic relations with Vichy and avoided recognition of de Gaulle's claim to be the one and only government of France. Churchill, caught between the U.S. and de Gaulle, tried to find a compromise.
Within France proper, the organized underground grew as the Vichy regime resorted to more strident policies in order to fulfill the enormous demands of the Nazis and the eventual decline of Nazi Germany became more obvious. They formed the Resistance. The most famous figure of the French resistance was Jean Moulin, sent in France by de Gaulle in order to link all resistance movements; he was captured and tortured by Klaus Barbie (the "butcher of Lyon"). Increasing repression culminated in the complete destruction and extermination of the village of Oradour-sur-Glane at the height of the Battle of Normandy. At 2.15 p.m. on the afternoon of 10 June 1944, a company of the 2nd SS Panzer Division, ‘Das Reich’, entered Oradour-sur-Glane. They herded most of its population into barns, garages and the church, and then massacred 642 men, women and children, all of whom were civilians.
In 1953, 21 men went on trial in Bordeaux for the Oradour killings. Fourteen of the accused proved to be French citizens of Alsace. Following convictions, all but one were pardoned by the French government.
On 6 June 1944 the Allies landed in Normandy (without a French component); on 15 August Allied forces landing in Provence, this time they included 260,000 men of the French First Army. The German lines finally broke, and they fled back to Germany while keeping control of the major ports. Allied forces liberated France and the Free French were given the honor of liberating Paris in late August 1944. The French army recruited French Forces of the Interior (de Gaulle's formal name for resistance fighters) to continue the war until the final defeat of Germany; this army numbered 300,000 men by September 1944 and 370,000 by spring 1945.
The Vichy regime disintegrated. An interim Provisional Government of the French Republic was quickly put into place by de Gaulle. The "gouvernement provisoire de la République française", or GPRF, operated under a "tripartisme" alliance of communists, socialists, and democratic republicans. The GPRF governed France from 1944 to 1946, when it was replaced by the French Fourth Republic. Tens of thousands of collaborators were executed without trial. The new government declared the Vichy laws unconstitutional and illegal, and elected new local governments. Women gained the right to vote.
The 2 million French soldiers held as POWs and forced laborers in Germany throughout the war were not at risk of death in combat, but the anxieties of separation for their 800,000 wives were high. The government provided a modest allowance, but one in ten became prostitutes to support their families. It gave women a key symbolic role to carry out the national regeneration. It used propaganda, women's organizations, and legislation to promote maternity, patriotic duty, and female submission to marriage, home, and children's education. Conditions were very difficult for housewives, as food was short as well as most necessities. Divorce laws were made much more stringent, and restrictions were placed on the employment of married women. Family allowances that had begun in the 1930s were continued, and became a vital lifeline for many families; it was a monthly cash bonus for having more children. In 1942 the birth rate started to rise, and by 1945 it was higher than it had been for a century.
The political scene in 1944–45 was controlled by the Resistance, but it had numerous factions. Charles de Gaulle and the Free France element had been based outside France, but now came to dominate, in alliance with the Socialists, the Christian Democrats (MRP), and what remained of the Radical party. The Communists had largely dominated the Resistance inside France, but cooperated closely with the government in 1944–45, on orders from the Kremlin. There was a general consensus that important powers that had been an open collaboration with the Germans should be nationalized, such as Renault automobiles and the major newspapers. A new Social Security system was called for, as well as important new concessions to the labor unions. Unions themselves were divided among communist, Socialist, and Christian Democrat factions. Frustrated by his inability to control all the dominant forces, de Gaulle resigned early in 1946. On 13 October 1946, a new constitution established the Fourth Republic. The Fourth Republic consisted of a parliamentary government controlled by a series of coalitions. France attempted to regain control of French Indochina but was defeated by the Viet Minh in 1954. Only months later, France faced another anti-colonialist conflict in Algeria and the debate over whether or not to keep control of Algeria, then home to over one million European settlers, wracked the country and nearly led to a coup and civil war. Charles de Gaulle managed to keep the country together while taking steps to end the war. The Algerian War was concluded with the Évian Accords in 1962 that led to Algerian independence.
Wartime damage to the economy was severe, and apart from gold reserves, France had inadequate resources to recover on its own. The transportation system was in total shamblesthe Allies had bombed out the railways and the bridges, and the Germans had destroyed the port facilities. Energy was in extremely short supply, with very low stocks of coal and oil. Imports of raw material were largely cut off, so most factories had shut down. The invaders had stripped most of the valuable industrial tools for German factories. Discussions with the United States for emergency aid dragged on, with repeated postponements on both sides. Meanwhile, several million French prisoners of war and forced laborers were being returned home, with few jobs and little food available for them. The plan was for 20 percent of German reparations to be paid to France, but Germany was in much worse shape even in France, and in no position to pay.
After de Gaulle left office in January 1946, the diplomatic logjam was broken in terms of American aid. Lend Lease had barely restarted When it was unexpectedly handed in August 1945. The U.S. Army shipped in food, 1944–46. U.S. Treasury loans and cash grants were given in 1945–47, and especially the Marshall Plan gave large sums (1948–51). There was post-Marshall aid (1951–55) designed to help France rearm and provide massive support for its war in Indochina. Apart from low-interest loans, the other funds were grants that did not involve repayment. The debts left over from World War I, whose payment had been suspended since 1931, was renegotiated in the Blum-Byrnes agreement of 1946. The United States forgave all $2.8 billion in debt from the First World War, and gave France a new loan of $650 million. In return French negotiator Jean Monnet set out the French five-year plan for recovery and development. The Marshall Plan gave France $2.3 billion with no repayment. The total of all American grants and credits to France from 1946 to 1953, amounted to $4.9 billion.
A central feature of the Marshall Plan was to encourage international trade, reduce tariffs, lower barriers, and modernize French management. The Marshall Plan set up intensive tours of American industry. France sent 500 missions with 4700 businessmen and experts to tour American factories, farms, stores and offices. They were especially impressed with the prosperity of American workers, and how they could purchase an inexpensive new automobile for nine months work, compared to 30 months in France. Some French businesses resisted Americanization, but the most profitable, especially chemicals, oil, electronics, and instrumentation, seized upon the opportunity to attract American investments and build a larger market. The U.S. insisted on opportunities for Hollywood films, and the French film industry responded with new life.
Although the economic situation in France was grim in 1945, resources did exist and the economy regained normal growth by the 1950s. France managed to regain its international status thanks to a successful production strategy, a demographic spurt, and technical and political innovations. Conditions varied from firm to firm. Some had been destroyed or damaged, nationalized or requisitioned, but the majority carried on, sometimes working harder and more efficiently than before the war. Industries were reorganized on a basis that ranged from consensual (electricity) to conflictual (machine tools), therefore producing uneven results. Despite strong American pressure through the ERP, there was little change in the organization and content of the training for French industrial managers. This was mainly due to the reticence of the existing institutions and the struggle among different economic and political interest groups for control over efforts to improve the further training of practitioners.
The Monnet Plan provided a coherent framework for economic policy, and it was strongly supported by the Marshall Plan. It was inspired by moderate, Keynesian free-trade ideas rather than state control. Although relaunched in an original way, the French economy was about as productive as comparable West European countries.
Claude Fohlen argues that:
Pierre Mendès France, was a Radical party leader who was Prime Minister for eight months in 1954–55, working with the support of the Socialist and Communist parties. His top priority was ending the war in Indochina, which had already cost 92,000 dead 114,000 wounded and 28,000 captured in the wake of the humiliating defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. The United States had paid most of the costs of the war, but its support inside France had collapsed. Public opinion polls showed that in February 1954, only 7% of the French people wanted to continue the fight to keep Indochina out of the hands of the Communists, led by Ho Chi Minh and his Viet Minh movement. At the Geneva Conference in July 1954 Mendès France made a deal that gave the Viet Minh control of Vietnam north of the seventeenth parallel, and allowed France to pull out all its forces. That left South Vietnam standing alone. However, the United States moved in and provided large scale financial military and economic support for South Vietnam. Mendès-France next came to an agreement with Habib Bourguiba, the nationalist leader in Tunisia, for the independence of that colony by 1956, and began discussions with the nationalist leaders in Morocco for a French withdrawal.
Algeria was no mere colony. With over a million European residents in Algeria (the Pieds-Noirs), France refused to grant independence until the Algerian War of Independence had turned into a French political and civil crisis. Algeria was given its independence in 1962, unleashing a massive wave of immigration from the former colony back to France of both Pied-Noir and Algerians who had supported France.
In 1956, another crisis struck French colonies, this time in Egypt. The Suez Canal, having been built by the French government, belonged to the French Republic and was operated by the Compagnie universelle du canal maritime de Suez. Great Britain had bought the Egyptian share from Isma'il Pasha and was the second-largest owner of the canal before the crisis.
The Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the canal despite French and British opposition; he determined that a European response was unlikely. Great Britain and France attacked Egypt and built an alliance with Israel against Nasser. Israel attacked from the east, Britain from Cyprus and France from Algeria. Egypt, the most powerful Arab state of the time, was defeated in a mere few days. The Suez crisis caused an outcry of indignation in the entire Arab world and Saudi Arabia set an embargo on oil on France and Britain. The US President Dwight D. Eisenhower forced a ceasefire; Britain and Israel soon withdrew, leaving France alone in Egypt. Under strong international pressures, the French government ultimately evacuated its troops from Suez and largely disengaged from the Middle East.
The May 1958 seizure of power in Algiers by French army units and French settlers opposed to concessions in the face of Arab nationalist insurrection ripped apart the unstable Fourth Republic. The National Assembly brought De Gaulle back to power during the May 1958 crisis. He founded the Fifth Republic with a strengthened presidency, and he was elected in the latter role. He managed to keep France together while taking steps to end the war, much to the anger of the Pieds-Noirs (Frenchmen settled in Algeria) and the military; both had supported his return to power to maintain colonial rule. He granted independence to Algeria in 1962 and progressively to other French colonies.
Proclaiming "grandeur" essential to the nature of France, de Gaulle initiated his "Politics of Grandeur." He demanded complete autonomy for France in world affairs, which meant that major decisions could not be forced upon it by NATO, the European Community or anyone else. De Gaulle pursued a policy of "national independence." He vetoed Britain's entry into the Common Market, fearing it might gain too great a voice on French affairs. While not officially abandoning NATO, he withdrew from its military integrated command, fearing that the United States had too much control over NATO. He launched an independent nuclear development program that made France the fourth nuclear power. France then adopted the dissuasion du faible au fort doctrine which meant a Soviet attack on France would only bring total destruction to both sides.
He restored cordial Franco-German relations in order to create a European counterweight between the "Anglo-Saxon" (American and British) and Soviet spheres of influence. De Gaulle openly criticised the U.S. intervention in Vietnam. He was angry at American economic power, especially what his Finance minister called the "exorbitant privilege" of the U.S. dollar. He went to Canada and proclaimed "Vive le Québec libre", the catchphrase for an independent Quebec.
In May 1968, he appeared likely to lose power amidst widespread protests by students and workers, but persisted through the crisis with backing from the army. His party, denouncing radicalism, won the 1968 election with an increased majority in the Assembly. Nonetheless, de Gaulle resigned in 1969 after losing a referendum in which he proposed more decentralization. His "War Memoirs" became a classic of modern French literature and many French political parties and figures claim the gaullist heritage.
After the fall of the USSR and the end of the Cold War potential menaces to mainland France appeared considerably reduced. France began reducing its nuclear capacities and conscription was abolished in 2001. In 1990 France, led by François Mitterrand, joined the short successful Gulf War against Iraq; the French participation to this war was called the Opération Daguet.
Terrorism grew worse. In 1994 Air France Flight 8969 was hijacked by Islamic terrorists; they were captured.
Conservative Jacques Chirac assumed office as president on 17 May 1995, after a campaign focused on the need to combat France's stubbornly high unemployment rate. While France continues to revere its rich history and independence, French leaders increasingly tie the future of France to the continued development of the European Union. In 1992 France ratified the Maastricht Treaty establishing the European Union. In 1999, the Euro was introduced to replace the French franc. Beyond membership in the European Union, France is also involved in many joint European projects such as Airbus, the Galileo positioning system and the Eurocorps.
The French have stood among the strongest supporters of NATO and EU policy in the Balkans to prevent genocide in Yugoslavia. French troops joined the 1999 NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. France has also been actively involved against international terrorism. In 2002 Alliance Base, an international Counterterrorist Intelligence Center, was secretly established in Paris. The same year France contributed to the toppling of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, but it strongly rejected the 2003 invasion of Iraq, even threatening to veto the US proposed resolution.
Jacques Chirac was reelected in 2002, mainly because his socialist rival Lionel Jospin was removed from the runoff by the right wing candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen. Conservative Nicolas Sarkozy was elected and took office on 16 May 2007. The problem of high unemployment has yet to be resolved.
In 2012 election for president, Socialist François Hollande defeated Sarkozy's try for reelection. Hollande advocated a growth policy in contrast to the austerity policy advocated by Germany's Angela Merkel as a way of tackling the European sovereign debt crisis. In 2014 Hollande stood with Merkel and US President Obama in imposing sanctions on Russia for its actions against Ukraine.
In the 2017 election for president the winner was Emmanuel Macron, the founder of a new party "La République En Marche!". It declared itself above left and right. He called parliamentary elections that brought him absolute majority of députés. He appointed a prime minister from the centre right, and ministers from both the centre left and centre right.
Sophie Meunier in 2017 ponders whether France is still relevant in world affairs:
At the close of the Algerian war, hundreds of thousands of Muslims, including some who had supported France (Harkis), settled permanently to France, especially to the larger cities where they lived in subsidized public housing, and suffered very high unemployment rates. In October 2005, the predominantly Arab-immigrant suburbs of Paris, Lyon, Lille, and other French cities erupted in riots by socially alienated teenagers, many of them second- or third-generation immigrants.
Schneider says:
For the next three convulsive weeks, riots spread from suburb to suburb, affecting more than three hundred towns...Nine thousand vehicles were torched, hundreds of public and commercial buildings destroyed, four thousand rioters arrested, and 125 police officers wounded.
Traditional interpretations say these race riots were spurred by radical Muslims or unemployed youth. Another view states that the riots reflected a broader problem of racism and police violence in France.
In March 2012, a Muslim radical named Mohammed Merah shot three French soldiers and four Jewish citizens, including children in Toulouse and Montauban.
In January 2015, the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo that had ridiculed the Islamic prophet, Muhammad, and a neighborhood Jewish grocery store came under attack from radicalized Muslims who had been born and raised in the Paris region. World leaders rally to Paris to show their support for free speech. Analysts agree that the episode had a profound impact on France. "The New York Times" summarized the ongoing debate:
So as France grieves, it is also faced with profound questions about its future: How large is the radicalized part of the country's Muslim population, the largest in Europe? How deep is the rift between France's values of secularism, of individual, sexual and religious freedom, of freedom of the press and the freedom to shock, and a growing Muslim conservatism that rejects many of these values in the name of religion?
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=13854
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Halloween
Halloween or Hallowe'en (a contraction of Hallows' Even or Hallows' Evening), also known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve, is a celebration observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows' Day. It begins the three-day observance of Allhallowtide, the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed.
It is widely believed that many Halloween traditions originated from ancient Celtic harvest festivals, particularly the Gaelic festival Samhain; that such festivals may have had pagan roots; and that Samhain itself was Christianized as Halloween by the early Church. Some academics believe, however, that Halloween began solely as a Christian holiday, separate from ancient festivals like Samhain.
Halloween activities include trick-or-treating (or the related guising and souling), attending Halloween costume parties, carving pumpkins into jack-o'-lanterns, lighting bonfires, apple bobbing, divination games, playing pranks, visiting haunted attractions, telling scary stories, as well as watching horror films. In many parts of the world, the Christian religious observances of All Hallows' Eve, including attending church services and lighting candles on the graves of the dead, remain popular, although elsewhere it is a more commercial and secular celebration. Some Christians historically abstained from meat on All Hallows' Eve, a tradition reflected in the eating of certain vegetarian foods on this vigil day, including apples, potato pancakes, and soul cakes.
The word "Halloween" or "Hallowe'en" dates to about 1745 and is of Christian origin. The word "Hallowe'en" means "Saints' evening". It comes from a Scottish term for "All Hallows' Eve" (the evening before All Hallows' Day). In Scots, the word "eve" is "even", and this is contracted to "e'en" or "een". Over time, "(All) Hallow(s) E(v)en" evolved into "Hallowe'en". Although the phrase "All Hallows'" is found in Old English "All Hallows' Eve" is itself not seen until 1556.
Today's Halloween customs are thought to have been influenced by folk customs and beliefs from the Celtic-speaking countries, some of which are believed to have pagan roots. Jack Santino, a folklorist, writes that "there was throughout Ireland an uneasy truce existing between customs and beliefs associated with Christianity and those associated with religions that were Irish before Christianity arrived". Historian Nicholas Rogers, exploring the origins of Halloween, notes that while "some folklorists have detected its origins in the Roman feast of Pomona, the goddess of fruits and seeds, or in the festival of the dead called Parentalia, it is more typically linked to the Celtic festival of Samhain, which comes from the Old Irish for 'summer's end'."
Samhain () was the first and most important of the four quarter days in the medieval Gaelic calendar and was celebrated on 31 October – 1 November in Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man. A kindred festival was held at the same time of year by the Brittonic Celts, called Calan Gaeaf in Wales, Kalan Gwav in Cornwall and Kalan Goañv in Brittany; a name meaning "first day of winter". For the Celts, the day ended and began at sunset; thus the festival began on the evening before 7 November by modern reckoning (the half point between equinox and solstice). Samhain and Calan Gaeaf are mentioned in some of the earliest Irish and Welsh literature. The names have been used by historians to refer to Celtic Halloween customs up until the 19th century, and are still the Gaelic and Welsh names for Halloween.
Samhain/Calan Gaeaf marked the end of the harvest season and beginning of winter or the 'darker half' of the year. Like Beltane/Calan Mai, it was seen as a liminal time, when the boundary between this world and the Otherworld thinned. This meant the "Aos Sí" (Connacht pronunciation , Munster /e:s ʃi:/), the 'spirits' or 'fairies', could more easily come into this world and were particularly active. Most scholars see the "Aos Sí" as "degraded versions of ancient gods [...] whose power remained active in the people's minds even after they had been officially replaced by later religious beliefs". The "Aos Sí" were both respected and feared, with individuals often invoking the protection of God when approaching their dwellings. At Samhain, it was believed that the "Aos Sí" needed to be propitiated to ensure that the people and their livestock survived the winter. Offerings of food and drink, or portions of the crops, were left outside for the "Aos Sí". The souls of the dead were also said to revisit their homes seeking hospitality. Places were set at the dinner table and by the fire to welcome them. The belief that the souls of the dead return home on one night of the year and must be appeased seems to have ancient origins and is found in many cultures throughout the world. In 19th century Ireland, "candles would be lit and prayers formally offered for the souls of the dead. After this the eating, drinking, and games would begin".
Throughout Ireland and Britain, the household festivities included rituals and games intended to foretell one's future, especially regarding death and marriage. Apples and nuts were often used in these divination rituals. They included apple bobbing, nut roasting, scrying or mirror-gazing, pouring molten lead or egg whites into water, dream interpretation, and others. Special bonfires were lit and there were rituals involving them. Their flames, smoke and ashes were deemed to have protective and cleansing powers, and were also used for divination. In some places, torches lit from the bonfire were carried sunwise around homes and fields to protect them. It is suggested that the fires were a kind of imitative or sympathetic magic – they mimicked the Sun, helping the "powers of growth" and holding back the decay and darkness of winter. In Scotland, these bonfires and divination games were banned by the church elders in some parishes. In Wales, bonfires were lit to "prevent the souls of the dead from falling to earth". Later, these bonfires served to keep "away the devil".
From at least the 16th century, the festival included mumming and guising in Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man and Wales. This involved people going house-to-house in costume (or in disguise), usually reciting verses or songs in exchange for food. It may have originally been a tradition whereby people impersonated the "Aos Sí", or the souls of the dead, and received offerings on their behalf, similar to the custom of souling (see below). Impersonating these beings, or wearing a disguise, was also believed to protect oneself from them. It is suggested that the mummers and guisers "personify the old spirits of the winter, who demanded reward in exchange for good fortune". In parts of southern Ireland, the guisers included a hobby horse. A man dressed as a "Láir Bhán" (white mare) led youths house-to-house reciting verses – some of which had pagan overtones – in exchange for food. If the household donated food it could expect good fortune from the 'Muck Olla'; not doing so would bring misfortune. In Scotland, youths went house-to-house with masked, painted or blackened faces, often threatening to do mischief if they were not welcomed. F. Marian McNeill suggests the ancient festival included people in costume representing the spirits, and that faces were marked (or blackened) with ashes taken from the sacred bonfire. In parts of Wales, men went about dressed as fearsome beings called "gwrachod". In the late 19th and early 20th century, young people in Glamorgan and Orkney cross-dressed.
Elsewhere in Europe, mumming and hobby horses were part of other yearly festivals. However, in the Celtic-speaking regions they were "particularly appropriate to a night upon which supernatural beings were said to be abroad and could be imitated or warded off by human wanderers". From at least the 18th century, "imitating malignant spirits" led to playing pranks in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands. Wearing costumes and playing pranks at Halloween spread to England in the 20th century. Traditionally, pranksters used hollowed out turnips or mangel wurzels often carved with grotesque faces as lanterns. By those who made them, the lanterns were variously said to represent the spirits, or were used to ward off evil spirits. They were common in parts of Ireland and the Scottish Highlands in the 19th century, as well as in Somerset (see Punkie Night). In the 20th century they spread to other parts of England and became generally known as jack-o'-lanterns.
Today's Halloween customs are thought to have been influenced by Christian dogma and practices derived from it. Halloween is the evening before the Christian holy days of All Hallows' Day (also known as "All Saints' or Hallowmas") on 1 November and All Souls' Day on 2 November, thus giving the holiday on 31 October the full name of "All Hallows' Eve" (meaning the evening before All Hallows' Day). Since the time of the early Church, major feasts in Christianity (such as Christmas, Easter and Pentecost) had vigils that began the night before, as did the feast of All Hallows'. These three days are collectively called Allhallowtide and are a time for honoring the saints and praying for the recently departed souls who have yet to reach Heaven. Commemorations of all saints and martyrs were held by several churches on various dates, mostly in springtime. In 609, Pope Boniface IV re-dedicated the Pantheon in Rome to "St Mary and all martyrs" on 13 May. This was the same date as Lemuria, an ancient Roman festival of the dead, and the same date as the commemoration of all saints in Edessa in the time of Ephrem.
The feast of All Hallows', on its current date in the Western Church, may be traced to Pope Gregory III's (731–741) founding of an oratory in St Peter's for the relics "of the holy apostles and of all saints, martyrs and confessors". In 835, All Hallows' Day was officially switched to 1 November, the same date as Samhain, at the behest of Pope Gregory IV. Some suggest this was due to Celtic influence, while others suggest it was a Germanic idea, although it is claimed that both Germanic and Celtic-speaking peoples commemorated the dead at the beginning of winter. They may have seen it as the most fitting time to do so, as it is a time of 'dying' in nature. It is also suggested that the change was made on the "practical grounds that Rome in summer could not accommodate the great number of pilgrims who flocked to it", and perhaps because of public health considerations regarding Roman Fever – a disease that claimed a number of lives during the sultry summers of the region.
By the end of the 12th century they had become holy days of obligation across Europe and involved such traditions as ringing church bells for the souls in purgatory. In addition, "it was customary for criers dressed in black to parade the streets, ringing a bell of mournful sound and calling on all good Christians to remember the poor souls." "Souling", the custom of baking and sharing soul cakes for all christened souls, has been suggested as the origin of trick-or-treating. The custom dates back at least as far as the 15th century and was found in parts of England, Flanders, Germany and Austria. Groups of poor people, often children, would go door-to-door during Allhallowtide, collecting soul cakes, in exchange for praying for the dead, especially the souls of the givers' friends and relatives. Soul cakes would also be offered for the souls themselves to eat, or the 'soulers' would act as their representatives. As with the Lenten tradition of hot cross buns, Allhallowtide soul cakes were often marked with a cross, indicating that they were baked as alms. Shakespeare mentions souling in his comedy "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" (1593). On the custom of wearing costumes, Christian minister Prince Sorie Conteh wrote: "It was traditionally believed that the souls of the departed wandered the earth until All Saints' Day, and All Hallows' Eve provided one last chance for the dead to gain vengeance on their enemies before moving to the next world. In order to avoid being recognized by any soul that might be seeking such vengeance, people would don masks or costumes to disguise their identities".
It is claimed that in the Middle Ages, churches that were too poor to display the relics of martyred saints at Allhallowtide let parishioners dress up as saints instead. Some Christians continue to observe this custom at Halloween today. Lesley Bannatyne believes this could have been a Christianization of an earlier pagan custom. While souling, Christians would carry with them "lanterns made of hollowed-out turnips". It has been suggested that the carved jack-o'-lantern, a popular symbol of Halloween, originally represented the souls of the dead. On Halloween, in medieval Europe, fires served a dual purpose, being lit to guide returning souls to the homes of their families, as well as to deflect demons from haunting sincere Christian folk. Households in Austria, England and Ireland often had "candles burning in every room to guide the souls back to visit their earthly homes". These were known as "soul lights". Many Christians in mainland Europe, especially in France, believed "that once a year, on Hallowe'en, the dead of the churchyards rose for one wild, hideous carnival" known as the "danse macabre", which has often been depicted in church decoration. Christopher Allmand and Rosamond McKitterick write in "The New Cambridge Medieval History" that "Christians were moved by the sight of the Infant Jesus playing on his mother's knee; their hearts were touched by the Pietà; and patron saints reassured them by their presence. But, all the while, the "danse macabre" urged them not to forget the end of all earthly things." This "danse macabre" was enacted at village pageants and at court masques, with people "dressing up as corpses from various strata of society", and may have been the origin of modern-day Halloween costume parties.
In parts of Britain, these customs came under attack during the Reformation as some Protestants berated purgatory as a "popish" doctrine incompatible with their notion of predestination. Thus, for some Nonconformist Protestants, the theology of All Hallows' Eve was redefined; without the doctrine of purgatory, "the returning souls cannot be journeying from Purgatory on their way to Heaven, as Catholics frequently believe and assert. Instead, the so-called ghosts are thought to be in actuality evil spirits. As such they are threatening." Other Protestants maintained belief in an intermediate state, known as Hades (Bosom of Abraham), and continued to observe the original customs, especially souling, candlelit processions and the ringing of church bells in memory of the dead. Mark Donnelly, a professor of medieval archaeology, and historian Daniel Diehl, with regard to the evil spirits, on Halloween, write that "barns and homes were blessed to protect people and livestock from the effect of witches, who were believed to accompany the malignant spirits as they traveled the earth." In the 19th century, in some rural parts of England, families gathered on hills on the night of All Hallows' Eve. One held a bunch of burning straw on a pitchfork while the rest knelt around him in a circle, praying for the souls of relatives and friends until the flames went out. This was known as "teen'lay". Other customs included the tindle fires in Derbyshire and all-night vigil bonfires in Hertfordshire which were lit to pray for the departed. The rising popularity of Guy Fawkes Night (5 November) from 1605 onward, saw many Halloween traditions appropriated by that holiday instead, and Halloween's popularity waned in Britain, with the noteworthy exception of Scotland. There and in Ireland, they had been celebrating Samhain and Halloween since at least the early Middle Ages, and the Scottish kirk took a more pragmatic approach to Halloween, seeing it as important to the life cycle and rites of passage of communities and thus ensuring its survival in the country.
In France, some Christian families, on the night of All Hallows' Eve, prayed beside the graves of their loved ones, setting down dishes full of milk for them. On Halloween, in Italy, some families left a large meal out for ghosts of their passed relatives, before they departed for church services. In Spain, on this night, special pastries are baked, known as "bones of the holy" () and put them on the graves of the churchyard, a practice that continues to this day.
Lesley Bannatyne and Cindy Ott both wrote that Anglican colonists in the southern United States and Catholic colonists in Maryland "recognized All Hallow's Eve in their church calendars", although the Puritans of New England maintained strong opposition to the holiday, along with other traditional celebrations of the established Church, including Christmas. Almanacs of the late 18th and early 19th century give no indication that Halloween was widely celebrated in North America. It was not until mass Irish and Scottish immigration in the 19th century that Halloween became a major holiday in North America. Confined to the immigrant communities during the mid-19th century, it was gradually assimilated into mainstream society and by the first decade of the 20th century it was being celebrated coast to coast by people of all social, racial and religious backgrounds. "In Cajun areas, a nocturnal Mass was said in cemeteries on Halloween night. Candles that had been blessed were placed on graves, and families sometimes spent the entire night at the graveside". The yearly New York Halloween Parade, begun in 1974 by puppeteer and mask maker Ralph Lee of Greenwich Village, is the world's largest Halloween parade and America's only major nighttime parade, attracting more than 60,000 costumed participants, two million spectators, and a worldwide television audience of over 100 million.
Development of artifacts and symbols associated with Halloween formed over time. Jack-o'-lanterns are traditionally carried by guisers on All Hallows' Eve in order to frighten evil spirits. There is a popular Irish Christian folktale associated with the jack-o'-lantern, which in folklore is said to represent a "soul who has been denied entry into both heaven and hell":
The modern imagery of Halloween comes from many sources, including Christian eschatology, national customs, works of Gothic and horror literature (such as the novels "Frankenstein" and "Dracula") and classic horror films (such as "Frankenstein" and "The Mummy"). Imagery of the skull, a reference to Golgotha in the Christian tradition, serves as "a reminder of death and the transitory quality of human life" and is consequently found in "memento mori" and "vanitas" compositions; skulls have therefore been commonplace in Halloween, which touches on this theme. Traditionally, the back walls of churches are "decorated with a depiction of the Last Judgment, complete with graves opening and the dead rising, with a heaven filled with angels and a hell filled with devils", a motif that has permeated the observance of this triduum. One of the earliest works on the subject of Halloween is from Scottish poet John Mayne, who, in 1780, made note of pranks at Halloween; ""What fearfu' pranks ensue!"", as well as the supernatural associated with the night, ""Bogies"" (ghosts), influencing Robert Burns' "Halloween" (1785). Elements of the autumn season, such as pumpkins, corn husks, and scarecrows, are also prevalent. Homes are often decorated with these types of symbols around Halloween. Halloween imagery includes themes of death, evil, and mythical monsters. Black, orange, and sometimes purple are Halloween's traditional colors.
Trick-or-treating is a customary celebration for children on Halloween. Children go in costume from house to house, asking for treats such as candy or sometimes money, with the question, "Trick or treat?" The word "trick" implies a "threat" to perform mischief on the homeowners or their property if no treat is given. The practice is said to have roots in the medieval practice of mumming, which is closely related to souling. John Pymm wrote that "many of the feast days associated with the presentation of mumming plays were celebrated by the Christian Church." These feast days included All Hallows' Eve, Christmas, Twelfth Night and Shrove Tuesday. Mumming practiced in Germany, Scandinavia and other parts of Europe, involved masked persons in fancy dress who "paraded the streets and entered houses to dance or play dice in silence".
In England, from the medieval period, up until the 1930s, people practiced the Christian custom of souling on Halloween, which involved groups of soulers, both Protestant and Catholic, going from parish to parish, begging the rich for soul cakes, in exchange for praying for the souls of the givers and their friends. In the Philippines, the practice of souling is called Pangangaluwa and is practiced on All Hallow's Eve among children in rural areas. People drape themselves in white cloths to represent souls and then visit houses, where they sing in return for prayers and sweets.
In Scotland and Ireland, guising – children disguised in costume going from door to door for food or coins – is a traditional Halloween custom, and is recorded in Scotland at Halloween in 1895 where masqueraders in disguise carrying lanterns made out of scooped out turnips, visit homes to be rewarded with cakes, fruit, and money. The practice of guising at Halloween in North America is first recorded in 1911, where a newspaper in Kingston, Ontario, Canada reported children going "guising" around the neighborhood.
American historian and author Ruth Edna Kelley of Massachusetts wrote the first book-length history of Halloween in the US; "" (1919), and references souling in the chapter "Hallowe'en in America". In her book, Kelley touches on customs that arrived from across the Atlantic; "Americans have fostered them, and are making this an occasion something like what it must have been in its best days overseas. All Halloween customs in the United States are borrowed directly or adapted from those of other countries".
While the first reference to "guising" in North America occurs in 1911, another reference to ritual begging on Halloween appears, place unknown, in 1915, with a third reference in Chicago in 1920. The earliest known use in print of the term "trick or treat" appears in 1927, in the "Blackie Herald" Alberta, Canada.
The thousands of Halloween postcards produced between the turn of the 20th century and the 1920s commonly show children but not trick-or-treating. Trick-or-treating does not seem to have become a widespread practice until the 1930s, with the first US appearances of the term in 1934, and the first use in a national publication occurring in 1939.
A popular variant of trick-or-treating, known as trunk-or-treating (or Halloween tailgating), occurs when "children are offered treats from the trunks of cars parked in a church parking lot", or sometimes, a school parking lot. In a trunk-or-treat event, the trunk (boot) of each automobile is decorated with a certain theme, such as those of children's literature, movies, scripture, and job roles. Trunk-or-treating has grown in popularity due to its perception as being more safe than going door to door, a point that resonates well with parents, as well as the fact that it "solves the rural conundrum in which homes [are] built a half-mile apart".
Halloween costumes are traditionally modeled after supernatural figures such as vampires, monsters, ghosts, skeletons, witches, and devils. Over time, the costume selection extended to include popular characters from fiction, celebrities, and generic archetypes such as ninjas and princesses.
Dressing up in costumes and going "guising" was prevalent in Scotland and Ireland at Halloween by the late 19th century. A Scottish term, the tradition is called "guising" because of the disguises or costumes worn by the children. In Ireland the masks are known as 'false faces'. Costuming became popular for Halloween parties in the US in the early 20th century, as often for adults as for children, and when trick-or-treating was becoming popular in Canada and the US in the 1920s and 1930s.
Eddie J. Smith, in his book "Halloween, Hallowed is Thy Name", offers a religious perspective to the wearing of costumes on All Hallows' Eve, suggesting that by dressing up as creatures "who at one time caused us to fear and tremble", people are able to poke fun at Satan "whose kingdom has been plundered by our Saviour". Images of skeletons and the dead are traditional decorations used as "memento mori".
"Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF" is a fundraising program to support UNICEF, a United Nations Programme that provides humanitarian aid to children in developing countries. Started as a local event in a Northeast Philadelphia neighborhood in 1950 and expanded nationally in 1952, the program involves the distribution of small boxes by schools (or in modern times, corporate sponsors like Hallmark, at their licensed stores) to trick-or-treaters, in which they can solicit small-change donations from the houses they visit. It is estimated that children have collected more than $118 million for UNICEF since its inception. In Canada, in 2006, UNICEF decided to discontinue their Halloween collection boxes, citing safety and administrative concerns; after consultation with schools, they instead redesigned the program.
According to a 2018 report from the National Retail Federation, 30 million Americans will spend an estimated $480 million on Halloween costumes for their pets in 2018. This is up from an estimated $200 million in 2010. The most popular costumes for pets are the pumpkin, followed by the hot dog, and the bumble bee in third place.
There are several games traditionally associated with Halloween. Some of these games originated as divination rituals or ways of foretelling one's future, especially regarding death, marriage and children. During the Middle Ages, these rituals were done by a "rare few" in rural communities as they were considered to be "deadly serious" practices. In recent centuries, these divination games have been "a common feature of the household festivities" in Ireland and Britain. They often involve apples and hazelnuts. In Celtic mythology, apples were strongly associated with the Otherworld and immortality, while hazelnuts were associated with divine wisdom. Some also suggest that they derive from Roman practices in celebration of Pomona.
The following activities were a common feature of Halloween in Ireland and Britain during the 17th–20th centuries. Some have become more widespread and continue to be popular today.
One common game is apple bobbing or dunking (which may be called "dooking" in Scotland) in which apples float in a tub or a large basin of water and the participants must use only their teeth to remove an apple from the basin. A variant of dunking involves kneeling on a chair, holding a fork between the teeth and trying to drive the fork into an apple. Another common game involves hanging up treacle or syrup-coated scones by strings; these must be eaten without using hands while they remain attached to the string, an activity that inevitably leads to a sticky face. Another once-popular game involves hanging a small wooden rod from the ceiling at head height, with a lit candle on one end and an apple hanging from the other. The rod is spun round and everyone takes turns to try to catch the apple with their teeth.
Several of the traditional activities from Ireland and Britain involve foretelling one's future partner or spouse. An apple would be peeled in one long strip, then the peel tossed over the shoulder. The peel is believed to land in the shape of the first letter of the future spouse's name. Two hazelnuts would be roasted near a fire; one named for the person roasting them and the other for the person they desire. If the nuts jump away from the heat, it is a bad sign, but if the nuts roast quietly it foretells a good match. A salty oatmeal bannock would be baked; the person would eat it in three bites and then go to bed in silence without anything to drink. This is said to result in a dream in which their future spouse offers them a drink to quench their thirst. Unmarried women were told that if they sat in a darkened room and gazed into a mirror on Halloween night, the face of their future husband would appear in the mirror. However, if they were destined to die before marriage, a skull would appear. The custom was widespread enough to be commemorated on greeting cards from the late 19th century and early 20th century.
In Ireland and Scotland, items would be hidden in food – usually a cake, barmbrack, cranachan, champ or colcannon – and portions of it served out at random. A person's future would be foretold by the item they happened to find; for example, a ring meant marriage and a coin meant wealth.
Up until the 19th century, the Halloween bonfires were also used for divination in parts of Scotland, Wales and Brittany. When the fire died down, a ring of stones would be laid in the ashes, one for each person. In the morning, if any stone was mislaid it was said that the person it represented would not live out the year.
Telling ghost stories and watching horror films are common fixtures of Halloween parties. Episodes of television series and Halloween-themed specials (with the specials usually aimed at children) are commonly aired on or before Halloween, while new horror films are often released before Halloween to take advantage of the holiday.
Haunted attractions are entertainment venues designed to thrill and scare patrons. Most attractions are seasonal Halloween businesses that may include haunted houses, corn mazes, and hayrides, and the level of sophistication of the effects has risen as the industry has grown.
The first recorded purpose-built haunted attraction was the Orton and Spooner Ghost House, which opened in 1915 in Liphook, England. This attraction actually most closely resembles a carnival fun house, powered by steam. The House still exists, in the Hollycombe Steam Collection.
It was during the 1930s, about the same time as trick-or-treating, that Halloween-themed haunted houses first began to appear in America. It was in the late 1950s that haunted houses as a major attraction began to appear, focusing first on California. Sponsored by the Children's Health Home Junior Auxiliary, the San Mateo Haunted House opened in 1957. The San Bernardino Assistance League Haunted House opened in 1958. Home haunts began appearing across the country during 1962 and 1963. In 1964, the San Manteo Haunted House opened, as well as the Children's Museum Haunted House in Indianapolis.
The haunted house as an American cultural icon can be attributed to the opening of the Haunted Mansion in Disneyland on 12 August 1969. Knott's Berry Farm began hosting its own Halloween night attraction, Knott's Scary Farm, which opened in 1973. Evangelical Christians adopted a form of these attractions by opening one of the first "hell houses" in 1972.
The first Halloween haunted house run by a nonprofit organization was produced in 1970 by the Sycamore-Deer Park Jaycees in Clifton, Ohio. It was cosponsored by WSAI, an AM radio station broadcasting out of Cincinnati, Ohio. It was last produced in 1982. Other Jaycees followed suit with their own versions after the success of the Ohio house. The March of Dimes copyrighted a "Mini haunted house for the March of Dimes" in 1976 and began fundraising through their local chapters by conducting haunted houses soon after. Although they apparently quit supporting this type of event nationally sometime in the 1980s, some March of Dimes haunted houses have persisted until today.
On the evening of 11 May 1984, in Jackson Township, New Jersey, the Haunted Castle (Six Flags Great Adventure) caught fire. As a result of the fire, eight teenagers perished. The backlash to the tragedy was a tightening of regulations relating to safety, building codes and the frequency of inspections of attractions nationwide. The smaller venues, especially the nonprofit attractions, were unable to compete financially, and the better funded commercial enterprises filled the vacuum. Facilities that were once able to avoid regulation because they were considered to be temporary installations now had to adhere to the stricter codes required of permanent attractions.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, theme parks entered the business seriously. Six Flags Fright Fest began in 1986 and Universal Studios Florida began Halloween Horror Nights in 1991. Knott's Scary Farm experienced a surge in attendance in the 1990s as a result of America's obsession with Halloween as a cultural event. Theme parks have played a major role in globalizing the holiday. Universal Studios Singapore and Universal Studios Japan both participate, while Disney now mounts Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party events at its parks in Paris, Hong Kong and Tokyo, as well as in the United States. The theme park haunts are by far the largest, both in scale and attendance.
On All Hallows' Eve, many Western Christian denominations encourage abstinence from meat, giving rise to a variety of vegetarian foods associated with this day.
Because in the Northern Hemisphere Halloween comes in the wake of the yearly apple harvest, candy apples (known as toffee apples outside North America), caramel apples or taffy apples are common Halloween treats made by rolling whole apples in a sticky sugar syrup, sometimes followed by rolling them in nuts.
At one time, candy apples were commonly given to trick-or-treating children, but the practice rapidly waned in the wake of widespread rumors that some individuals were embedding items like pins and razor blades in the apples in the United States. While there is evidence of such incidents, relative to the degree of reporting of such cases, actual cases involving malicious acts are extremely rare and have never resulted in serious injury. Nonetheless, many parents assumed that such heinous practices were rampant because of the mass media. At the peak of the hysteria, some hospitals offered free X-rays of children's Halloween hauls in order to find evidence of tampering. Virtually all of the few known candy poisoning incidents involved parents who poisoned their own children's candy.
One custom that persists in modern-day Ireland is the baking (or more often nowadays, the purchase) of a barmbrack (), which is a light fruitcake, into which a plain ring, a coin, and other charms are placed before baking. It is considered fortunate to be the lucky one who finds it. It has also been said that those who get a ring will find their true love in the ensuing year. This is similar to the tradition of king cake at the festival of Epiphany.
List of foods associated with Halloween:
On Hallowe'en (All Hallows' Eve), in Poland, believers were once taught to pray out loud as they walk through the forests in order that the souls of the dead might find comfort; in Spain, Christian priests in tiny villages toll their church bells in order to remind their congregants to remember the dead on All Hallows' Eve. In Ireland, and among immigrants in Canada, a custom includes the Christian practice of abstinence, keeping All Hallows' Eve as a meat-free day, and serving pancakes or colcannon instead. In Mexico children make an altar to invite the return of the spirits of dead children ("angelitos").
The Christian Church traditionally observed Hallowe'en through a vigil. Worshippers prepared themselves for feasting on the following All Saints' Day with prayers and fasting. This church service is known as the "Vigil of All Hallows" or the "Vigil of All Saints"; an initiative known as "Night of Light" seeks to further spread the "Vigil of All Hallows" throughout Christendom. After the service, "suitable festivities and entertainments" often follow, as well as a visit to the graveyard or cemetery, where flowers and candles are often placed in preparation for All Hallows' Day. In Finland, because so many people visit the cemeteries on All Hallows' Eve to light votive candles there, they "are known as "valomeri", or seas of light".
Today, Christian attitudes towards Halloween are diverse. In the Anglican Church, some dioceses have chosen to emphasize the Christian traditions associated with All Hallow's Eve. Some of these practices include praying, fasting and attending worship services.
Other Protestant Christians also celebrate All Hallows' Eve as Reformation Day, a day to remember the Protestant Reformation, alongside All Hallow's Eve or independently from it. This is because Martin Luther is said to have nailed his "Ninety-five Theses" to All Saints' Church in Wittenberg on All Hallows' Eve. Often, "Harvest Festivals" or "Reformation Festivals" are held on All Hallows' Eve, in which children dress up as Bible characters or Reformers. In addition to distributing candy to children who are trick-or-treating on Hallowe'en, many Christians also provide gospel tracts to them. One organization, the American Tract Society, stated that around 3 million gospel tracts are ordered from them alone for Hallowe'en celebrations. Others order Halloween-themed "Scripture Candy" to pass out to children on this day.
Some Christians feel concerned about the modern celebration of Halloween because they feel it trivializes – or celebrates – paganism, the occult, or other practices and cultural phenomena deemed incompatible with their beliefs. Father Gabriele Amorth, an exorcist in Rome, has said, "if English and American children like to dress up as witches and devils on one night of the year that is not a problem. If it is just a game, there is no harm in that." In more recent years, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston has organized a "Saint Fest" on Halloween. Similarly, many contemporary Protestant churches view Halloween as a fun event for children, holding events in their churches where children and their parents can dress up, play games, and get candy for free. To these Christians, Halloween holds no threat to the spiritual lives of children: being taught about death and mortality, and the ways of the Celtic ancestors actually being a valuable life lesson and a part of many of their parishioners' heritage. Christian minister Sam Portaro wrote that Halloween is about using "humor and ridicule to confront the power of death".
In the Roman Catholic Church, Halloween's Christian connection is acknowledged, and Halloween celebrations are common in many Catholic parochial schools. Many fundamentalist and evangelical churches use "Hell houses" and comic-style tracts in order to make use of Halloween's popularity as an opportunity for evangelism. Others consider Halloween to be completely incompatible with the Christian faith due to its putative origins in the Festival of the Dead celebration. Indeed, even though Eastern Orthodox Christians observe All Hallows' Day on the First Sunday after Pentecost, The Eastern Orthodox Church recommends the observance of Vespers or a Paraklesis on the Western observance of All Hallows' Eve, out of the pastoral need to provide an alternative to popular celebrations.
According to Alfred J. Kolatch in the "Second Jewish Book of Why", in Judaism, Halloween is not permitted by Jewish Halakha because it violates Leviticus 18:3, which forbids Jews from partaking in gentile customs. Many Jews observe Yizkor communally four times a year, which is vaguely similar to the observance of Allhallowtide in Christianity, in the sense that prayers are said for both "martyrs and for one's own family". Nevertheless, many American Jews celebrate Halloween, disconnected from its Christian origins. Reform Rabbi Jeffrey Goldwasser has said that "There is no religious reason why contemporary Jews should not celebrate Halloween" while Orthodox Rabbi Michael Broyde has argued against Jews' observing the holiday. Jews do have the holiday of Purim, where the children dress up in costumes to celebrate.
Sheikh Idris Palmer, author of "A Brief Illustrated Guide to Understanding Islam", has argued that Muslims should not participate in Halloween, stating that "participation in Halloween is worse than participation in Christmas, Easter, ... it is more sinful than congratulating the Christians for their prostration to the crucifix". Javed Memon, a Muslim writer, has disagreed, saying that his "daughter dressing up like a British telephone booth will not destroy her faith as a Muslim".
Hindus remember the dead during the festival of Pitru Paksha, during which Hindus pay homage to and perform a ceremony "to keep the souls of their ancestors at rest". It is celebrated in the Hindu month of Bhadrapada, usually in mid-September. The celebration of the Hindu festival Diwali sometimes conflicts with the date of Halloween; but some Hindus choose to participate in the popular customs of Halloween. Other Hindus, such as Soumya Dasgupta, have opposed the celebration on the grounds that Western holidays like Halloween have "begun to adversely affect our indigenous festivals".
There is no consistent rule or view on Halloween amongst those who describe themselves as Neopagans or Wiccans. Some Neopagans do not observe Halloween, but instead observe Samhain on 1 November, some neopagans do enjoy Halloween festivities, stating that one can observe both "the solemnity of Samhain in addition to the fun of Halloween". Some neopagans are opposed to the celebration of Hallowe'en, stating that it "trivializes Samhain", and "avoid Halloween, because of the interruptions from trick or treaters". "The Manitoban" writes that "Wiccans don't officially celebrate Halloween, despite the fact that 31 Oct. will still have a star beside it in any good Wiccan's day planner. Starting at sundown, Wiccans celebrate a holiday known as Samhain. Samhain actually comes from old Celtic traditions and is not exclusive to Neopagan religions like Wicca. While the traditions of this holiday originate in Celtic countries, modern day Wiccans don't try to historically replicate Samhain celebrations. Some traditional Samhain rituals are still practised, but at its core, the period is treated as a time to celebrate darkness and the dead – a possible reason why Samhain can be confused with Halloween celebrations."
The traditions and importance of Halloween vary greatly among countries that observe it. In Scotland and Ireland, traditional Halloween customs include children dressing up in costume going "guising", holding parties, while other practices in Ireland include lighting bonfires, and having firework displays. In Brittany children would play practical jokes by setting candles inside skulls in graveyards to frighten visitors. Mass transatlantic immigration in the 19th century popularized Halloween in North America, and celebration in the United States and Canada has had a significant impact on how the event is observed in other nations. This larger North American influence, particularly in iconic and commercial elements, has extended to places such as Ecuador, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, (most) continental Europe, Japan, and other parts of East Asia. In the Philippines, during Halloween, Filipinos return to their hometowns and purchase candles and flowers, in preparation for the following All Saints Day ("Araw ng mga Patay") on 1 November and All Souls Day – though it falls on 2 November, most of them observe it on the day before. In Mexico and Latin America in general, it is referred to as " Día de Muertos " which translates in English to "Day of the dead". Most of the people from Latin America construct altars in their homes to honor their deceased relatives and they decorate them with flowers and candies and other offerings.
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Hayling Island
Hayling Island is an island off the south coast of England, in the borough of Havant in the county of Hampshire, east of Portsmouth.
An Iron Age shrine in the north of Hayling Island was later developed into a Roman temple in the 1st century BC and was first recorded in Richard Scott's "Topographical and Historical Account of Hayling Island", published in 1826. The site was excavated between 1897 and 1907 and again from 1976 to 1978. Remains are no longer visible and are buried beneath cultivated farmland. The first coin credited to Commius that was found in an excavated context was found at the temple. This Commius was probably the son of the Commius mentioned by Julius Caesar in his writings although its possible the coin was issued by the original Commius.
Salt production was an industry on the island from the 11th century (the Domesday Book records a saltpan on the island for this purpose) until the late 19th century.
Construction of Northwode Chapel by the monks of Jumièges, Normandy, began in about 1140; this became the present St Peter's Church and is now the oldest surviving church on the island. It has been claimed that St Peter's three bells, cast in about 1350, have one of the oldest peals in England. St Mary's Church is a standard design of the churches of its era, but upon close examination, the walls have been constructed from a mortar of local shells and beach pebbles. The ancient yew tree in the churchyard is believed to be the oldest yew in the country, with a girth of some . Although estimates as to its age vary, they range from over a thousand to nearly two thousand years old.
The grave of Princess Yourievsky (1878–1959) who was a member of the ill-fated Russian Royal family and who lived in North Hayling for many years, may be found in St. Peter's churchyard; and the grave of Scotsman George Glas Sandeman, nephew of the founder of Sandeman Port and second head of that company, is prominently featured in the north-east part of St. Mary's graveyard.
The island was the location of a mock invasion during the military Exercise Fabius in May 1944, rehearsing the preparations for D-Day.
In 1982, British courts recognised prior art by Peter Chilvers, who as a young boy on Hayling Island assembled his first board combined with a sail, in 1958. It incorporated all the elements of modern windsurfer. The courts found that later innovations were "merely an obvious extension" and upheld the defendant's claim based on film footage. This court case set a significant precedent for patent law in the United Kingdom, in terms of Inventive step and non-obviousness. The case, Chilvers, Hayling, and a replica of Chilvers' original board were featured on an episode of the BBC's The One Show in 2009.
On 20 October 2013, at least one hundred properties on the island were damaged when it was hit by a tornado. No injuries were reported.
Hayling Island is a true island, completely surrounded by sea. Looking at its north to south orientation, it is shaped like an inverted T, about long and wide. A road bridge connects its northern end to the mainland of England at Langstone. The Hayling Ferry is a small pedestrian ferry connecting to the Eastney area of the city of Portsmouth on the neighbouring Portsea Island. To the west is Langstone Harbour and to the east is Chichester Harbour.
The natural beach at Hayling was predominantly sandy, but in recent years it has been mechanically topped with shingle dredged from the bed of the Solent in an effort to reduce beach erosion and reduce the potential to flood low-lying land. At low tide, the East Winner sandbank is visible, extending a mile out to sea. The coastline in this area has substantially changed since Roman times: it is believed much land has been lost from the coasts of Hayling and Selsey by erosion and subsequent flooding.
As with the rest of the British Isles and Southern England, Hayling Island experiences a maritime climate with cool summers and mild winters. Temperatures have never fallen into double figures below freezing, illustrating the relative warmth of the island – comparable to the far southwest of England and its neighbour, the Isle of Wight. Temperature extremes between 1960 and 2010 have ranged from during January 1963, up to during June 1976.
Hayling Island has a non-League football club, Hayling United F.C., which plays at Hayling Park.
Although largely residential, Hayling is also a holiday, windsurfing and sailing centre, the site where windsurfing was invented.
In summer 2010, the Hayling Island Sailing Club hosted the 2010 World Laser Standard Senior and Junior Championships (27 August – 5 September). The Senior championship was won by Australian Tom Slingsby, whilst Dane Thorbjoern Schierup won the Junior competition. Today it is home to many different types of sailing, including a growing Fireball fleet.
As a consequence of the island's popularity for water activities, there are two lifeboat services: Hayling Island Lifeboat Station, run by the RNLI and Hayling Island Rescue Service, an independent service run by retired RNLI helmsman, Frank Dunster.
The island hosts one of the few active Real Tennis courts in the UK. Founded in 1911, Seacourt Tennis club is one of only a handful in the UK where it is possible to play every recognised racquet sport. The racquets court itself was opened by Sir Colin Cowdrey.
Seacourt Tennis Club also hosts a weekly fencing club featuring all ages, levels and weapons.
Hayling Golf Club has been voted in the top 100 golf courses in the UK. A traditional links course, although relatively short by modern standards, the strong prevailing south-westerly winds, fast greens, gorse bushes and traditional deep links bunkers make this a stern test for any golfer.
Funland, an amusement park situated at Beachlands, is open year-round, as is the East Hayling Light Railway which runs from the funfair to Eastoke corner.
The Hayling Billy Trail is a former light rail right-of-way which has been converted to one of many footpaths on the island. The Ordnance Survey Explorer 120 map covers the area and the local tourist information office supplies leaflets of local interest walks.
The Station Theatre hosts a variety of plays staged by the Hayling Island Amateur Dramatics Society, Hayling Musical Society, musical events and films throughout the year.
The island has several churches of different denominations including 3 Anglican churches; St Peter's at Northney, St Mary's at Gable Head and the more recently built St Andrew's in South Hayling.
Until March 2015, Hayling Ferry linked Portsmouth and Hayling Island. The ferry was busy in summer in good weather, bringing tourists and cyclists to Hayling. In winter, there was a significant reduction of use. The ferry service to and from Portsea Island was subsidised by the local authorities, leaving it under constant threat of closure due to limited resources. The ferry service ceased when the company running the ferry went into administration in March 2015. It was reopened in August 2016 by Baker Trayte Marine Ltd.
During the ferry's closure, the only public connection between Hayling Island and the mainland was the single carriageway road linking Northney to Langstone, Havant. In summer, in particular, this road can become very congested rendering the journey between the bridge and South Hayling (the most populated area) anything from 30 minutes to an hour. A proposed Millennium project to create a new shared pedestrian and cycle bridge was unsuccessful.
A railway to the island was active in the 19th and 20th centuries. It opened on 17 July 1867, coinciding with the local races. Terrier steam locomotives pulled carriages along the Hayling Billy Line from Havant Station on the mainland to a station which was located at the northern end of Staunton Avenue, passing through Langstone where there was a Halt. The railway was popular with tourists throughout the summer, though it saw little service in winter, and at peak times ran up to 24 services per day. Despite its popularity, the line was marked for closure in the Beeching Report due to the prohibitive cost of replacing Langstone Bridge that connected the island to the mainland, estimated at up to £400,000 to repair. Services ended on 3 November 1963, and the bridge was demolished in 1966. The remaining railway buildings, a goods shed, has now been converted into a theatre which is run by HIADS., a station, opposite the ship inn over the bridge. There was a railway gates house, located opposite Mill Lane but was burned down on 15 November 2018; there is no other building thought to exist.
A tourist attraction – the East Hayling Light Railway – is a gauge railway that runs for just over from Beachlands Station to Eastoke Corner with aspirations to extend the route to Ferry Point within the next few years.
The nearest railway station to Hayling Island is Havant, just onto the mainland off Hayling Island. Alternatively, Portsmouth & Southsea is another railway station, used for connections to Bristol Temple Meads and Cardiff.
Oysters have been fished on the Hayling oysterbeds, at the northwest corner of the island, from as long ago as Roman times, documented in town records since 1615. The oysters were actively farmed between as early as 1819 until the 1970s. Oysters became a delicacy that was exported throughout the country under the classification of "Emsworth Oysters". Large complexes consisting of several pens separated by a series of bund walls and sluice gates were built to contain the oysters at varying stages of growth. Although large sections of the walls have since collapsed into the harbour, much of shape and scale of the beds can still be seen today.
In 1996, the oyster beds on the north west coast of Hayling Island were restored by the Havant Borough Council, creating a wildlife haven which has become an important seabird breeding site. The Design Council awarded this project 'Millennium Product' status for the renovation.
The island is the home of the Hayling Charity Cycle Ride which organises an annual charity cycle ride most often from Hayling Island to Paris and back . This event, run entirely by local unpaid volunteers, was started in 1986 by local cyclist Peter McQuade and has been run every year since. Up to 2018, over £1,700,000 had been collected for more than 500 good causes. Entrants have come from 15 different countries on five continents.
In the mid- to late twentieth century, Hayling Island's population was known to double during the summer months, due to a large influx of holiday makers and the associated tourism employees to accommodate. As domestic holidays have declined and Hayling's prominence as a traditional English seaside resort have followed in parallel, the population only swells by approximately 20%–25% (English Tourist Board estimate, 2001).
The island's place-names are discussed in an online work by Richard Coates (2007).
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Hahn–Banach theorem
The Hahn–Banach theorem is a central tool in functional analysis (a field of mathematics).
It allows the extension of bounded linear functionals defined on a subspace of some vector space to the whole space, and it also shows that there are "enough" continuous linear functionals defined on every normed vector space to make the study of the dual space "interesting".
Another version of the Hahn–Banach theorem is known as the Hahn–Banach separation theorem or the hyperplane separation theorem, and has numerous uses in convex geometry.
The theorem is named for the mathematicians Hans Hahn and Stefan Banach, who proved it independently in the late 1920s.
The special case of the theorem for the space formula_1 of continuous functions on an interval was proved earlier (in 1912) by Eduard Helly, and a more general extension theorem, the M. Riesz extension theorem, from which the Hahn–Banach theorem can be derived, was proved in 1923 by Marcel Riesz.
The first Hahn-Banach theorem was proved by Eduard Helly in 1921 who showed that certain linear functionals defined on a subspace of a certain type of normed space (formula_2) had an extension of the same norm.
Helly did this through the technique of first proving that a one-dimensional extension exists (where the linear functional has its domain extended by one dimension) and then using induction.
In 1927, Hahn defined general Banach spaces and used Helly's technique to prove a norm preserving version of Hahn-Banach theorem for Banach spaces (where a bounded linear functional on a subspace has a bounded linear extension of the same norm to the whole space).
In 1929, Banach, who was unaware of Hahn's result, generalized it by replacing the norm-preserving version with the dominated extension version that uses sublinear functionals.
Whereas Helly's proof used mathematical induction, Hahn and Banach both used transfinite induction.
The Hahn-Banach theorem arose from attempts to solve infinite systems of linear equations.
This is needed to solve problems such as the moment problem, whereby given all the potential moments of a function one must determine if a function having these moments exists and if so then find it.
Another such problem is the Fourier cosine series problem, whereby given all the potential Fourier cosine coefficients one must determine if a function having those coefficients exists and if so then find it.
Riesz and Helly solved the problem for certain classes of spaces (such as L"p"([0, 1]) and C(["a", "b"])) where they discovered that the existence of a solution was equivalent to the existence and continuity of certain linear functionals.
In effect, they needed to solve the following problem:
To solve this, if "X" is reflexive then it suffices to solve the following dual problem:
Riesz went on to define L"p"([0, 1]) (1 < "p" < ∞) in 1910 and the l"p" spaces in 1913.
While investing these spaces he proved a special case of the Hahn-Banach theorem.
Helly also proved a special case of the Hahn-Banach theorem in 1912.
In 1910, Riesz solved the functional problem for some specific spaces and in 1912, Helly solved it for a more general class of spaces.
It wasn't until 1932 that Banach, in one of the first important applications of the Hahn-Banach theorem, solved the general functional problem.
The following theorem states the general functional problem and characterizes its solution.
Theorem (The functional problem): Let "X" be a real or complex normed space, "I" a non-empty set, formula_4 a family of scalars, and formula_5 a family of vectors. Then there exists a continuous linear functional "f" on "X" such that "f"("x""i") = "c""i" for all "i" ∈ "I" if and only if there exists a "K" > 0 such that for any choice of scalars formula_9 where all but finitely many "s""i" are 0, we necessarily have
One can use the above theorem to deduce the Hahn-Banach theorem.
If "X" is reflexive, then this theorem solves the vector problem.
The most general formulation of the theorem needs some preparation. Given a real vector space , a function is called sublinear if
Every seminorm on (in particular, every norm on ) and every linear functional on "X" is sublinear.
Other sublinear functions can be useful as well, especially Minkowski functionals of convex sets.
If "f" is a linear functional on a topological vector space (TVS) "X" (e.g. a normed space) and if "p" is a "continuous" sublinear functional on "X" then |"f"| ≤ "p" implies that "f" is continuous.
If "f" is a real-valued linear functional and "p" is a seminorm (not just a sublinear functional) then "f" ≤ "p" implies that |"f"| ≤ p.
If "f"("x") = "R"("x") + "i" "I"("x") is a complex-valued linear functional on a complex vector space "X" then "I"("x") = - "R"("ix") for all "x" ∈ "X", so that "I" is completely determined by "f"'s real part "R", which we will also denote by Re "f", and this in turn implies that "f" is entirely determined by "R".
In particular, it follows that "f" is bounded (resp. continuous) if and only if "R" is bounded (resp. continuous).
If "S" is a subset of "X" and if "f" : "S" → R is a function then we say that dominates on "S" if "f"("s") ≤ "p"("s") for all "s" ∈ "S".
We call a function "F" : "X" → R and extension of "f" to "X" if "F"("s") = "f"("s") for all "s" ∈ "S";
if in addition "F" is a linear map then we call "F" a linear extension of "f".
The general template for the various versions of the Hahn-Banach theorem presented in this article is as follows:
Sometimes "X" is assumed to have additional structure, such as a topology or a norm, but many of the statements are purely algebraic.
We may apply a purely algebraic version of this theorem to the case where "X" is a topological vector space (TVS) (e.g. a normed space) as follows:
by choosing "p" to be continuous, the inequality |"F"| ≤ "p" allows us to conclude that "F" is necessarily continuous.
(As a side note, if "p" is continuous then the assumption "|"f"| ≤ "p" on "M"" also allows us to conclude that "f" is continuous).
Some of the statements are given only for real vector spaces or only real-valued linear functionals while others are given for real or complex vector spaces.
One may apply a result that applies only to real-valued linear functionals to the complex case by recalling that a complex-valued linear functional "c"("x") = "R"("x") + "i" "I"("x") is continuous if and only if its real part, "R", is continuous and that furthermore, the real part "R" completely determines the imaginary part "I" and thus completely determines "c".
The sublinear functional "p" is always real-valued (although it could possibly take on negative values if it is not assumed to be positive).
If "X" is assumed to be a real (resp. complex) vector space then all linear functionals are assumed to be real-valued (resp. complex-valued).
If the linear functional "f" is real-valued then you'll often see the condition "f" ≤ "p" whereas if "f" is complex-valued then you're more likely to see |"f"| ≤ "p" or Re "f" ≤ "p".
Sometimes a functional is assumed to be bounded and other times it is assumed to be continuous.
If "X" a is pseudometrizable TVS (e.g. a metrizable TVS or a normed space) then a linear map from "X" into any other TVS is continuous if and only if it is a bounded map (i.e. it maps bounded subsets of "X" to bounded subsets of the codomain).
In particular, a linear functional on a normed or Banach space is continuous if and only if it is bounded.
The following lemma is fundamental to proving the general Hahn-Banach theorem and its basic prove first appeared in a 1912 paper by Helly where it was proved for the space C(["a", "b"]).
Lemma (One-dimensional dominated extension theorem): Let "X" be a real vector space, a sublinear function, a linear functional on a proper vector subspace such that "f" ≤ "p" on "M" (i.e. "f"("m") ≤ "p"("m") for all "m" ∈ "M"), and "x" ∈ "X" an vector "not" in "M". There exists a linear extension of to "M" ⊕ ℝ"x" = span { "M", "x" } such that "F" ≤ "p" on "M" ⊕ ℝ"x".
To prove this lemma, one first shows that for all "m", "n" ∈ "M",
-"p"(- "x" - "n") - "f"("n") ≤ "p"("m" + "x") - "f"("m")
which allows us to define:
from which we conclude "the decisive inequality" that for any "c" ∈ ["a", "b"],
For any "m" + "rx" ∈ "M" ⊕ ℝ"x", one then defines "F"("m" + "rx") := "f"("m") + "rc", which gives us the desired extension.
Hahn–Banach dominated extension theorem:. If is a sublinear function, and is a linear functional on a linear subspace which is dominated by on , then there exists a linear extension of to the whole space that is dominated by "p", i.e., there exists a linear functional such that
Hahn–Banach theorem (alternative version). Set or and let be a -vector space with a seminorm . If is a -linear functional on a -linear subspace of which is dominated by on in absolute value,
then there exists a linear extension of to the whole space , i.e., there exists a -linear functional such that
In the complex case of the alternate version, the -linearity assumptions demand, in addition to the assumptions for the real case, that for every vector , we have and .
The extension is in general not uniquely specified by and the proof gives no explicit method as to how to find .
The usual proof for the case of an infinite dimensional space uses Zorn's lemma or, equivalently, the axiom of choice.
It is now known (see below) that the ultrafilter lemma, which is slightly weaker than the axiom of choice, is actually strong enough.
It is possible to relax slightly the subadditivity condition on , requiring only that (Reed and Simon, 1980):
It is further possible to relax the positive homogeneity and the subadditivity conditions on , requiring only that is convex (Schechter, 1996).
This reveals the intimate connection between the Hahn–Banach theorem and convexity.
The Mizar project has completely formalized and automatically checked the proof of the Hahn–Banach theorem in the HAHNBAN file.
Theorem: If "p" is a sublinear functional on a real vector space "X" then there exists a linear functional "f" on "X" such that "f" ≤ "p" on "X".
Theorem: Let "p" be a sublinear functional on a real vector space "X" and let "z" ∈ "X". Then there exists a linear functional "f" on "X" such that
"f"("z") = "p"("z");
-"p"(-"x") ≤ "f"("x") ≤ "p"("x") for all "x" ∈ "X";
if "p" is a seminorm then | "f" | ≤ "p".
If "X" is a TVS and "p" is continuous at 0, then "f" is continuous.
The theorem has several important consequences, some of which are also sometimes called "Hahn–Banach theorem":
For normed spaces we have the following results:
Hahn–Banach separation theorems are the geometrical versions of the Hahn–Banach Theorem.
They have numerous uses in convex geometry, optimization theory, and economics.
The separation theorem is derived from the original form of the theorem.
Let "X" be a real vector space, "A" and "B" non-empty subsets of "X", "f" ≠ 0 a real linear functional on "X", "s" a scalar, and let formula_20.
We also define the lower (resp. upper) half space to be { "x" ∈ "X" : "f"("x") ≤ "s" } (resp. { "x" ∈ "X" : "f"("x") ≥ "s" }).
We define the strict lower (resp. strict upper) half space to be { "x" ∈ "X" : "f"("x") < "s" } (resp. { "x" ∈ "X" : "f"("x") > "s" }).
We say that we say that "H" (or "f") separates "A" and "B" if sup "f"("A") ≤ "s" ≤ inf "f"("B") or equivalently, if "f"("a") ≤ "s" ≤ "f"("b") for all "a" ∈ "A" and "b" ∈ "B".
The separation is:
proper if formula_21;
strict if "A" ∩ "H" = ∅ and "B" ∩ "H" = ∅ or equivalently, if "f"("a") < "s" < "f"("b") for all "a" ∈ "A" and "b" ∈ "B" (note that some authors define "strict" to mean that "A" ∩ "H" = ∅ "or" "B" ∩ "H" = ∅);
strong and we say that "A" and "B" are strongly separated by "H" if there exists an "r" > 0 such that "f"("a") ≤ "s" - "r" < "s" + "r" ≤ "f"("b") for all "a" ∈ "A" and "b" ∈ "B".
Note that "A" and "B" are separated (resp. strictly separated, strongly separated) if and only if the same is true of { 0 } and "B" - "A".
If "A" and "B" are convex then they are strongly separated by a hyperplane if and only if there exists an absorbing convex "U" such that ("A" + "U") ∩ "B" = ∅.
We say that "A" and "B" are united if they cannot be properly separated.
If "a"0 ∈ "A" and "H" separates "A" and { "a"0 } then "H" is called a supporting hyperplane of "A" at "a"0, "a"0 is called a support point of "A", and "f" is called a support functional.
If "A" is convex and "a"0 ∈ "A", then we call "a"0 a smooth point of "A" if there exists a unique hyperplane "H" such that "a"0 ∈ "A" ∩ "H".
We call a normed space "X" smooth if at each point "x" in its unit ball there exists a unique closed hyperplane to the unit ball at "x".
Köthe showed in 1983 that a normed space is smooth at a point "x" if and only if the norm is Gateaux differentiable at that point.
Theorem: Let "X" be a real TVS, "f" a non-0 continuous real-valued linear functional on "X", "s" a real number, "H" = formula_22, and "G" a subset of "X" having non-empty interior. If "G" is a subset of a half space (i.e. either the lower half space or the lower half space) then the closure of "G" also lies in that half space and furthermore, the interior of "G" lies in the corresponding strict half space.
Theorem: Set or and let be a topological vector space over . If are convex non-empty disjoint subsets of , then:
The following theorem may be used if the sets are not necessarily disjoint.
Theorem: Let "X" be a real locally convex topological vector space and let "A" and "B" be non-empty convex subsets. If formula_23 and formula_24 then there exists a continuous formula_25 and such that formula_26 and formula_27 for all formula_28 (such is "f" is necessarily non-zero).
Theorem (Separation of a subspace and an open convex set): Let "M" be a vector subspace of a topological vector space "X" and let "U" be a non-empty open convex subset of "X" that does not intersect "M". Then there exists a continuous linear functional "f" on "X" such that "f"("m") = 0 for all "m" ∈ "M" and Re "f" > 0 on "U", where Re "f" is the real part of "f" (if "f" is real-valued then Re "f" = "f").
The following is the Hahn–Banach separation theorem for a point and a set.
Theorem. Let "X" be a real topological vector space and formula_29 be convex with formula_23. If formula_31 then formula_32 is a support point of "A".
Corollary. Let "X" be a real topological vector space, "A" a non-empty convex open subset of "X", and formula_33. Then there exists a continuous formula_34 such that formula_35 for every "a" ∈ "A".
Theorem: Let "A" and "B" be non-empty disjoint convex subsets of a locally convex topological vector space "X" over the real or compact numbers. If "A" is closed and "B" is compact then they are strongly separated by a closed hyperplane (i.e. there exists a continuous real-valued linear functional "f" on "X" such that sup "f"("A") < inf "f"("B")).
Theorem: Let "U" be a convex balanced neighborhood of 0 in a real or complex locally convex TVS "X" and "z" ∈ "X" be a point not in "U". There exists a continuous real-valued linear functional "f" on "X" such that sup "f"("U") < inf "f"("z")).
Theorem: A real Banach space is reflexive if and only if every pair of non-empty disjoint closed convex subsets, one of which is bounded, can be strictly separated by a hyperplane.
The above separation theorems may be generalized to the following theorems:
Theorem. Let and be non-empty convex subsets of a topological vector space "X".
Hahn-Banach sandwich theorem: Let "S" be any subset of a real vector space "X", let "p" be a sublinear functional on "X", and let "f" : "S" → ℝ be "any" map. If there exist positive numbers "a" and "b" such that for all "x", "y" ∈ "S",
then there exists a linear functional "F" on "X" such that "F" ≤ "p" on "X" and "f" ≤ "F" on "S".
One form of Hahn–Banach theorem is known as the Geometric Hahn–Banach theorem, or Mazur's theorem.
Theorem. Let be a convex set having a nonempty interior in a real normed linear vector space . Suppose is a linear variety in containing no interior points of . Then there is a closed hyperplane in containing but containing no interior points of ; i.e., there is an element and a constant such that formula_46 for all and formula_47 for all .
This can be generalized to an arbitrary topological vector space, which need not be locally convex or even Hausdorff, as:
Theorem. Let be a vector subspace of the topological vector space . Suppose is a non-empty convex open subset of with . Then there is a closed hyperplane in containing with .
The following theorem of Mazur-Orlicz (1953) is equivalent to the Hahn-Banach theorem.
Mazur-Orlicz theorem: Let "T" be any set, "r" : "T" → ℝ be any real-valued map, "X" be a real or complex vector space, "v" : "T" → "X" be any map, and "p" be a sublinear functional on "X". Then the following are equivalent:
there exists a real-valued linear functional "F" on "X" such that "F" ≤ "p" on "X" and "r" ≤ "F" ∘ "v" on "T";
for any positive integer "n", any sequence "s"1, ..., "s""n" of non-negative real numbers, and any sequence "t"1, ..., "t""n" of elements of "T", formula_48
Due to its importance, the Hahn-Banach theorem has been generalized many times.
Theorem (Andenaes, 1970): Let "M" be a vector subspace of a real vector space "X", "p" be a sublinear functional on "X", "f" be a linear functional on "M" such that "f" ≤ p on "M", and let "S" be any subset of "X". Then there exists a linear functional "F" on "X" that extends "f", satisfies "F" ≤ p on "X", and is (pointwise) maximal in the following sense: if "G" is a linear functional on "X" ending "f" and satisfying "G" ≤ p on "X", then "G" ≥ "F" implies that "G" = "F" on "S".
Theorem: Let "X" and "Y" be vector spaces over the same field, "M" be a vector subspace of "X", and "f" : "M" → "Y" be a linear map. Then there exists a linear map "F" : "X" → "Y" that extends "f".
Theorem: Let "M" be a vector subspace of a real or complex vector space "X", let "D" be an absorbing disk in "X", and let "f" be a linear functional on "M" such that |"f"| ≤ 1 on "M" ∩ "D". Then there exists a linear functional "F" on "X" extending "f" such that |"F"| ≤ 1 on "D".
As mentioned earlier, the axiom of choice implies the Hahn–Banach theorem.
The converse is not true. One way to see that is by noting that the ultrafilter lemma (or equivalently, the Boolean prime ideal theorem), which is strictly weaker than the axiom of choice, can be used to show the Hahn–Banach theorem, although the converse is not the case.
The Hahn–Banach theorem is equivalent to the following:
In Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory, one can show that the Hahn–Banach theorem is enough to derive the existence of a non-Lebesgue measurable set. Moreover, the Hahn–Banach theorem implies the Banach–Tarski paradox.
For separable Banach spaces, D. K. Brown and S. G. Simpson proved that the Hahn–Banach theorem follows from WKL0, a weak subsystem of second-order arithmetic that takes a form of Kőnig's lemma restricted to binary trees as an axiom. In fact, they prove that under a weak set of assumptions, the two are equivalent, an example of reverse mathematics.
If is a topological vector space, not necessarily Hausdorff or locally convex, then there exists a non-zero continuous linear form if and only if contains a nonempty, proper, convex, open set .
So if the continuous dual space of , is non-trivial then by considering with the weak topology induced by becomes a locally convex topological vector space with a non-trivial topology that is weaker than original topology on .
If in addition, separates points on (which means that for each there is a linear functional in that's non-zero on ) then with this weak topology becomes Hausdorff.
This sometimes allows some results from locally convex topological vector spaces to be applied to non-Hausdorff and non-locally convex spaces.
Theorem: A topological vector space "X" has a non-trivial continuous dual space if and only if it has a proper convex neighborhood of 0.
Theorem: A "U" be a convex balanced neighborhood of 0 in a locally convex topological vector space "X" and suppose "x" ∈ "X" is not an element of "U". Then there exists a continuous linear functional "f" on "X" such that
We have the following consequence of the Hahn–Banach theorem.
Proposition. Let . Then, if and only if there exists a (complex) measure of bounded variation such that
for all . In addition, , where denotes the total variation of .
The Hahn–Banach theorem is often useful when one wishes to apply the method of a priori estimates.
Suppose that we wish to solve the linear differential equation formula_50 for , with given in some Banach space .
If we have control on the size of in terms of formula_51 and we can think of as a bounded linear functional on some suitable space of test functions , then we can view as a linear functional by adjunction: formula_52.
At first, this functional is only defined on the image of , but using the Hahn–Banach theorem, we can try to extend it to the entire codomain .
We can then reasonably view this functional as a weak solution to the equation.
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Hampshire
Hampshire (, ; postal abbreviation Hants.) is a county in Southern England. The county town is the city of Winchester. Its two largest cities, Southampton and Portsmouth, are administered separately as unitary authorities; the rest of the county is governed by Hampshire County Council.
First settled about 14,000 years ago, Hampshire's history dates to Roman Britain, when its chief town was Winchester. The county was recorded in the 11th century Domesday Book, divided into 44 hundreds. From the 12th century, the ports grew in importance, fuelled by trade with the continent, wool and cloth manufacture in the county, and the fishing industry, and a shipbuilding industry was established. By the 16th century, the population of Southampton had outstripped that of Winchester. By the mid-19th century, with the county's population at 219,210 (double that at the beginning of the century) in more than 86,000 dwellings, agriculture was the principal industry and 10 per cent of the county was still forest. Hampshire played a crucial military role in both World Wars. The Isle of Wight, historically part of Hampshire, became a separate ceremonial county in 1974.
The county's geography is varied, with upland to and mostly south-flowing rivers. There are areas of downland and marsh, and two national parks: the New Forest, and part of the South Downs, which together cover 45 per cent of Hampshire.
Hampshire is one of the most affluent counties in the country, with an unemployment rate lower than the national average, and its economy derived from major companies, maritime, agriculture and tourism. Tourist attractions include many seaside resorts, the national parks and the Southampton Boat Show. The county is known as the home of writers Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. Hampshire is also the childhood home of Florence Nightingale and the birthplace of engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
Hampshire takes its name from the settlement that is now the city of Southampton. Southampton was known in Old English as "Hamtun", roughly meaning "village-town", so its surrounding area or "scīr" became known as "Hamtunscīr". The old name was recorded in the Domesday book as "Hantescire", and from this spelling, the modern abbreviation "Hants" derives. From 1889 until 1959, the administrative county was named the County of Southampton and has also been known as Southamptonshire.
Hampshire was the departure point of some of those who left England to settle on the east coast of North America during the 17th century, giving its name in particular to the state of New Hampshire.
The region is believed to have been continuously occupied since the end of the last Ice Age about 12,000 BCE. At this time, Britain was still attached to the European continent and was predominantly covered with deciduous woodland. The first inhabitants were Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. The majority of the population would have been concentrated around the river valleys. Over several thousand years, the climate became progressively warmer, and sea levels rose; the English Channel, which started out as a river, was a major inlet by 8000 BCE, although Britain was still connected to Europe by a land bridge across the North Sea until 6500 BCE. Notable sites from this period include Bouldnor Cliff.
Agriculture had arrived in southern Britain by 4000 BCE, and with it a neolithic culture. Some deforestation took place at that time, although during the Bronze Age, beginning in 2200 BCE, this became more widespread and systematic. Hampshire has few monuments to show from these early periods, although nearby Stonehenge was built in several phases at some time between 3100 and 2200 BCE. In the very late Bronze Age, fortified hilltop settlements known as hillforts began to appear in large numbers in many parts of Britain including Hampshire, and these became more and more important in the early and middle Iron Age; many of these are still visible in the landscape today and can be visited, notably Danebury Rings, the subject of a major study by archaeologist Barry Cunliffe. By this period, the people of Britain predominantly spoke a Celtic language, and their culture shared much in common with the Celts described by classical writers.
Hillforts largely declined in importance in the second half of the second century BCE, with many being abandoned. Probably around this period, the first recorded invasion of Britain took place, as southern Britain was largely conquered by warrior-elites from Belgic tribes of northeastern Gaul - whether these two events are linked to the decline of hillforts is unknown. By the Roman conquest, the "oppidum" at Venta Belgarum, modern-day Winchester, was the "de facto" regional administrative centre; Winchester was, however, of secondary importance to the Roman-style town of Calleva Atrebatum, modern Silchester, built further north by a dominant Belgic polity known as the Atrebates in the 50s BCE. Julius Caesar invaded southeastern England briefly in 55 and again in 54 BCE, but he never reached Hampshire. Notable sites from this period include Hengistbury Head (now in Dorset), which was a major port.
The Romans invaded Britain again in 43 CE, and Hampshire was incorporated into the Roman province of Britannia very quickly. It is generally believed their political leaders allowed themselves to be incorporated peacefully. Venta became the capital of the administrative polity of the Belgae, which included most of Hampshire and Wiltshire and reached as far as Bath. Whether the people of Hampshire played any role in Boudicca's rebellion of 60-61 is not recorded, but evidence of burning is seen in Winchester dated to around this period. For most of the next three centuries, southern Britain enjoyed relative peace. The later part of the Roman period had most towns build defensive walls; a pottery industry based in the New Forest exported items widely across southern Britain. A fortification near Southampton was called Clausentum, part of the Saxon Shore forts, traditionally seen as defences against maritime raids by Germanic tribes. The Romans withdrew from Britain in 410.
Two major Roman roads, Ermin Way and Port Way cross the north of the country connecting Calleva Atrebatum with Corinium Dobunnorum, modern Cirencester, and Old Sarum respectively. Other roads connected Venta Belgarum with Old Sarum, Wickham and Clausentum. A road, presumed to diverge from the Chichester to Silchester Way at Wickham, connected Noviomagus Reginorum, modern Chichester, with Clausentum.
Records are unreliable for the next 200 years, but in this time, southern Britain went from being Brythonic to being English and Hampshire emerged as the centre of what was to become the most powerful kingdom in Britain, the Kingdom of Wessex. Evidence of early Anglo-Saxon settlement has been found at Clausentum, dated to the fifth century. By the seventh century, the population of Hampshire was predominantly English-speaking; around this period, the administrative region of "Hampshire" seems to appear; the name is attested as "Hamtunscir" in 755, and Albany Major suggested that the traditional western and northern borders of Hampshire may even go back to the very earliest conquests of Cerdic, legendary founder of Wessex, at the beginning of the sixth century. Wessex, with its capital at Winchester, gradually expanded westwards into Brythonic Dorset and Somerset in the seventh century. A statue in Winchester celebrates the powerful King Alfred, who repulsed the Vikings and stabilised the region in the 9th century. A scholar as well as a soldier, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a powerful tool in the development of the English identity, was commissioned in his reign. King Alfred proclaimed himself "King of England" in 886; but Athelstan of Wessex did not officially control the whole of England until 927.
By the Norman conquest, London had overtaken Winchester as the largest city in England and after the Norman Conquest, King William I made London his capital. While the centre of political power moved away from Hampshire, Winchester remained an important city; the proximity of the New Forest to Winchester made it a prized royal hunting forest; King William Rufus was killed while hunting there in 1100. There were 44 hundreds, covering 483 named places, recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 which are in present-day Hampshire and part of Sussex. From the 12th century, the ports grew in importance, fuelled by trade with the continent, wool and cloth manufacture in the county, and the fishing industry, and a shipbuilding industry was established. By 1523 at the latest, the population of Southampton had outstripped that of Winchester.
Over several centuries, a series of castles and forts was constructed along the coast of the Solent to defend the harbours at Southampton and Portsmouth. These include the Roman Portchester Castle which overlooks Portsmouth Harbour, and a series of forts built by Henry VIII including Hurst Castle, situated on a sand spit at the mouth of the Solent, Calshot Castle on another spit at the mouth of Southampton Water, and Netley Castle. Southampton and Portsmouth remained important harbours when rivals, such as Poole and Bristol, declined, as they are amongst the few locations that combine shelter with deep water. "Mayflower" and "Speedwell" set sail for America from Southampton in 1620.
During the English Civil War (1642-1651) there were several skirmishes in Hampshire between the Royalist and Parliamentarian forces. Principal engagements were the Siege of Basing House between 1643 and 1645, and the Battle of Cheriton in 1644; both were significant Parliamentarian victories. Other clashes included the Battle of Alton in 1643, where the commander of the Royalist forces was killed in the pulpit of the parish church, and the Siege of Portsmouth in 1642.
By the mid-19th century, with the county's population at 219,210 (double that at the beginning of the century) in more than 86,000 dwellings, agriculture was the principal industry (10 per cent of the county was still forest) with cereals, peas, hops, honey, sheep and hogs important. Due to Hampshire's long association with pigs and boars, natives of the county have been known as "Hampshire hogs" since the 18th century. In the eastern part of the county the principal port was Portsmouth (with its naval base, population 95,000), while several ports (including Southampton, with its steam docks, population 47,000) in the western part were significant. In 1868, the number of people employed in manufacture exceeded those in agriculture, engaged in silk, paper, sugar and lace industries, ship building and salt works. Coastal towns engaged in fishing and exporting agricultural produce. Several places were popular for seasonal sea bathing. The ports employed large numbers of workers, both land-based and seagoing; "Titanic", lost on her maiden voyage in 1912, was crewed largely by residents of Southampton.
On 16 October 1908, Samuel Franklin Cody made the first powered flight of in the United Kingdom at Farnborough, then home to the Army Balloon Factory.
Hampshire played a crucial role in both World Wars due to the large Royal Navy naval base at Portsmouth, the army camp at Aldershot, and the military Netley Hospital on Southampton Water, as well as its proximity to the army training ranges on Salisbury Plain and the Isle of Purbeck. Supermarine, the designers of the Spitfire and other military aircraft, were based in Southampton, which led to severe bombing of the city in World War 2. Aldershot remains one of the British Army's main permanent camps. Farnborough is a major centre for the aviation industry.
During the Second World War, the Beaulieu, Hampshire Estate of Lord Montagu in the New Forest was the site of several group B finishing schools for agents operated by the Special Operations Executive (SOE) between 1941 and 1945. (One of the trainers was Kim Philby who was later found to be part of a spy ring passing information to the Soviets.) In 2005, a special exhibition was established at the Estate, with a video showing photographs from that era as well as voice recordings of former SOE trainers and agents.
Although the Isle of Wight has at times been part of Hampshire, it has been administratively independent for over a century, obtaining a county council of its own in 1890. The Isle of Wight became a full ceremonial county in 1974. Apart from a shared police force, no formal administrative links now exist between the Isle of Wight and Hampshire, though many organisations still combine Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.
In the 1970s, local government reorganisation led to a reduction in Hampshire's size; in 1974, the towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch were transferred to Dorset.
Hampshire is bordered by Dorset to the west, Wiltshire to the north-west, Berkshire to the north, Surrey to the north-east, and West Sussex to the east. The southern boundary is the coastline of the English Channel and the Solent, facing the Isle of Wight. It is the largest county in South East England and remains the third largest shire county in the United Kingdom despite losing more land than any other English county in all contemporary boundary changes. At its greatest size in 1890, Hampshire was the fifth-largest county in England. It now has an overall area of , and measures about east–west and north–south.
Hampshire's geology falls into two categories. In the south, along the coast is the "Hampshire Basin", an area of relatively non-resistant Eocene and Oligocene clays and gravels which are protected from sea erosion by the Isle of Purbeck, Dorset, and the Isle of Wight. These low, flat lands support heathland and woodland habitats, a large area of which forms part of the New Forest. The New Forest has a mosaic of heathland, grassland, coniferous and deciduous woodland habitats that host diverse wildlife. The forest is protected as a national park, limiting development and agricultural use to protect the landscape and wildlife. Large areas of the New Forest are open common lands kept as a grassland plagioclimax by grazing animals, including domesticated cattle, pigs and horses, and several wild deer species. Erosion of the weak rock and sea level change flooding the low land has carved several large estuaries and rias, notably the long Southampton Water and the large convoluted Portsmouth Harbour. The Isle of Wight lies off the coast of Hampshire where the non-resistant rock has been eroded away, forming the Solent.
A 2014 study found that Hampshire shares significant reserves of shale oil with other neighbouring counties, totalling 4.4 billion barrels of oil, which then Business and Energy Minister Michael Fallon said "will bring jobs and business opportunities" and significantly help with UK energy self-sufficiency. Fracking in the area is required to achieve these objectives, which has been opposed by environmental groups.
Natural England identifies a number of national character areas that lie wholly or partially in Hampshire: the Hampshire Downs, New Forest, South Hampshire Lowlands, South Coast Plain, South Downs, Low Weald and Thames Basin Heaths
Hampshire contains all its green belt in the New Forest district, in the southwest of the county, from the boundary with Dorset along the coastline to Lymington and northwards to Ringwood. Its boundary is contiguous with the New Forest National Park. The Hampshire portion was first created in 1958. Its function is to control expansion in the South East Dorset conurbation and outlying towns and villages.
The highest point in Hampshire is Pilot Hill at , in the northwest corner of the county, bordering Berkshire, and there are some 20 other hills exceeding . Butser Hill, at , where the A3 crosses the South Downs, is probably the best known. In the north and centre of the county the substrate is the rocks of the Chalk Group, which form the Hampshire Downs and the South Downs. These are high hills with steep slopes where they border the clays to the south. The hills dip steeply forming a scarp onto the Thames valley to the north, and dip gently to the south. The highest village in Hampshire at about above sea level is Ashmansworth, located between Andover and Newbury.
The Itchen and Test are trout rivers that flow from the chalk through wooded valleys into Southampton Water. Other important watercourses are the Hamble, Meon, Beaulieu and Lymington rivers. The Hampshire Avon, which links Stonehenge to the sea, passes through Fordingbridge and Ringwood and then forms the modern border between Hampshire and Dorset. The northern branch of the River Wey has its source near Alton and flows east past Bentley. The River Loddon rises at West Ham Farm and flows north through Basingstoke.
Hampshire's downland supports a calcareous grassland habitat, important for wild flowers and insects. A large area of the downs is now protected from further agricultural damage by the East Hampshire Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The River Test has a growing number of otters as, increasingly, does the Itchen, although other areas of the county have quite low numbers. There are wild boar kept for meat in the New Forest, which is known for its ponies and herds of fallow deer, red deer, roe deer, and sika deer as well as a small number of muntjac deer. The deer had been hunted for some 900 years until 1997. An unwelcome relative newcomer is the mink population, descended from animals that escaped or were deliberately released from fur farms since the 1950s, which cause havoc amongst native wildlife.
Farlington Marshes, of flower-rich grazing marsh and saline lagoon at the north end of Langstone Harbour, is a nature reserve and an internationally important over-wintering site for wildfowl. In a valley on the downs is Selborne; the countryside surrounding the village was the location of Gilbert White's pioneering observations on natural history. Hampshire's county flower is the Dog Rose.
Hampshire has a milder climate than most areas of the British Isles, being in the far south with the climate stabilising effect of the sea, but protected against the more extreme weather of the Atlantic coast. Hampshire has a higher average annual temperature than the UK average at , average rainfall at per year, and holds higher than average sunshine totals of around 1,750 hours of sunshine per year.
"For the complete list of settlements see List of places in Hampshire and List of settlements in Hampshire by population."
Hampshire's county town is Winchester, a historic city that was once the capital of the ancient kingdom of Wessex and of England until the Norman conquest of England. The port cities of Southampton and Portsmouth were split off as independent unitary authorities in 1997, although they are still included in Hampshire for ceremonial purposes. Fareham, Gosport and Havant have grown into a conurbation that stretches along the coast between the two main cities. The three cities are all university cities, Southampton being home to the University of Southampton and Southampton Solent University (formerly Southampton Institute), Portsmouth to the University of Portsmouth, and Winchester to the University of Winchester (formerly known as University College Winchester; King Alfred's College). The northeast of the county houses the Blackwater Valley conurbation, which includes the towns of Farnborough, Aldershot, Blackwater and Yateley and borders both Berkshire and Surrey.
Hampshire lies outside the green belt area of restricted development around London, but has good railway and motorway links to the capital, and in common with the rest of the south-east has seen the growth of dormitory towns since the 1960s. Basingstoke, in the northern part of the county, has grown from a country town into a business and financial centre. Aldershot, Portsmouth, and Farnborough have strong military associations with the Army, Royal Navy, and Royal Air Force respectively. The county also includes several market towns: Alresford, Alton, Andover, Bishop's Waltham, Lymington, New Milton, Petersfield, Ringwood, Romsey and Whitchurch.
At the 2001 census the ceremonial county recorded a population of 1,644,249, of which 1,240,103 were in the administrative county, 217,445 were in the unitary authority of Southampton, and 186,701 were in Portsmouth. The population of the administrative county grew 5.6 per cent from the 1991 census and Southampton grew 6.2 per cent (Portsmouth remained unchanged), compared with 2.6 per cent for England and Wales as a whole. Eastleigh and Winchester grew fastest at 9 per cent each.
Southampton and Portsmouth are the main settlements within the South Hampshire conurbation, which is home to about half of the ceremonial county's population. The larger South Hampshire metropolitan area has a population of 1,547,000.
Cities and towns by population size: (2001 census)
The table below shows the population change up to the 2011 census, contrasting the previous census. It also shows the proportion of residents in each district reliant upon lowest income and/or joblessness benefits, the national average proportion of which was 4.5 per cent (August 2012). The most populous district of Hampshire is New Forest District.
At the 2011 census, about 89 per cent of residents were white British, falling to 85.87 per cent in Southampton. The significant ethnic minorities were Asian at 2.6 per cent and mixed race at 1.4 per cent; 10 per cent of residents were born outside the UK. 59.7 per cent stated their religion as Christian and 29.5 per cent as not religious. Significant minority religions were Islam (1.46 per cent) and Hinduism (0.73 per cent).
The Church of England Diocese of Winchester was founded in 676AD and covers about two thirds of Hampshire and extends into Dorset. Smaller parts of Hampshire are covered by the dioceses of Portsmouth, Guildford and Oxford.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Portsmouth covers Hampshire as well as the Isle of Wight and the Channel Islands.
With the exceptions of the unitary authorities of Portsmouth and Southampton, Hampshire is governed by Hampshire County Council based at Castle Hill in Winchester, with eleven non-metropolitan districts beneath it and, for the majority of the county, parish councils or town councils at the local level.
Hampshire contains two national parks; the New Forest is wholly within the county, and the South Downs National Park embraces parts of Hampshire, West Sussex and East Sussex; they are each overseen by a national park authority.
Hampshire elects eighteen Members of Parliament. As of the 2019 General Election, sixteen MPs are Conservative and two MPs are Labour.
In the 2019 General Election there were no seat changes, with the 16 Conservative constituencies and 2 Labour constituencies holding on to the same seats won or held in 2017. This is despite the Liberal Democrats gaining 57,876 more votes (an increase of 50.4%) compared to 2017, and Labour losing 72,278 votes (29.9%) compared to 2017.
At the 2017 General Election, the Conservatives captured 16 seats, continuing their dominance in the county. Labour took two seats, Southampton Test and Portsmouth South.
In the 2015 general election, every Hampshire seat except Southampton Test (Labour) was won by the Conservatives.
In 2010, 14 constituencies were represented by Conservative Members of Parliament (MPs), two by the Liberal Democrats, and two by Labour. Labour represented the largest urban centre, holding both Southampton constituencies (Test and Itchen). The Liberal Democrats held Portsmouth South and Eastleigh.
The Conservatives represent a mix of rural and urban areas: Aldershot, Basingstoke, East Hampshire, Fareham, Gosport, Havant, Meon Valley, North East Hampshire, North West Hampshire, New Forest East, New Forest West, Portsmouth North, Romsey and Southampton North and Winchester.
At the 2013 local elections for Hampshire County Council, the Conservative Party had a 37.51 per cent share of the votes, the Liberal Democrats 21.71 per cent, the UK Independence Party 24.61 per cent and Labour 10 per cent. As a result, 45 Conservatives, 17 Liberal Democrats, 10 UKIP, four Labour and one Community Campaign councillor sit on the County Council. Southampton City Council, which is a separate Unitary Authority, has 28 Labour, 16 Conservative, 2 Councillors Against the Cuts and 2 Liberal Democrat councillors. Portsmouth City Council, also a UA, has 25 Liberal Democrat, 12 Conservative and 5 Labour councillors.
Hampshire has its own County Youth Council (HCYC) and is an independent youth-run organisation. It meets once a month around Hampshire and aims to give the young people of Hampshire a voice. It also has numerous district and borough youth councils including Basingstoke's "Basingstoke & Deane Youth Council".
Hampshire is one of the most affluent counties in the country, with a gross domestic product (GDP) of £29 billion, excluding Southampton and Portsmouth. In 2018, Hampshire had a GDP per capita of £22,100, comparable with the UK as a whole.
Portsmouth and Winchester have the highest job densities in the county; 38 per cent of workplace workers in Portsmouth commuted into the city in 2011. Southampton has the highest number of total jobs and commuting both into and out of the city is high. The county has a lower level of unemployment than the national average, at 1.3 per cent when the national rate is 2.1 per cent, as of February 2018. About one third are employed by large firms. Hampshire has a considerably higher than national average employment in high-tech industries, but average levels in knowledge-based industry. About 25 per cent of the population work in the public sector. Tourism accounts for some 60,000 jobs in the county, around 9 per cent of the total.
One of the principal companies in the high tech sector is IBM which has its research and development laboratories at Hursley and its UK headquarters at Cosham.
Many rural areas of Hampshire have traditionally been reliant on agriculture, particularly dairy farming, although the significance of agriculture as a rural employer and rural wealth creator has declined since the first half of the 20th century and agriculture currently employs 1.32 per cent of the rural population.
The extractive industries deal principally with sand, gravel, clay and hydrocarbons. There are three active oilfields in Hampshire with one being also used as a natural gas store. These are in the west of the county in the "Wessex Basin". The "Weald Basin" to the east has potential as a source of shale oil but is not currently exploited.
The New Forest area is a national park, and tourism is a significant economic segment in this area, with 7.5 million visitors in 1992. The South Downs and the cities of Portsmouth, Southampton, and Winchester also attract tourists to the county. Southampton Boat Show is one of the biggest annual events held in the county, and attracts visitors from throughout the country. In 2003, the county had a total of 31 million day visits, and 4.2 million longer stays.
The cities of Southampton and Portsmouth are both significant ports, with Southampton docks handling a large proportion of the national container freight traffic as well as being a major base for cruise liners, and Portsmouth Harbour accommodating one of the Royal Navy's main bases and a terminal for cross-channel ferries to France and Spain. The docks have traditionally been large employers in these cities, though mechanisation of cargo handling has led to a reduction in manpower needed.
The Marine Accident Investigation Branch has its principal offices in Southampton, while the Air Accidents Investigation Branch has its head office in Farnborough. The Rail Accident Investigation Branch has one of its two offices at Farnborough.
Southampton Airport, with an accompanying main line railway station, is an international airport situated in the Borough of Eastleigh, close to Swaythling in the city of Southampton. The Farnborough International Airshow is a week-long event that combines a major trade exhibition for the aerospace and defence industries with a public airshow. The event is held in mid-July in even-numbered years at Farnborough Airport. The first five days (Monday to Friday) are dedicated to trade, with the final two days open to the public.
Cross-channel and cross-Solent ferries from Southampton, Portsmouth and Lymington link the county to the Isle of Wight, the Channel Islands and continental Europe.
The South Western Main Line (operated by South Western Railway) from London to Weymouth runs through Winchester and Southampton, and the Wessex Main Line from Bristol to Portsmouth also runs through the county as does the Portsmouth Direct Line.
The M3 motorway bisects the county from the southwest, at the edge of the New Forest near Southampton, to the northeast on its way to connect with the M25 London orbital motorway. At its southern end it links with the M27 south coast motorway. The construction of the Twyford Down cutting near Winchester caused major controversy by cutting through a series of ancient trackways and other features of archaeological significance. The M27 serves as a bypass for the major conurbations and as a link to other settlements on the south coast. Other important roads include the A27, A3, A31, A34, A36 and A303.
The county has a high level of car ownership, with only 15.7 per cent having no access to a private car compared with 26.8 per cent for England and Wales. The county has a lower than average use of trains (3.2 compared with 4.1 per cent for commuting) and buses (3.2 to 7.4 per cent), but a higher than average use of bicycles (3.5 to 2.7 per cent) and cars (63.5 to 55.3 per cent).
Hampshire formerly had several canals, but most of these have been abandoned and their routes built over. The Basingstoke Canal has been extensively restored, and is now navigable for most of its route, but the Salisbury and Southampton Canal, Andover Canal and Portsmouth and Arundel Canal have all disappeared. Restoration of the Itchen Navigation, linking Southampton and Winchester, primarily as a wildlife corridor, began in 2008.
The school system in Hampshire (including Southampton and Portsmouth) is comprehensive. Geographically inside the Hampshire LEA are 24 independent schools, Southampton has three and Portsmouth has four. Few Hampshire schools have sixth forms, which varies by district council. There are 14 further education colleges within the Hampshire LEA, including six graded as 'outstanding' by Ofsted: Alton College, Barton Peveril Sixth Form College, Brockenhurst College, Farnborough College of Technology, Farnborough Sixth Form College, Peter Symonds College, Queen Mary's College, and South Downs College.
The four universities are the University of Southampton, Southampton Solent University, the University of Portsmouth, and the University of Winchester (which also had a small campus in Basingstoke until 2011). Farnborough College of Technology awards University of Surrey-accredited degrees.
There are major NHS hospitals in each of the cities, and smaller hospitals in several towns, as well as a number of private hospitals. Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust coordinates public health services, while Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust coordinates hospital services.
The Flag of Hampshire was officially added to the Flag Institute's registry of flags on 12 March 2019 after receiving support from Hampshire County Council, the Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire, and many local organisations. The county day and flag day is 15 July, St Swithun's Day; St Swithun was an Anglo-Saxon bishop of Winchester.
Hampshire is the home of many orchestras, bands, and groups. Musician Laura Marling hails originally from Hampshire. The Hampshire County Youth Choir is based in Winchester, and has had successful tours of Canada and Italy in recent years. The Hampshire County Youth Orchestra (with its associated chamber orchestra and string orchestra) is based at Thornden Hall.
There are a number of local museums, such as the City Museum in Winchester, which covers the Iron Age and Roman periods, the Middle Ages, and the Victorian period over three floors. A "Museum of the Iron Age" is in Andover. Southampton's Sea City Museum is primarily focused on the City's links with the "Titanic". Basingstoke's Milestones Museum records the County's industrial heritage. There are also a number of national museums in Hampshire. The National Motor Museum is located in the New Forest at Beaulieu. The Royal Navy Museum is part of Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. Other military museums include The Submarine Museum at Gosport, the Royal Marines Museum, originally in Southsea but due to transfer to the Dockyard in 2019, the Aldershot Military Museum, the D-Day Story by Southsea Castle and the Museum of Army Flying at Middle Wallop. Several museums and historic buildings in Hampshire are the responsibility of the Hampshire Cultural Trust. Specialist museums include the Gilbert White museum in his old home in Selborne, which also includes The Oates Collection, dedicated to the explorer Lawrence Oates.
The New Forest and Hampshire County Show takes place annually at the end of July; 2020 will mark its centenary. The largest gathering of Muslims in Western Europe, Jalsa Salana, takes place near Alton, with 37,000 visitors in 2017. The ancient festival of Beltain takes place at Butser Ancient Farm in the spring.
There are 187 Grade I listed buildings in the county, ranging from statues to farm buildings and churches to castles, 511 buildings listed Grade II*, and many more listed in the Grade II category. National Heritage's figures include the Isle of Wight, listing 208 Grade I buildings, 578 Grade II* and 10,372 Grade II, 731 scheduled monuments, two wrecks, 91 parks and gardens, and a battlefield: the Battle of Cheriton, which took place in 1644, near Winchester.
The game of cricket was largely developed in south-east England, with one of the first teams forming at Hambledon in 1750, with the Hambledon Club creating many of cricket's early rules. Hampshire County Cricket Club is a first-class team. The main county ground is the Rose Bowl in West End, which has hosted one day internationals and which, following redevelopment, hosted its first test match in 2011.
The world's oldest surviving bowling green is the Southampton Old Bowling Green, which was first used in 1299.
Hampshire's relatively safe waters have allowed the county to develop as one of the busiest sailing areas in the country, with many yacht clubs and several manufacturers on the Solent. The Hamble, Beaulieu and Lymington rivers are major centres for both competitive and recreational sailing, along with Hythe and Ocean Village marinas. The sport of windsurfing was invented at Hayling Island in the south east of the county.
Hampshire has several association football teams, including Premier league side Southampton F.C., EFL League One side Portsmouth F.C. and National league sides Aldershot Town F.C., Eastleigh F.C. and Havant & Waterlooville F.C.. Portsmouth F.C. and Southampton F.C. have traditionally been fierce rivals. Portsmouth won the FA Cup in 1939 and 2008 and the Football League title in 1949 and 1950. Southampton won the FA Cup in 1976 and reached the finals in 1900, 1902, and 2003. Aldershot F.C. were members of the Football League from 1932 to 1992. They were succeeded by Aldershot Town F.C. who in 2008 were crowned the Conference Premier champions and promoted to the Football League, but lost their Football League status after the 2012–13 season. Hampshire has a number of Non League football teams. Bashley, Gosport borough and AFC Totton play in the Southern Football League Premier Division and Sholing F.C. and Winchester City F.C. play in the Southern Football League Division One South and West.
Thruxton Circuit, in the north of the county, is Hampshire's premier motor racing circuit, with a karting circuit; there are other karting circuits at Southampton and Gosport. The other main circuit is the Ringwood Raceway at Matchams.
Lasham Airfield, near Alton, is a major centre for gliding, hosting both regional and national annual competitions.
The county's television news is covered by BBC South Today from its studios in Southampton and ITV Meridian from a studio in Whiteley, though both BBC London and ITV London can be received in northern and eastern parts of the county. A local independent television station, "That's Hampshire", started transmitting in May 2017.
Around 25 commercial radio stations cover the area, and BBC Radio Solent looks after the majority of the county, while BBC Surrey can be heard in the north east. University journalism students also "broadcast" bulletins on line for local areas, such as the University of Winchester's WINOL (Winchester News Online), run by students on its BA (Hons) Journalism course.
Southampton and Portsmouth support daily newspapers; the "Southern Daily Echo" and "The News" respectively. The "Basingstoke Gazette" is published three times a week, and there are a number of other papers that publish on a weekly basis, notably the "Hampshire Chronicle", one of the oldest newspapers in the country.
Possibly the most notable resident was the Duke of Wellington, who lived at Stratfield Saye House in the north of the county from 1817. An eminent Victorian, who made her mark and “came home” to Hampshire for burial at East Wellow was Florence Nightingale.
Hampshire's literary connections include the birthplace of authors Jane Austen, Wilbert Awdry and Charles Dickens, and the residence of others, such as Charles Kingsley and Mrs Gaskell. Austen lived most of her life in Hampshire, where her father was rector of Steventon, and wrote all of her novels in the county. Alice Liddell, also known as Alice Hargreaves, the inspiration for Alice in Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", lived in and around Lyndhurst, Hampshire after her marriage to Reginald Hargreaves, and is buried in the graveyard of St Michael and All Angels Church in the town. Hampshire also has many visual art connections, claiming the painter John Everett Millais as a native, and the cities and countryside have been the subject of paintings by L. S. Lowry and J. M. W. Turner. Selborne was the home of Gilbert White. Journalist and social critic Christopher Hitchens was born into a naval family in Portsmouth. Broadcasters Philippa Forrester, Amanda Lamb and Scott Mills also are from the county. American actor and gameshow host, Richard Dawson, was born and raised here.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=13861
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Hard science fiction
Hard science fiction is a category of science fiction characterized by concern for scientific accuracy and logic. The term was first used in print in 1957 by P. Schuyler Miller in a review of John W. Campbell's "Islands of Space" in the November issue of "Astounding Science Fiction". The complementary term soft science fiction, formed by analogy to hard science fiction, first appeared in the late 1970s. The term is formed by analogy to the popular distinction between the "hard" (natural) and "soft" (social) sciences. Science fiction critic Gary Westfahl argues that neither term is part of a rigorous taxonomy; instead they are approximate ways of characterizing stories that reviewers and commentators have found useful.
Stories revolving around scientific and technical consistency were written as early as the 1870s with the publication of Jules Verne's "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" in 1870, among other stories. The attention to detail in Verne's work became an inspiration for many future scientists and explorers, although Verne himself denied writing as a scientist or seriously predicting machines and technology of the future.
Hugo Gernsback believed from the beginning of his involvement with science fiction in the 1920s that the stories should be instructive, although it was not long before he found it necessary to print fantastical and unscientific fiction in "Amazing Stories" to attract readers. During Gernsback's long absence from SF publishing, from 1936 to 1953, the field evolved away from his focus on facts and education. The Golden Age of Science Fiction is generally considered to have started in the late 1930s and lasted until the mid-1940s, bringing with it "a quantum jump in quality, perhaps the greatest in the history of the genre", according to science fiction historians Peter Nicholls and Mike Ashley. However, Gernsback's views were unchanged. In his editorial in the first issue of Science-Fiction Plus, he gave his view of the modern sf story: "the fairy tale brand, the weird or fantastic type of what mistakenly masquerades under the name of Science-Fiction today!" and he stated his preference for "truly scientific, prophetic Science-Fiction with the full accent on SCIENCE". In the same editorial, Gernsback called for patent reform to give science fiction authors the right to create patents for ideas without having patent models because many of their ideas predated the technical progress needed to develop specifications for their ideas. The introduction referenced the numerous prescient technologies described throughout Ralph 124C 41+.
The heart of the "hard SF" designation is the relationship of the science content and attitude to the rest of the narrative, and (for some readers, at least) the "hardness" or rigor of the science itself. One requirement for hard SF is procedural or intentional: a story should try to be accurate, logical, credible and rigorous in its use of current scientific and technical knowledge about which technology, phenomena, scenarios and situations that are practically and/or theoretically possible. For example, the development of concrete proposals for spaceships, space stations, space missions, and a US space program in the 1950s and 1960s influenced a widespread proliferation of "hard" space stories. Later discoveries do not necessarily invalidate the label of hard SF, as evidenced by P. Schuyler Miller, who called Arthur C. Clarke's 1961 novel "A Fall of Moondust" hard SF, and the designation remains valid even though a crucial plot element, the existence of deep pockets of "moondust" in lunar craters, is now known to be incorrect.
There is a degree of flexibility in how far from "real science" a story can stray before it leaves the realm of hard SF. HSF authors scrupulously avoid such technology as faster-than-light travel (of which there are alternatives endorsed by NASA), while authors writing softer SF accept such notions (sometimes referred to as "enabling devices", since they allow the story to take place).
Readers of "hard SF" often try to find inaccuracies in stories. For example, a group at MIT concluded that the planet Mesklin in Hal Clement's 1953 novel "Mission of Gravity" would have had a sharp edge at the equator, and a Florida high-school class calculated that in Larry Niven's 1970 novel "Ringworld" the topsoil would have slid into the seas in a few thousand years. Niven fixed these errors in his sequel "The Ringworld Engineers", and noted them in the foreword.
Films set in outer space that aspire to the hard SF label try to minimize the artistic liberties taken for the sake of practicality of effect. Factors include:
Arranged chronologically by publication year.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=13862
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Handloading
Handloading or reloading is the process of making firearm cartridges or shells by manually assembling the individual components (case, primer, propellant, and projectile such as bullet, slug or shot), rather than purchasing mass-assembled, factory-loaded ammunition.
The term "handloading" is the more generic term, as it refers to manual assembly of ammunition using components from any source. "Reloading" refers more specifically to the handloading of ammunition by re-using cases or shells from previously fired ammunition. The terms are often used interchangeably, as the techniques are largely the same whether using new or recycled components. The differences lie in the preparation of the cases or shells; new components are generally ready to load, while previously fired components often need cleaning, removal of expended primers, and possibly other reshaping/resizing preparations to make them ready to load again.
Economy, increased accuracy, performance, commercial ammunition shortages, and hobby interests are all common motivations for handloading both cartridges and shotshells. Handloading ammunition waives the user off the labor cost of commercial production line workers, reducing the expenditure to only the cost of purchasing components and equipments. Reloading used cartridge cases can save the shooter money, or provides the shooter with more (and higher quality) ammunition within a given budget. Reloading may not be cost effective for occasional shooters as it takes time to recoup the cost of the required equipment, but those who shoot a lot will see cost-savings over time as the brass cartridge case or shotgun shell hull (the most expensive components) can be reused many times (with proper maintenance) before needing to be replaced. The bullets/shots and primers can also enjoy discounted prices when purchased in bulks.
Besides economy, the ability to customize the performance of ammunition is a common goal. Hunters may desire cartridges with specialized bullets with specific terminal performance. Target shooters seek the best achievable accuracy, as well as the most consistent trajectories (i.e. best precision). Shotgun enthusiasts can make specialty rounds not available in commercial inventories at any price. Many handloaders also customize their cartridges and shells to their specific firearms, usually in pursuit of accuracy: they can assemble precision ammunition using cartridge cases that have been fire formed to best fit the chamber of a specific firearm.
Handloaders have the flexibility to make reduced-power rounds for hunting rifles, such as handloading to an equivalent of a milder-recoiling round to encourage recoil-averse hunters to become proficient with a full-power one. It is also a not infrequent practice for handloaders to make increased-power ammunition (i.e. "hot loads") if higher muzzle velocities (hence flatter trajectories) are desired. Rather than purchasing a special purpose rifle, which many novice hunters would outgrow within a few hunting seasons, a single rifle can be used with special handloaded rounds until such time more powerful rounds are desired and become appropriate. This use of specialized handloading techniques often provides significant cost savings, especially when a hunter in a family already has a full-power rifle and a new hunter in the family wishes to learn the sport. This technique also enables hunters to use the same rifle and caliber to hunt a wider variety of game.
Collectors of obsolete firearms who want to shoot those guns often must handload because appropriate cartridges or shotshells are no longer commercially produced. Handloaders can also create cartridges for which no commercial equivalent exists — the so-called wildcat cartridges, some of which can later on achieve mainstream acceptance if the ballistic performance is proven to be good. As with any hobby, the pure enjoyment of the reloading process may be the most important benefit.
Recurring shortages of commercial ammunition are also reasons to reload cartridges and shotshells. When commercial supplies dry up, and store-bought ammunition is not available at any price, having the ability to reload one's own cartridges and shotshells economically provides an ability to continue shooting despite shortages.
There are three aspects to ballistics: internal ballistics, external ballistics, and terminal ballistics. Internal ballistics refers to things that happen inside the firearm during and after firing, but before the bullet leaves the muzzle. The handloading process can realize increased accuracy and precision through improved consistency of manufacture, by selecting the optimal bullet weight and design, and tailoring bullet velocity to the purpose. Each cartridge reloaded can have each component carefully matched to the rest of the cartridges in the batch. Brass cases can be matched by volume, weight, and concentricity, bullets by weight and design, powder charges by weight, type, case filling (amount of total usable case capacity filled by charge), and packing scheme (characteristics of granule packing).
In addition to these critical items, the equipment used to assemble the cartridge also has an effect on its uniformity/consistency and optimal shape/size; dies used to size the cartridges can be matched to the chamber of a given gun. Modern handloading equipment enables a firearm owner to tailor fresh ammunition to a specific firearm, and to precisely measured tolerances far improving the comparatively wide tolerances within which commercial ammunition manufacturers must operate. Where the most extreme accuracy is demanded, such as in rifle benchrest shooting, handloading is a fundamental prerequisite for success.
The basic piece of equipment for handloading is the press. A press is a device that uses compound leverage to push the cases into the dies that perform the loading operations. Presses vary from simple, inexpensive single stage models, to complex progressive models that will eject a loaded cartridge with each pull of a lever, at rates of 10 rounds a minute.
Inexpensive "tong" tools have been used for reloading since the mid-19th century. They resemble a large pair of pliers and can be caliber-specific or have interchangeable dies.
Reloading presses are often categorized by the letter of the alphabet that they most resemble: "O", "C", and "H". The sturdiest presses, suitable for bullet swaging functions as well as for normal reloading die usage, are of the "O" type. Heavy steel completely encloses the single die on these presses. Equally sturdy presses for all but bullet swaging use often resemble the letter "C". Both steel and aluminum construction are seen with "C" presses. Some users prefer "C" style presses over "O" presses, as there is more room to place bullets into cartridge mouths on "C" presses. Shotshell style presses, intended for non-batch use, for which each shotshell or cartridge is cycled through the dies before commencing onto the next shotshell or cartridge to be reloaded, commonly resemble the letter "H".
Single stage presses, generally of the "O" or "C" types, are the simplest. They perform one step on one case at a time. When using a single stage press, cases are loaded in batches, one step for each cartridge per batch at a time. Batches are kept small, about 20–50 cases at a time, so that a batch is never left in a partially completed state, as high humidity and light can degrade the powder. Single stage presses are commonly most used for high-precision rifle cartridge handloading, but may be used for high-precision reloading of all cartridge types, and for working up loads (developing loading recipes) for ultimately manufacturing large numbers of cartridges on a progressive press.
Turret presses, most commonly of the "C" type, are similar to single stage presses, but permit mounting all of the dies for one cartridge (or sometimes two cartridges) simultaneously, with each die being installed and correctly locked in position with lock rings onto the press at the same time. Batch operations are performed similar as to on a single stage press, but to switch dies, the turret is simply rotated, placing another die in position. Although turret presses operate much like single stage presses, they eliminate much of the setup time required in positioning individual dies correctly.
Progressive presses handle several shells at once, with each pull of the lever performing a single step on all the cases at once. Progressive presses hold all the dies needed, plus a powder measure and a primer feed, and often also include an additional station where the powder levels are checked, to prevent over or under charges. Progressive presses also often feature case feeds that will hold hundreds of cases to be loaded, and all the user has to do is hold the bullet in place over the appropriate case mouth, and pull the lever.
Primer pocket swages can be either standalone, bench-mounted, specialized presses, or, alternatively, a special swage anvil die that can be mounted into a standard "O" style reloading press, along with a special shell holder insert with either a large or a small primer pocket insert swage that is then inserted into the position on the "O" press where a normal shell holder is usually clicked into position. This way, both small and large primer pockets on different types of military cases can be properly processed to remove primer pocket crimps. Both types of presses can be used to remove either ring crimps or stab crimps found on military cartridges when reloading them. Reamers for removing primer pocket crimps are not associated with presses, being an alternative to using a press to remove military case primer pocket crimps.
Shotshell presses are generally a single unit of the "H" configuration that handles all functions, dedicated to reloading just one gauge of shotshell. Shotshell reloading is similar to cartridge reloading, except that, instead of a bullet, a wad and a measure of shot are used, and after loading the shot, the shell is crimped shut. Both 6 and 8 fold crimps are in use, for paper hulls and plastic hulls, respectively. Likewise, roll crimps are in use for metallic, paper, and plastic hulls. The shotshell loader contains stations to resize the shell, measure powder, load the wad, measure shot, and crimp the shell. Due to the low cost of modern plastic shotshells, and the additional complexity of reloading fired shells, shotshell handloading is not as popular as cartridge handloading. For example, unlike when handloading rifle and pistol cartridges, where all the various components (cases, gas checks, powder, primers, etc.) from different manufacturers are usually all interchangeable, shotshells typically are loaded for particular brands of shotshell cases (called hulls) only with one specific brand of wad, shot cup (if used), primer, and powder, further increasing the complexity and difficulty of reloading shotshells. Substitution of components is not considered safe, as changing just one component, such as a brand of primer, can increase pressures by as much as 3500 PSI, which may exceed SAAMI pressure limits. Reloading shotshells is therefore more along the lines of precisely following a recipe with non-fungible components. Where shotshell reloading remains popular, however, is for making specialized shotgun shells, such as for providing lowered recoil, when making low-cost "poppers" used for training retrievers before hunting season to acclimate hunting dogs to the sound of a gun firing without actually shooting projectiles, for achieving better shot patterning, or for providing other improvements or features not available in commercially loaded shotshells at any price, such as when handloading obsolete shotshells with brass cases for gauges of shotshells that are no longer commercially manufactured.
Rifle and pistol reloading presses are usually not dedicated to reloading a single caliber of cartridge, although they can be, but are configured for reloading various cartridge calibers as needed. In contrast, shotshell presses are most often configured for reloading just one gauge of shotshell, e.g., 12 gauge, and are rarely, if ever, reconfigured for reloading other gauges of shotshells, as the cost of buying all new dies, shot bar, and powder bushing as required to switch gauges on a shotshell press often exceeds the cost of buying a new shotshell press outright, as shotshell presses typically come from the factory already set up to reload one gauge or bore of shotshell. Hence, it is common to use a dedicated shotshell press for reloading each gauge or bore of shotshell used. Likewise, the price of shot for reloading shotshells over the last several years has also risen by over an order of magnitude, such that lead shot that was readily available for around $0.50/lb. (c. 2005) now reaches $2.00 per pound (2013.) Due to this large increase in the price of lead shot, the economy of reloading 12 gauge shotshells vs. just using promotional (low-cost) 12 gauge shotshells only starts to make economic sense for higher volume shooters, who may shoot more than 50,000 rounds a year. In contrast, the reloading of shotshells that are usually not available in low-cost, promotional pricings, such as .410 bore, 12 ga. slugs, 16 ga, 20 ga., and 28 ga., becomes more economical to reload in much smaller quantities, perhaps within only 3-5 boxes of shells per year. Reloading .410 bore, 12 ga. slugs, 16 ga., 20 ga, and 28 ga. shells therefore remains relatively common, more so than the reloading of 12 gauge shotshells, for which promotional shotshells are usually readily available from many retailers. These smaller bore and gauge shotshells also require much less lead shot, further lessening the effect of the rapid rises seen in the price of lead shot. The industry change to steel shot, arising from the US and Canadian Federal bans on using lead shotshells while hunting migratory wildfowl, has also affected reloading shotshells, as the shot bar and powder bushing required on a dedicated shotshell press also must be changed for each hull type reloaded, and are different than what would be used for reloading shotshells with lead shot, further complicating the reloading of shotshells.
With the recent rampant rise in lead shot prices, though, a major change in handloading shotshells has also occurred. Namely, a transition among high volume 12 gauge shooters from loading traditional 1-1/8 oz. shot loads to 7/8 oz. shot loads, or even 24 gm. (so-called International) shot loads has occurred. At 1-1/8 oz. per shotshell, a 25 lb. bag of lead shot can only reload approximately 355 shotshells. At 7/8 oz. per shotshell, a 25 lb. of leadshot can reload 457 shotshells. At 24 grams per shotshell, a 25 lb of leadshot can reload approximately 472 shotshells. Stretching the number of hulls that it is possible to reload from an industry standard 25 lb. bag of lead shot by 117 shells has significantly helped mitigate the large increase in the price of lead shot. That this change has also resulted in minimal changes to scores in the shooting sports such as skeet and trap has only expedited the switch among high volume shooters to shooting 24 gm. shotshells with their lesser amounts of shot.
With the recent shortages over 2012–2013 of 12 gauge shotshells in the United States (among all other types of rifle and pistol ammunition), the popularity of reloading 12 gauge shotshells has seen a widespread resurgence. Field use of the International 24 gm. 12 gauge shells has proven them to be effective on small game, while stretching the number of reloads possible from a bag of shot, and they have subsequently become popular for hunting small game. Since shot shells are typically reloaded at least 5 times, although upwards of 15 times are often possible for lightly loaded shells, this transition to field use of 24 gm. loads has helped mitigate ammunition shortages for hunters.
Shotshell presses typically use a charge bar to drop precise amounts of shot and powder. Most commonly, these charge bars are fixed in their capacities, with a single charge bar rated at, say, 1-1/8 oz. of lead shot, with a switchable powder bushing that permits dropping precisely measured fixed amounts of different types of powder repetitively (e.g., MEC.) On the other hand, some charge bars are drilled to accept bushings for dropping different fixed amounts of both shot and powder (e.g. Texan.) For the ultimate in flexibility, though, universal charge bars with micrometers dropping fixed volumes of powder and shot are also available; these are able to select differing fixed amounts of both powder and shot, and are popular for handloaders who load more than just a few published recipes, or, especially, among those who wish to experiment with numerous different published recipes. Fixed charge bars are rated for either lead or steel shot, but not for both. Universal charge bars, on the other hand, are capable of reloading both lead or steel shot, being adjustable.
Like their pistol and rifle counterparts, shotshell presses are available in both single stage and progressive varieties. For shooters shooting fewer than approximately 500 shells a month, and especially shooting fewer than 100 shells a month, a single-stage press is often found to be adequate. For shooters shooting larger numbers of shells a month, progressive presses are often chosen. A single stage press can typically reload 100 hulls in approximately an hour. Progressive presses can typically reload upwards of 400 or 500 hulls an hour.
Shotshell presses are most commonly operated in non-batch modes. That is, a single hull will often be deprimed, reshaped, primed, loaded with powder, have a wad pressed in, be loaded with shot, be pre-crimped, and then be final crimped before being removed and a new hull being placed on the shotshell press at station 1. An alternative, somewhat faster method, often used on a single stage press is to work on 5 hulls in parallel sequentially, with but a single processed hull being located at each of the 5 stations available on a single stage shotshell press, while manually removing the finished shotshell from station 5 and then moving the 4 in-process hulls to the next station (1 to 2, 2 to 3, 3 to 4, 4 to 5) before adding a new hull at the deprimer (station 1) location. Both these modes of shotshell reloading are in distinct contrast to the common practice used with reloading pistol and rifle cartridges on a single stage press, which are most often processed in batch modes, where a common operation will commonly be done on a batch of up to 50 or 100 cartridges at a time, before proceeding to the next processing step. This difference is largely a result of shotshell presses having 5 stations available for use simultaneously, unlike a single stage cartridge press which typically has but one station available for use.
In general, though, shotshell reloading is far more complex than rifle and pistol cartridge reloading, and hence far fewer shotshell presses are therefore used relative to rifle and pistol cartridge reloading presses.
Reloading presses for reloading .50 BMG and larger cartridges are also typically caliber-specific, much like shotshell presses, as standard size rifle and pistol reloading presses are not capable of being pressed into such exotic reloading service. The reloading of such large cartridges is also much more complex, as developing a load using a specific lot of powder can require nearly all of a 5 lb. bottle of powder, and a load must be developed with a single load of powder for reasons of safety.
Dies are generally sold in sets of two or three units, depending on the shape of the case. A three-die set is needed for straight cases, while a two die set is used for bottlenecked cases. The first die of either set performs the sizing and decapping operation, except in some cases in the 3 die set, where decapping may be done by the second die. The middle die in a three-die set is used to expand the case mouth of straight cases (and decap in the case where this is not done by the first die), while in a two die set the entire neck is expanded as the case is extracted from the first die. The last die in the set seats the bullet and may apply a crimp. Special crimping dies are often used to apply a stronger crimp after the bullet is seated. Progressive presses sometimes use an additional "die" to meter powder into the case (though it is arguably not a real die as it does not shape the case).
Standard dies are made from hardened steel, and require that the case be lubricated, for the resizing operation, which requires a large amount of force. Rifle cartridges require lubrication of every case, due to the large amount of force required, while smaller, thinner handgun cartridges can get away with alternating lubricated and unlubricated cases. Carbide dies have a ring of tungsten carbide, which is far harder and slicker than tool steel, and so carbide dies do not require lubrication.
Modern reloading dies are generally standardized with 7/8-14 (or, for the case of .50 BMG dies, with 1-1/4×12) threads and are interchangeable with all common brands of presses, although older dies may use other threads and be press-specific.
Dies for bottle neck cases usually are supplied in sets of at least two dies, though sometimes a third is added for crimping. This is an extra operation and is not needed unless a gun's magazine or action design requires crimped ammunition for safe operation, such as autoloading firearms, where the cycling of the action may push the bullet back in the case, resulting in poor accuracy and increased pressures. Crimping is also sometimes recommended to achieve full velocity for bullets, through increasing pressures so as to make powders burn more efficiently, and for heavy recoiling loads, to prevent bullets from moving under recoil. For FMJ bullets mounted in bottle neck cases, roll crimping is generally not ever used unless a cannelure is present on the bullet, to prevent causing bullet deformation when crimping. Rimless, straight wall cases, on the other hand, require a taper crimp, because they headspace on the case mouth; roll crimping causes headspacing problems on these cartridges. Rimmed, belted, or bottleneck cartridges, however, generally can safely be roll crimped when needed. Three dies are normally supplied for straight walled cases, with an optional fourth die for crimping. Crimps for straight wall cases may be taper crimps, suitable for rimless cartridges used in autoloaders, or roll crimps, which are best for rimmed cartridges such as are used in revolvers.
There are also specialty dies. Bump dies are designed to move the shoulder of a bottleneck case back just a bit to facilitate chambering. These are frequently used in conjunction with neck dies, as the bump die itself does not manipulate the neck of the case whatsoever. A bump die can be a very useful tool to anyone who owns a fine shooting rifle with a chamber that is cut to minimum headspace dimensions, as the die allows the case to be fitted to this unique chamber. Another die is the "hand die". A hand die has no threads and is operated—as the name suggests—by hand or by use of a hand-operated arbor press. Hand dies are available for most popular cartridges, and although available as full-length resizing dies, they are most commonly seen as neck sizing dies. These use an interchangeable insert to size the neck, and these inserts come in 1/1000-inch steps so that the user can custom fit the neck of the case to his own chamber or have greater control over neck tension on the bullet.
A shellholder, generally sold separately, is needed to hold the case in place as it is forced into and out of the dies. The reason shellholders are sold separately is that many cartridges share the same base dimensions, and a single shellholder can service many different cases. Shellholders are also specialized, and will generally only fit a certain make of reloading press, while modern dies are standardized and will fit a wide variety of presses. Different shell holders than used for dies are also required for use with some hand priming tools (e.g., Lee Autoprime tool.)
A precision weighing scale is a near necessity for reloading. While it is possible to load using nothing but a powder measure and a weight to volume conversion chart, this greatly limits the precision with which a load can be adjusted, increasing the danger for accidentally overloading cartridges with powder for loads near or at the maximum safe load. With a powder scale, an adjustable powder measure can be calibrated more precisely for the powder in question, and spot checks can be made during loading to make sure that the measure is not drifting. With a powder trickler, a charge can be measured directly into the scale, giving the most accurate measure.
A scale also allows bullets and cases to be sorted by weight, which can increase consistency further. Sorting bullets by weight has obvious benefits, as each set of matched bullets will perform more consistently. Sorting cases by weight is done to group cases by case wall thickness, and match cases with similar interior volumes. Military cases, for example, tend to be thicker, while cases that have been reloaded numerous times will have thinner walls due to brass flowing forward under firing, and excess case length being later trimmed from the case mouth.
Single-stage presses often do not provide an easy way of installing primers to ("priming") cases. Various add-on tools can be used for priming the case on the down-stroke, or a separate tool can be used. Since cases loaded by a single-stage press are done in steps, with the die being changed between steps, a purpose-made priming tool (so-called "primer" tool) — is often faster than trying to integrate a priming step to a press step, and also often more robust than a model that needs to be mounted and fitted onto a press, resulting in a more consistent primer seating depth.
Beginning reloading kits often include a weight-to-volume conversion chart for a selection of common powders, and a set of powder volume measures graduated in small increments. By adding the various measures of powder a desired charge can be measured out with a safe degree of accuracy. However, since multiple measures of powder are often needed, and since powder lots may vary slightly in density, a powder dispenser accurate to is desirable.
Like any complex process, mistakes in handloading are easy to make, and a bullet puller device allows the handloader to disassemble mistakes. Most pullers use inertia to pull the bullet, and are often shaped like hammers. When in use, the case is locked in place in a head-down fashion inside the far end of the "hammer", and then the device is swung and struck against a firm surface. The sharp impact will suddenly decelerate the case, but the inertia exerted by the heavier mass of the bullet will keep it moving and thus pull it free from the case in a few blows, while the powder and bullet will get caught by a trapping container within the puller after the separation. Collet-type pullers are also available, which use a caliber-specific clamp to grip the bullet, while a loading press is used to pull the case downwards. It is essential that the collet be a good match for the bullet diameter, because a poor match can result in significant deformation of the bullet.
Bullet pullers are also used to disassemble loaded ammunition of questionable provenance or undesirable configuration, so that the components can be salvaged for re-use. Surplus military ammunition is often pulled for components, particularly the cartridge cases, which are often difficult to obtain for older foreign military rifles. Military ammunition is often tightly sealed, to make it resistant to water and rough handling, such as in machine gun feeding mechanisms. In this case, the seal between the bullet and cartridge can prevent the bullet puller from functioning. Pushing the bullet into the case slightly with a seating die will break the seal, and allow the bullet to be pulled.
Primers are a more problematic issue. If a primer is not seated deeply enough, the cartridge (if loaded) can be pulled, and the primer re-seated with the seating tool. Primers that must be removed are frequently deactivated first—either firing the primed case in the appropriate firearm, or soaking in penetrating oil, which penetrates the water resistant coatings in the primer.
Components pulled from loaded cartridges should be reused with care. Unknown or potentially contaminated powders, contaminated primers, and bullets that are damaged or incorrectly sized can all cause dangerous conditions upon firing.
Cases, especially bottleneck cases, will stretch upon firing. How much a case will stretch depends upon load pressure, cartridge design, chamber size, functional cartridge headspace (usually the most important factor), and other variables. Periodically cases need to be trimmed to bring them back into proper specifications. Most reloading manuals list both a "trim size" and a "max length". Long cases can create a safety hazard through improper headspace and possible increased pressure.
Several kinds of case trimmers are available. Die-based trimmers have an open top, and allow the case to be trimmed with a file during the loading process. Manual trimmers usually have a base that has a shellholder at one end and a cutting bit at the opposite end, with a locking mechanism to hold the case tight and in alignment with the axis of the cutter, similar to a small lathe. Typically the device is cranked by hand, but sometimes they have attachments to allow the use of a drill or powered screwdriver. Powered case trimmers are also available. They usually consist of a motor (electric drills are sometimes used) and special dies or fittings that hold the case to be trimmed at the appropriate length, letting the motor do the work of trimming.
Primer pocket cleaning tools are used to remove residual combustion debris remaining in the primer pocket; both brush designs and single blade designs are commonly used. Dirty primer pockets can prevent setting primers at, or below, the cartridge head. Primer pocket reamers or swagers are used to remove military crimps in primer pockets.
Primer pocket uniformer tools are used to achieve a uniform primer pocket depth. These are small endmills with a fixed depth-spacing ring attached, and are mounted either in a handle for use as a handtool, or are sometimes mounted in a battery-operated screwdriver. Some commercial cartridges (notably Sellier & Bellot) use large rifle primers that are thinner than the SAAMI standards common in the United States, and will not permit seating a Boxer primer manufactured to U.S. standards; the use of a primer pocket uniformer tool on such brass avoids setting Boxer primers high when reloading, which would be a safety issue. Two sizes of primer pocket uniformer tools exist, the larger one is for large rifle (0.130-inch nominal depth) primer pockets and the smaller one is used for uniforming small rifle/pistol primer pockets.
Flash hole uniforming tools are used to remove any burrs, which are residual brass remaining from the manufacturing punching operation used in creating flash holes. These tools resemble primer pocket uniformer tools, except being thinner, and commonly include deburring, chamfering, and uniforming functions. The purpose of these tools is to achieve a more equal distribution of flame from the primer to ignite the powder charge, resulting in consistent ignition from case to case.
Bottleneck rifle cartridges are particularly prone to encounter incipient head separations if they are full-length re-sized and re-trimmed to their maximum permitted case lengths each time they are reloaded. In some such cartridges, such as the .303 British when used in Enfield rifles, as few as 1 or 2 reloadings can be the limit, before the head of the cartridge will physically separate from the body of the cartridge when fired. The solution to this problem, of avoiding overstretching of the brass case, and thereby avoiding the excessive thinning of the wall thickness of the brass case due to case stretching, is to use what is called a "headspace gauge". Contrary to its name, it does not actually measure a rifle's headspace. Rather, it measures the distance from the head of the cartridge to the middle of the shoulder of the bottleneck cartridge case. For semi-automatic and automatic rifles, customary practice is to move the midpoint of this shoulder back by no more than 0.005 inches, for reliable operation, when resizing the case. For bolt-action rifles, with their additional camming action, customary practice is to move this shoulder back by only 0.001 to 0.002 inches when resizing the case. In contrast to full-length resizing of bottleneck rifle cartridges, which can rapidly thin out the wall thickness of bottleneck rifle cartridges due to case stretching that occurs each time when fired, partial length re-sizing of the bottleneck case that pushes shoulders back only a few thousandths of an inch will often permit a case to be safely reloaded 5 times or more, even up to 10 times, or more for very light loads.
Similarly, by using modified case gauges, it is possible to measure precisely the distance from a bullet ogive to the start of rifling in a particular rifle for a given bottleneck cartridge. Maximum accuracy for a rifle is often found to occur for only one particular fixed distance from the start of rifling in a bore to a datum line on a bullet ogive. Measuring the overall cartridge length does not permit setting such fixed distances accurately, as different bullets from different manufacturers will often have a different ogive shape. It is only by measuring from a fixed diameter point on a bullet ogive to the start of a bore's rifling that a proper spacing can be determined to maximize accuracy. A modified case gauge can provide the means by which to achieve an improvement in accuracy with precision handloads.
Such head space gauges and modified case gauges can, respectively, permit greatly increasing the number of times a rifle bottleneck case can be reloaded safely, as well as to improve greatly the accuracy of such handloads. Unlike the situation with using expensive factory ammunition, handloaded match ammunition can be made that is vastly more accurate, and, through reloading, that can be much more affordable than anything that can be purchased, being customized for a particular rifle.
The following materials are needed for handloading ammunition:
Case lubrication may also be needed depending on the dies used. Carbide pistol dies do not require case lubricant. For this reason, they are preferred by many, being inherently less messy in operation. In contrast, all dies for bottleneck cartridges, whether made of high strength steel or carbide, and steel dies for pistol do require the use of a case lubricant to prevent having a case become stuck in a die. (In the event that a case does ever become stuck in a die, there are stuck case remover tools that are available to remove a stuck case from the die, albeit at the loss of the particular case that became stuck.)
The operations performed when handloading cartridges are:
When previously fired cases are used, they must be inspected before loading. Cases that are dirty or tarnished are often polished in a tumbler to remove oxidation and allow easier inspection of the case. Cleaning in a tumbler will also clean the interior of cases, which is often considered important for handloading high-precision target rounds. Cracked necks, non-reloadable cases (steel, aluminum, or Berdan primed cases), and signs of head separation are all reasons to reject a case. Cases are measured for length, and any that are over the recommended length are trimmed down to the minimum length. Competition shooters will also sort cases by brand and weight to ensure consistency.
Removal of the primer, called "decapping", in reference to primers being often previously called primer caps or just caps, is usually done with a die containing a steel pin that punches out the primer. Berdan primed cases require a different technique, either a hydraulic ram or a hook that punctures the case and levers it out from the bottom. Military cases often have crimped-in primers, and decapping them leaves a slightly indented ring (most common) or, for some military cartridges, a set of stabbed ridges located on the edge of the primer pocket opening that inhibits or prevents seating a new primer into a decapped case. A reamer or a swage is used to remove both these styles of crimp, whether ring crimps or stab crimps. The purpose of all such primer crimps is to make military ammunition more reliable under more extreme environmental conditions. Some military cartridges also have sealants placed around primers, in addition to crimps, to provide additional protection against moisture intrusion that could deactivate the primer for any ammunition exposed to water under battlefield conditions. Decapping dies, though, easily overcome the additional resistance of sealed primers, with no significant difficulty beyond that encountered when removing non-sealed primers.
When a cartridge is fired, the internal pressure expands the case to fit the chamber in a process called obturation. To allow ease of chambering the cartridge when it is reloaded, the case is swaged back to size. Competition shooters, using bolt action rifles that are capable of camming a tight case into place, often resize only the neck of the cartridge, called "neck sizing", as opposed to the normal full length resizing process. Neck sizing is only useful for cartridges to be re-fired in the same firearm, as the brass may be slightly oversized in some dimensions for other chambers, but the precise fit of case to chamber will allow greater consistency and therefore greater potential accuracy. Some believe that neck sizing will permit a larger number of reloads with a given case in contrast to full size resizing, although this is controversial. Semi-automatic rifles and rifles with SAAMI minimum chamber dimensions often require a special "small base" resizing die, that sizes further down the case than normal dies, and allows for more reliable feeding.
Once the case is sized down, the inside of the neck of the case will actually be slightly smaller than the bullet diameter. To allow the bullet to be seated, the end of the neck is slightly expanded to allow the bullet to start into the case. Boattailed bullets need very little expansion, while unjacketed lead bullets require more expansion to prevent shaving of lead when the bullet is seated.
Priming the case is the most dangerous step of the loading process, since the primers are pressure-sensitive. The use of safety glasses or goggles during priming operations can provide valuable protection in the rare event that an accidental detonation takes place. Seating a Boxer primer not only places the primer in the case, it also seats the anvil of the primer down onto the priming compound, in effect arming the primer. A correctly seated primer will sit slightly below the surface of the case. A primer that protrudes from the case may cause a number of problems, including what is known as a "slam fire," which is the firing of a case before the action is properly locked when chambering a round. This may either damage the gun, and/or injure the shooter. A protruding primer will also tend to hang when feeding, and the anvil will not be seated correctly so the primer may not fire when hit by the firing pin. Primer pockets may need to be cleaned with a primer pocket brush to remove deposits that prevent the primer from being properly seated. Berdan primers must also be seated carefully, and since the anvil is part of the case, the anvil must be inspected before the primer is seated. For reloading cartridges intended for use in military-surplus firearms, rifles especially, "hard" primers are most commonly used instead of commercial "soft" primers. The use of "hard" primers avoids slamfires when loading finished cartridges in the military-surplus firearm. Such primers are available to handloaders commercially.
The quantity of gunpowder is specified by weight, but almost always measured by volume, especially in larger scale operations. A powder scale is needed to determine the correct mass thrown by the powder measure, as loads are specified with a precision of 0.10 grain (6.5 mg). One grain is 1/7000 of a pound. Competition shooters will generally throw a slightly underweight charge, and use a "powder trickler" to add few granules of powder at a time to the charge to bring it to the exact weight desired for maximum consistency. Special care is needed when charging large capacity cases with fast burning, low volume powders. In this instance, it is possible to put two charges of powder in a case without overflowing the case, which can lead to dangerously high pressures and a significant chance of bursting the chamber of the firearm. Non-magnum revolver cartridges are the easiest to do this with, as they generally have relatively large cases, and tend to perform well with small charges of fast powders. Some powders meter (measure by volume) better than others due to the shape of each granule. When using volume to meter each charge, it is important to regularly check the charge weight on a scale throughout the process.
Competition shooters also often sort bullets by weight, often down to 0.10 grain (6.5 mg) increments. The bullet is placed in the case mouth by hand, and then seated with the press. At this point, the expanded case mouth is also sized back down. A crimp can optionally be added, either by the seating die or with a separate die. Taper crimps are used for cases that are held in the chamber by the case mouth, while roll crimps may be used for cases that headspace on a rim or on the cartridge neck. Roll crimps hold the bullet far more securely, and are preferred in situations, such as magnum revolvers, where recoil velocities are significant. A tight crimp also helps to delay the start of the bullet's motion, which can increase chamber pressures, and help develop full power from slower burning powders (see internal ballistics).
Unlike the presses used for reloading metallic cartridges, the presses used for reloading shotgun shells have become standardized to contain 5 stations, with the exact configuration of these 5 stations arranged either in a circle or in a straight row. Nonetheless, the operations performed using the industry-standard 5 station shotshell presses when handloading shotshells with birdshot, although slightly different, are very similar as to when reloading metallic cartridges:
The exact details for accomplishing these steps on particular shotshell presses vary depending on the brand of press, although the presence of 5 stations is standard among all modern presses.
The use of safety glasses or goggles while reloading shotshells can provide valuable protection in the rare event that an accidental detonation takes place during priming operations.
The quantities of both gunpowder and shot are specified by weight when loading shotshells, but almost always measured solely by volume. A powder scale is therefore needed to determine the correct mass thrown by the powder measure, and by the shot measure, as powder loads are specified with a precision of 0.10 grain (6.5 mg), but are usually thrown with a tolerance of 0.2 to 0.3 grains in most shot shell presses. Similarly, shot payloads in shells are generally held to within a tolerance of plus or minus 3-5 grains. One grain is 1/7000 of a pound.
Shotshell reloading for specialty purposes, such as for buckshot or slugs, or other specialty rounds, is often practiced, but varies significantly from the process steps discussed previously for handloading birdshot shotshells. The primary difference is that large shot cannot be metered in a charge bar, and so must be manually dropped, a ball at a time, in a specific configuration. Likewise, the need for specialty wads or extra wads, in order to achieve the desired stackup distance to achieve a full and proper crimp for a fixed shell length, say 2-3/4", causes the steps to differ slightly when handloading such shells.
Modern shotshells are all uniformly sized for Type 209 primers. However, reloaders should be aware that older shotshells were sometimes primed with a Type 57 or Type 69 primer (now obsolete), meaning that shotgun shell reloading tends to be done only with modern (or recently produced) components. Being essentially "published recipe" dependent, antique shotshell reloading is not widely practiced, being more of a specialty, or niche, activity. Of course, when reloading for very old shotguns, such as those with Damascus barrels, special shotshell recipes that limit pressures to less than 4500 psi are still available, and these "recipes" are reloaded by some shotgunning enthusiasts. Typical shotshell pressures for handloads intended for modern shotguns range from approximately 4700 psi to 10,000 psi.
Brass shotshells are also reloaded, occasionally, but typically these are reloaded using standard rifle/pistol reloading presses with specialty dies, rather than with modern shotshell presses. Rather than plastic wads, traditional felt and paperboard wads are also generally used (both over powder and over shot) when reloading brass shotgun shells. Reloading brass shotshells is not widely practiced.
Shotguns, in general, operate at much lower pressures than pistols and rifles, typically operating at pressures of 10,000 psi, or less, for 12 gauge shells, whereas rifles and pistols routinely are operated at pressures in excess of 35,000 psi, and sometimes upwards of 50,000 psi. The SAAMI maximum permitted pressure limit is only 11,500 psi for 12 gauge 2-3/4 inch shells, so the typical operating pressures for many shotgun shells are only slightly below the maximum permitted pressures allowed for safe ammunition. Because of this small difference in typical operating vs. maximum industry allowed pressures, and the fact that even small changes in components can cause pressure variances in excess of 4,000 psi, the components used in shotshell reloading must not be varied from published recipes, as the margin of safety relative to operating pressures for shotguns is much lower than for pistols and rifles. This lower operating pressure for shotguns and shells is also the reason why shotgun barrels have noticeably thinner walls than rifle and pistol barrels.
Since many countries heavily restrict the civilian possession of ammunition and ammunition components, including primers and smokeless powder, handloading may be explicitly or implicitly illegal in certain countries. Even without specific restrictions on powder and primers, they may be covered under other laws governing explosive materials. Handloading may require study and passing an exam to acquire a handloading permit prior to being allowed to handload ammunition in some jurisdictions. This is done to avoid catastrophic accidents caused by lack of knowledge/skill as much as possible, and also allows the government to maintain information on who reloads their own cartridges. The standards organization C.I.P. rules that the products of handloaders that do not comply with the C.I.P. ammunition approval rules for commercial ammunition manufacturers cannot be legally sold in C.I.P. member states.
Many firearms manufacturers explicitly advise against the use of handloaded ammunition. Generally, this means that the maker's warranty is void and the manufacturer not liable for any damage to the gun or personal injury if handloaded ammunition is used which exceeded established limits for a particular arm. This arises because firearm manufacturers point out that while they have some influence and scope for redress with ammunition manufacturers, they have no such influence over the actions of incompetent or overly ambitious individuals who assemble ammunition.
In the United States, handloading is not only legal and requires no permit, but is also quite popular. Experts point to potential legal liabilities (depending on the jurisdiction) that the shooter may incur if using handloaded ammunition for defense, such as an implied malice on the part of the shooter, as the use of handloaded ammunition may give the impression that "regular bullets weren't deadly enough". Additionally, forensic reconstruction of a shooting relies on using identical ammunition from the manufacturer, where handloaded ammunition cannot be guaranteed identical to the ammunition used in the shooting, since "the defendant literally manufactured the evidence". In particular, powder residue patterning is used by law enforcement to validate the distance between the firearm and the person shot using known facts from the manufacturer about powder type, content, and other factors.
Handloading is legal in Canada. The Explosives Act places limits on the amount of powder (either smokeless or black) that may be stored in a building, on the manner in which it is stored, and on how much powder may be available for use at any time. The Act is the responsibility of Natural Resources Canada. If the quantity of powder stored for personal use exceeds 75 kg, then a Propellant Magazine Licence (Type P) is required. There is no limit on the number of primers that may be stored for non-commercial use.
As an example for a European country, handloading in Germany requires a course, terminated in an exam, in handloading and handling of explosive propellants; often, this is offered in combination with a course and exam in muzzle-loading and black powder-shooting. The State's Ministry of the Interior conducts the exam. When passed and the reloader can provide a reason for his will to reload ("Bedürfnisprüfung"), he can apply for a permit to a quota of propellant for five years (after which time he has to extend the permit). Every propellant is recorded into the permit. Primers, cartridges, bullets and reloading equipment are available without permit.
As German law gives maximum pressures for every commercial caliber, the handloader is allowed to non-commercially give away his ammunition. He is liable for incorrect loading. His references are data-books by propellant manufacturers (like RWS), bullet manufacturers (like Speer), reloading tool manufacturers (like Lyman) or neutral manufacturers institutions like the DEVA. Firearms manufacturers give guarantee as long as the handloaded ammunition is within the correct parameters.
The relevant rules for non commercial application can be found in §27 of the Explosives Act ("Sprengstoffgesetz").
In order to investigate gun destruction – material fault or incorrectly loaded ammunition – , and for handloaders to get data for new loads, gun and/or handloaded cartridges can be sent to the DEVA institute (German institute for testing and examining of hunting and sporting guns); the DEVA returns a pressure diagram and a report whether this load is within legal range for this ammunition.
Hand loading or reloading is allowed in South Africa as long as you are in possession of a competency certificate to possess a firearm as well as a license to possess such a firearm. Sport shooters load to make the shooting sports more affordable and hunters load to obtain greater accuracy. Powder and primers are strictly controlled by law and can not exceed for 2 kg for powder and 2400 primers. The amount of ammunition you may have in your possession is also limited to 200 rounds per chambering. If you are a registered dedicated sportsman, the quantities are unlimited. Although the powder's quantity is unlimited if you are a dedicated sportsman, storage of excess amounts of powder is dangerous due to the potential of fire occurring from accidental ignition. A manual from a South African powder manufacturer Rheinmetall Denel Munition (previously Somchem) is available for reloaders with adequate information and guidelines.
Berdan primers, with their off-center flash holes and lack of self-contained anvil, are more difficult to work with than the easily removed Boxer primers. The primers may be punctured and pried out from the rear, or extracted with hydraulic pressure. Primers must be selected carefully, as there are more sizes of Berdan primers than the standard large and small pistol, large and small rifle of Boxer primers. The case must also be inspected carefully to make sure the anvil has not been damaged, because this could result in a failure to fire.
Rimfire cartridges (e.g. 22 Long Rifle) are not generally hand-loaded in modern times, although there are some shooters that unload commercial rimfire cartridges, and use the primed case to make their own loads, or to generate special rimfire wildcat cartridges. These cartridges are highly labor-intensive to produce. Historically, liquid priming material was available for reloading rimfire ammunition, but the extreme explosive hazard of bulk primer compound and complexity of the process (including "ironing out" the firing pin strike) caused the practice to decline.
Some shooters desiring to reload for obsolete rimfire cartridges alter the firearm in question to function as a centerfire, which allows them to reload. Often it is possible to reform cases from similarly sized ammunition which is in production, and this is the most economical way of obtaining brass for obscure or out of production calibers. Even if custom brass must be manufactured, this is often far less expensive than purchasing rare, out of production ammunition. Cartridges like the 56-50 Spencer, for example, are not readily obtainable in rimfire form, but can be made from shortened 50-70 cartridges or even purchased in loaded form from specialty dealers.
An unusual solution to the problem of obtaining ammunition for the very old pinfire cartridges is even available. This solution uses specialized cartridges that use a removable pin and anvil which hold a percussion cap of the type use in caplock firearms. To reload a fired case, the pin is removed, allowing the anvil to slide out; a percussion cap is placed in the anvil, it is re-inserted, and the pin serves to lock the anvil in place, as well as to ignite the percussion cap.
Shotshell reloading is sometimes done for scatter shot loads, consisting of multiple wads separating groups of shot, which are intended for use at short distance hunting of birds. Similarly, shotshell reloading for buck shot loads and non-lethal "bean bag" loads are sometimes handloaded. These types of shotshells are rarely handloaded.
Precision and consistency are key to developing accurate ammunition. Various methods are used to ensure that ammunition components are as consistent as possible. Since the firearm is also a variable in the accuracy equation, careful tuning of the load to a particular firearm can yield significant
accuracy improvements.
The internal volume of the cartridge case, or case capacity, significantly affects the pressure developed during ignition, which significantly affects the velocity of the bullet. Cases from different manufacturers can vary in wall thickness, and as cases are repeatedly fired and reloaded the brass flows up to the neck and is trimmed off, increasing capacity as well as weakening the case. The first step to ensuring consistent case capacity is sorting the cases by headstamp, so each lot of cases is from the same manufacturer and/or year. A further step would be to then weigh these cases, and sort by case weight.
The neck of the case is another variable, since this determines how tightly the bullet is held in place during ignition. Inconsistent neck thickness and neck tension will result in variations in pressure during ignition. These variables can be addressed by annealing and thinning the neck, as well as by careful control of the crimping operation.
Bullets must be well balanced and consistent in weight, shape, and seating depth to ensure that they correctly engage the rifling, exit the barrel at a consistent velocity, and fly straight. Buying bullets from a high quality source will help ensure quality, but for ultimate accuracy some shooters will measure even the best bullets, and reject all but the most consistent. Measurement of the weight is the easiest, and bullets that are out of round can be detected by rotating the bullet while measuring with a micrometer. There is even a device available that will detect changes in jacket thickness and internal voids in jacketed rifle bullets, though its high cost makes it prohibitively expensive for all but the most dedicated shooters.
The transition from case to barrel is also very important. If the bullets have to travel a varying distance from the case to the point where they engage the rifling, then this can result in variations in pressure and velocity. The bearing surface of the bullet should ideally be seated as close as possible to the rifling. Since it is bearing surface that matters here, it is important that the bullets have a consistent bearing surface.
Tuning load to gun can also yield great increases in accuracy, especially for standard, non-accurized rifles. Different rifles, even of the same make and model, will often react to the same ammunition in different ways. The handloader is afforded a wider selection of bullet weights than can readily be found in commercially loaded ammunition, and there are many different powders that can be used for any given cartridge. Trying a range of bullets and a variety of powders will determine what combination of bullet and powder gives the most consistent velocities and accuracies. Careful adjustment of the amount of powder can give the velocity that best fits the natural harmonics of the barrel (see accurize and internal ballistics). For ultimate accuracy and performance, the handloader also has the option of using a wildcat cartridge; wildcats are the result of shaping the cartridge and chamber themselves to a specific end, and the results push the envelope of velocity, energy, and accuracy. Most, but not all, reloads perform best when the powder selected fills 95% or more of the case (by volume).
Those who reload with the primary goal of maximizing accuracy or terminal performance may end up paying more per reloaded round than for commercial ammunition—this is especially true for military calibers which are commonly available as surplus. Maximum performance, however, requires the highest quality components, which are usually the most expensive. Reloaders who reload with the primary goal of saving money on ammunition, however, can make a few tradeoffs to realize significant cost savings with a minimal sacrifice in quality.
Since the case is the single most expensive part of a loaded round, the more times a case can be re-used, the better. Cases that are loaded to a moderate pressure will generally last longer, as they will not be work hardened or flow under pressure as much as cases loaded to higher pressures. Use of moderate pressure loads extends the life of the case significantly, not to mention saving quite a bit of wear and tear on the barrel. Work hardening can cause cracks to occur in the neck as the hardened brass loses its malleability, and is unable to survive swaging back into shape during the resizing operation. Rifle brass tends to flow towards the neck (this is why rifle brass must be trimmed periodically) and this takes brass away from the rear of the case. Eventually, this will show as a bright ring near the base of the cartridge, just in front of the thick web of brass at the base. If brass is used after this ring appears, it risks a crack, or worse, a complete head separation, which will leave the forward portion of the brass lodged in the chamber of the gun. This generally requires a special stuck case removal tool to extract, so it is very undesirable to have a head separation.
With bottlenecked cartridge cases, choosing the right sizing die can also be important. Full length sizing of cartridges is often thought to greatly shorten case life by work hardening the full length of the case, which can cause the case neck to split, although some studies show that the number of reloads possible with a case is essentially the same for either full length sizing as for neck sizing only if the issue is one of neck hardening. If the reloaded cartridges are going to be used in the same firearm in which they were previously fired, though, and if that firearm has a bolt action or other action with a strong camming action on closing, then full length resizing may not be needed. A collet neck sizing die can be used to size just the case neck enough to hold the bullet, and leave the rest of the case unsized. The resulting cartridge will chamber into the specific rifle that previously fired it, though the fit might be tight and require more force to chamber than a full length resized case. The use of a neck-sizing die in conjunction with moderate pressure loads may extend the life of the case significantly by minimizing the amount of case that is work hardened or stretched. This is especially true for reloads intended for military rifles with intentionally large chambers such as the Lee–Enfield in .303 British. The use of partial length or neck sizing for cartridges used in such large chambers permits effectively switching the headspacing from relying on the rim of a rimmed cartridge to the shoulder of the bottle neck transition instead, increasing the number of times a rimmed military cartridge can be reloaded from once to perhaps 5 or more times, all while avoiding dangerous incipient head separations. One final form of limiting case wear is, unfortunately, limited strictly to benchrest shooters with custom-cut chambers. The chamber of these rifles is cut so that there is just enough room, typically just a few thousandths of an inch, in the neck area. The result of using this type of chamber is that fired rounds don't require any resizing whatsoever once the case is fired. The brass will 'spring back' a bit after firing, and will properly hold a new bullet without further manipulation. Some refer to this as a 'fitted' neck, however it is a function of both the carefully cut precision neck and the case adjusted to fit with very little clearance.
Work hardening happens to all cases, even low-pressure handgun cases. The sudden increase in pressure upon firing hits the brass like a hammer, changing its crystalline structure and making it more brittle. The neck of the case, if it becomes too brittle, will be incapable of standing the strain of resizing, expanding, crimping, and firing, and will split during loading or firing. Since the case neck remains in tension while holding the bullet in place, aging ammunition may develop split necks in storage. While a neck split during firing is not a significant danger, a split neck will render the case incapable of holding the bullet in place, so the case must be discarded or recycled as a wildcat cartridge of shorter overall length, allowing the split section to be removed. The simplest way to decrease the effects of work hardening is to decrease the pressure in the case. Loading to the minimum power level listed in the reloading manual, instead of the maximum, can significantly increase case life. Slower powders generally also have lower pressure peaks, and may be a good choice.
Annealing brass to make it softer and less brittle is fairly easy, but annealing cartridge cases is a more complex matter. Since the base of the case must be hard, it cannot be annealed. What is needed is a form of heat treatment called differential hardening, where heat is carefully applied to part of the case until the desired softness is reached, and then the heat treatment process is halted by rapidly cooling the case. Since annealing brass requires heating it to about 660 °F (350 °C), the heating must be done in such a way as to heat the neck to that temperature, while preventing the base of the case from being heated and losing its hardness. The traditional way is to stand the cases in a shallow pan full of water, then heat the necks of the cases with a torch, but this method makes it difficult to get an even heating of the entire case neck. A temperature-sensitive crayon can be used at the point to which it is to be annealed, which is just behind the shoulder for bottlenecked cartridges, or at the bottom of the bullet seating depth for straight-wall cartridges. The neck of the case is placed in a propane torch flame and heated it until the crayon mark changes color, indicating the correct temperature. Once the correct temperature is reached the case is completely quenched in water to stop the annealing process at the desired hardness. Failing to keep the base of the case cool can anneal the case near the head, where it must remain hard to function properly. Another approach is to immerse the case mouth in a molten alloy of lead that is at the desired annealing temperature for a few seconds, then quickly shake off the lead and quench the case.
Cases that have small cracks at the neck may not be a complete loss. Many cartridges, both commercial and wildcats, can be made by shortening a longer cartridge. For example, a 223 Remington can be shortened to become a .222 Remington, which can further be shortened to become a .221 Fireball. Similarly, .30-06 Springfield can become .308 Winchester, which can become any number of specialized benchrest shooting cartridges. Since the cracking is likely due to a brittle neck, the cases should be annealed before attempting to reform them, or the crack may propagate and ruin the newly formed shorter case as well.
Powder is another significant cost of reloading, and one over which the handloader has significant control. In addition to the obvious step of using a minimum charge, rather than a full power one, significant cost savings may be obtained through careful powder choice. Given the same bullet and cartridge, a faster burning powder will generally use a smaller charge of powder than required with a slower powder. For example, a 44 Magnum firing a 240-grain lead semi-wadcutter could be loaded with either Accurate Arms #2, a very fast pistol powder, or #9, a very slow pistol powder. When using the minimum loads, 9.0 grains (0.58 g) of AA #2 yield a velocity of 1126 ft/s (343 m/s), and 19.5 grains (1.26 g) of #9 yield 1364 ft/s (416 m/s). For the same amount of powder, AA #2 can produce approximately twice as many rounds, yet both powders cost the same per weight.
The tradeoff comes in terms of power and accuracy; AA #2 is designed for small cases, and will burn inconsistently in the large 44 Magnum case. AA #9, however, will fill the case much better, and the slow burn rate of AA #9 is ideal for magnum handgun rounds, producing 20% higher velocities (at maximum levels) while still producing less pressure than the fast burning AA #2. A medium burning powder might actually be a better choice, as it could split the difference in powder weights while delivering more power and accuracy than the fastest powder.
One solution that is applicable to revolvers in particular is the possibility of using a reduced-volume case. Cartridges such as 357 Magnum and 44 Magnum are just longer versions of their parent rounds of .38 Special and .44 Special, and the shorter rounds will fire in the longer chambers with no problems. The reduced case capacity allows greater accuracy with even lighter loads. A 44 Special loaded with a minimum load of AA #2 uses only 4.2 grains (0.27 g) of powder, and produces a modest 771 ft/s (235 m/s). It is important to note that when reloading .38 Special and .44 Special, extreme care must be exercised to not exceed maximum powder specifications - i.e. a 357 Magnum load must never be used in a .38 special case, as even though the powder charge may fit, the difference in case volumes will likely create an overpressure scenario resulting in unsafe conditions.
While the case is usually the most expensive component of a cartridge, the bullet is usually the most expensive part of the "reloaded" round, especially with handgun ammunition. It is also the best place to save money with handgun ammunition. This is because the bullets are used one time, and the case lasts for many reloadings.
Other advantages of casting or swaging bullets from lead wire (which is pricier but avoids many quality-control issues of casting) is the ability to precisely control many attributes of the resulting bullet. Custom bullet molds are available from a number of sources, allowing the handloader to pick the exact weight, shape, and diameter of the bullet to fit the cartridge, firearm, and intended use. A good example of where this is useful is for shooters of older military surplus firearms, which often exhibit widely varying bore and groove diameters; by making bullets specifically intended for the firearm in question, accuracy of the resulting cartridges can be significantly increased.
For the truly frugal, the cheapest method of obtaining bullets, buckshot, and slugs intended for reloading use at low to moderate velocities is casting them.
This requires a set of bullet, buckshot, or slug molds, which are available from a number of sources, and a source of known quality lead. Linotype and automotive wheelweights are often used as sources of lead that are blended together in a molten state to achieve the desired Brinell hardness. Other sources of scrap lead, such as recovered bullets, lead cable sheathing, lead pipe, or even lead–acid battery plates, (EXTREME caution should be used as modern battery components, when melted, can yield hazardous, even deadly gases) can yield usable lead with some degree of effort, including purification and measuring of hardness.
Cast bullets are also the cheapest bullets to buy, though generally only handgun bullets are available in this form. Some firearms manufacturers, such as those using polygonal rifling like Glock and H&K, advise against the use of cast bullets. For shooters who would like to shoot cast bullets, aftermarket barrels are generally available for these models with conventional rifling, and the cost of the barrel can generally be recouped in ammunition savings after a few thousand rounds.
Soft lead bullets are generally used in handguns with velocities of 1000 ft/s (300 m/s) or lower, while harder cast bullets may be used, with careful powder selection, in rifles with velocities of 2000 ft/s (600 m/s) or slightly more. A modern solution to velocity limitations of cast projectiles is to powder coat the projectile, encasing it in a protective skin allowing higher velocities to be achieved with softer lead alloys with no lead build up in the firearm. The limit is the point at which the powder gas temperature and pressure starts to melt the base of the bullet, and leave a thin coating of molten and re-solidified lead in the bore of the gun—a process called leading the bore. Cast lead bullets may also be fired in full power magnum handgun rounds like the 44 Magnum with the addition of a gas check, which is a thin aluminum, zinc or copper washer or cup that is crimped over a tiny heel on the base of appropriate cast bullets. This provides protection for the base of the bullet, and allows velocities of over 1500 ft/s (450 m/s) in handguns, with little or no leading of the bore.
Such cast lead bullets, intended for use with a gas check, will have a reduced diameter at the rear of the cast lead bullet, onto which the gas check can be swaged using a lubricating/resizing press. All cast lead bullets, whether with or without a gas check, must still be lubricated, to prevent leading of the rifling of the barrel. A lubricating/resizing press, which is a special purpose bullet processing press, can be either a standalone press dedicated to lubricating and resizing bullets, or can be an add-on to a reloading press, at the option of the handloader. Not all handloaders resize cast lead bullets, although all handloaders do lubricate cast lead bullets. An option to using a lubricating press is simply to coat the bullets with bullet lube, which can be done either with a spray, in a tumbler, in a plastic bowel with a liquid lube, in a tray with melted bullet lube, or even with a manual lubricating process.
Slugs for shotgun shells are also commonly cast from pure lead by handloaders, for subsequent reloading into shotgun shells. Although roll crimps of shotgun hull cases are commonly used for handloading these cast lead slugs, in place of the fold crimps that are used when reloading shot into shotgun shells, some published recipes specifically do include fold crimps. For published recipes using fold crimps and shot wads used as sabots, slugs can be easily reloaded using standard shotshell presses and techniques, without requiring any roll crimp tools. Whether roll crimps or fold crimps are used, cast lead slugs are commonly used in jurisdictions where rifles are banned for hunting, under the reasoning that fired slugs will not travel but over short distances, unlike rifle bullets which can travel up to several miles when fired. Use of cast lead slugs is therefore very common when hunting large game near populated areas.
Similarly, cast lead buckshot is often cast by handloaders, for reloading into shotgun shells for hunting larger game animals. Such buckshot is then placed by hand into shotgun shells when handloaded, due to the necessity of having to stack the buckshot balls into specific configurations depending on the gauge of shotgun shell being reloaded, the choice of wad, the volume of powder, and the size of the buckshot (e.g., 00, 000, 0000 buckshot). Such cast lead buckshot is never simply dropped from a shotshell press charge bar into a shotgun shell when reloading.
Most shooters prefer jacketed bullets, especially in rifles and pistols. The hard jacket material, generally copper or brass, resists deformation and handles far higher pressures and temperatures than lead. Several companies offer swaging presses (both manual and hydraulic) that will manufacture on a small scale jacketed bullets that can rival or surpass the quality of commercial jacketed bullets. Two swaging equipment manufacturers offer equipment and dies designed to turn 22 Long Rifle cases into brass jackets for 22 caliber (5.56 mm) bullets. A reference manual for bullet swaging is offered by Corbin.
Swage dies from Corbin, as an example, come in three variants:
Every bullet diameter, and most of the bullet types, need special dies, making swaging a rather investment-intensive enterprise.
Handloaders have the choice to swage but most choose to purchase pre-made jacketed bullets, due to the obscure nature of swaging and the specialized, expensive equipment. The process of manufacturing a jacketed bullet is far more complex than for a cast bullet; first, the jacket must be punched from a metal sheet of precise thickness, filled with a premeasured lead core, and then swaged into shape with a high pressure press in multiple steps. This involved process makes jacketed bullets far more expensive on average than cast bullets. Further complicating this are the requirements for controlled expansion bullets (see terminal ballistics), which require a tight bond between the jacket and the core. Premium expanding bullets are, with match grade bullets, at the top tier in expense.
A more economical alternative was made available to the handloader in the 1980s, the copper-plated bullet. Copper-plated bullets are lead bullets that are electroplated with a copper jacket. While thinner than a swaged bullet jacket, the plated jacket is far thicker than normal electroplate, and provides significant structural integrity to the bullet. Since the jacket provides the strength, soft lead can be used, which allows bullets to be swaged or cast into shape before plating. While not strong enough for most rifle cartridges, plated bullets work well in many handgun rounds, with a recommended maximum velocity of 1250 ft/s (375 m/s). Plated bullets fall between cast and traditional jacketed bullets in price.
While originally sold only to handloaders as an inexpensive substitute for jacketed bullets, the plated bullet has come far. The ammunition manufacturer Speer now offers the Gold Dot line, commercially loaded premium handgun ammunition using copper-plated hollow point bullets. The strong bond between jacket and core created by the electroplating process makes expanding bullets hold together very well, and the Gold Dot line is now in use by many police departments.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=13863
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Houston Texans
The Houston Texans are a professional American football team based in Houston. The Texans compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) South division. The team plays its home games at NRG Stadium.
The club first played in as an expansion team, making them the youngest franchise currently competing in the NFL. The Texans replaced the city's previous NFL franchise, the Houston Oilers who played from 1960 to 1996, which moved to Nashville and are now known as the Tennessee Titans. The team was founded and owned by Bob McNair from 1999 until his death in 2018. Following McNair's death, the majority ownership of the team went to his wife, Janice McNair.
While the team mainly struggled in their first decade of play, they found success in the 2011 season, winning their first division championship and clinching their first playoff berth. The Texans have gone on to win five more AFC South championships in 2012, 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2019. As of the 2019 season, they are the only franchise to have never appeared in a conference championship game.
In 1997, Houston entrepreneur Bob McNair had a failed bid to bring a National Hockey League (NHL) expansion team to the city, and Bud Adams relocated the city's NFL team, the Houston Oilers, to Nashville where they were renamed the Tennessee Titans. In 1996, a year earlier, the Cleveland Browns had controversially relocated to become the Baltimore Ravens. As part of the settlement between the NFL, the city of Cleveland, Ohio, and the team owned by Art Modell, the league promised to return football to Cleveland within the following three years.
In order to even out the franchises at 32, the league also contemplated adding another expansion franchise. As Houston was one of the favorites for the extra franchise along with Toronto and Los Angeles (which had lost the Rams and the Raiders in 1995), McNair then decided to join the football project and founded Houston NFL Holdings with partner Steve Patterson. In association with Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, they would push for a domed stadium as part of the bid to lure the NFL back to Houston. On October 6, 1999 the NFL awarded the 32nd team to Houston, at the cost of $700 million.
The Houston Texans joined the league in the 2002 season, playing at the newly-opened Reliant Stadium. With their opening game victory over the Dallas Cowboys that season, the team became the first expansion team to win its opening game since the Minnesota Vikings beat the Chicago Bears in 1961. While the team struggled in early seasons, results began to improve once native Houstonian Gary Kubiak became the head coach in 2006. The Texans finished with a .500 season (8–8) in both 2007 and 2008, and nearly qualified for the 2009–10 NFL playoffs with a 9–7 result in 2009. In 2010, the team started the season on a 4–2 record going into a Week 7 bye week, but promptly collapsed 2–8 in the second part of the season, finishing 6–10. In the 2011 NFL Draft, the Texans acquired Wisconsin star defensive end J.J. Watt 11th overall. The following season, former Cowboys head coach Wade Phillips was hired as the defensive coordinator of the Texans, and the improved defense led to the Texans finishing 10–6, winning their first AFC South title. The Texans then beat wild card Cincinnati Bengals 31–10 in the first round of the 2011–12 NFL playoffs, before a 20–13 defeat by the Ravens in the Divisional Round.
The Texans surged as the team to beat in the AFC South in , starting 5–0 and holding an 11–1 record by week 14. However, they lost three of their last four games to finish 12–4; beating the rival Indianapolis Colts in that four-game stretch allowing them to clinch their 2nd AFC South title. The Texans beat the Bengals again in the wild-card round, but they lost in the Divisional Round to the New England Patriots.
In the 2013 NFL Draft, the Texans acquired Clemson wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins 27th overall. In 2013, the Texans started 2–0 but went into a tailspin and lost every game afterwards. Kubiak was fired as head coach after being swept by the rival Jacksonville Jaguars, who themselves started 0–8. Wade Phillips filled in as head coach, but the Texans' poor form did not change, and they finished 2–14, tying, with 2005, their worst record in franchise history. The 14-game losing streak is also the worst in franchise history.
The Texans entered the 2014 season with a 14-game losing streak. Former Penn State head coach Bill O'Brien became the Texans' new head coach, and the third in franchise history, during the offseason. In 2014, the Texans won three of their first four games, defeating the Redskins in the season opener, the Raiders, and the Bills, losing to the New York Giants. They lost three of their next four games, losing to the Dallas Cowboys, the Indianapolis Colts, and the Pittsburgh Steelers, respectively. The Texans went on to finish 9–7 in the 2014 season and barely missed the playoffs.
In the 2015 season, they were featured on HBO, on the show "Hard Knocks". That year, the Texans started with a 2–5 record. Quarterback Ryan Mallett was released amidst controversy regarding his benching in favor of Brian Hoyer during a loss against the Indianapolis Colts. After a poor start, the Texans finished with a 9–7 record and won their third AFC South title. However, they were shut out by the Kansas City Chiefs in the Wild Card round 30–0, ending their championship hopes for the year.
On March 9, 2016, the Texans signed former Denver Broncos quarterback Brock Osweiler to a 4-year, $72 million deal. Despite Osweiler's lucrative deal, he struggled significantly during the entire season. After throwing two interceptions in Week 15 against the Jaguars, coach Bill O'Brien benched the offseason acquisition in favor of backup quarterback Tom Savage. Savage led a comeback effort against the Jaguars, and was named the starter for the remainder of the season. The Texans clinched their fourth AFC South division title in six years in Savage's first career start against the Bengals in Week 16. They defeated the wildcard Oakland Raiders 27–14 in the opening round of the playoffs with Osweiler as the starting quarterback due to Savage being out with a concussion. Osweiler started in the Divisional Playoffs game against the New England Patriots, throwing three interceptions in the second half. The Texans lost 34–16.
In the 2017 NFL Draft, the Texans traded up to the 12th overall selection to select Clemson star quarterback Deshaun Watson. Watson started six games his rookie year, going 3–3 and having arguably the greatest and most decorated rookie season by a quarterback in NFL history, eventually rising up to become the Texans' franchise quarterback. However, his success would come up very short, following a Week 8 41–38 loss to the Seattle Seahawks, Watson tore his ACL in practice and was ruled out the remainder of the season, which caused the Texans to have one of their worst seasons. Plagued by a series of unexpected injuries (including a second consecutive season-ending injury to J.J. Watt) and controversy involving the team's suspected violation of the league's concussion protocol, after backup quarterback Tom Savage suffered a seizure following a Week 14 game against the San Francisco 49ers, the Texans went 1–9 the rest of the season and eventually finish 4–12 and last in the AFC South in 2017, missing the playoffs for the first time since 2014 and giving Bill O'Brien his first losing season as Texans head coach.
In 2018, the Texans started the season 0–3, losing by a combined 15 points to the New England Patriots, Tennessee Titans, and New York Giants, before winning a 37–34 overtime shootout on the road in Indianapolis. This win sparked a nine-game winning streak for the Texans, their first since starting 5–0 in 2012, which included a Week 8 win against the Miami Dolphins that included five touchdown passes from Deshaun Watson. This streak was the longest ever for a team that started the season 0–3; the previous record was a seven-game win-streak set by the New York Giants in 1918 after starting out 0–3.
On November 23, 2018, the owner of the Houston Texans, Bob McNair, died from skin cancer. On November 26, 2018, McNair's wife, Janice McNair, became the principal owner and Senior Chair of the Houston Texans, while their son, D. Cal McNair, became the Chairman and Chief Operating Officer.
The Texans finished the season 11–5, and won another AFC South division championship under Bill O'Brien. They then lost 21–7 in the first round of the playoffs to their AFC South division rival Indianapolis Colts.
In 2019, the Texans won the AFC South division championship and qualified for the NFL playoffs on the back of a 10–6 record. They went on to defeat the Buffalo Bills by a score of 22–19 in overtime in the AFC wild card round. However, the Texans' 2019 season came to an end the following week, as they lost to the eventual Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs by a score of 51–31 in the AFC divisional round.
On March 2, 2000, Houston NFL 2002 announced that the team name search had been narrowed down to five choices: Apollos, Bobcats, Stallions, Texans, and Wildcatters. The list of names was determined after several months of research conducted jointly by Houston NFL 2002 and NFL Properties. An online survey regarding the name generated more than 65,000 responses in just seven days.
On September 6, 2000, the NFL's 32nd franchise was officially christened the Houston Texans before thousands at a downtown rally in Houston. McNair explained that the name and logo "embody the pride, strength, independence and achievement that make the people of Houston and our area special." The nickname "Texans" was more recently used by the now-defunct Canadian Football League franchise in San Antonio; the Texans had previously been the name of a former World Football League franchise in Houston, which moved to Louisiana to become the Shreveport Steamer; the Dallas Texans of the NFL which only played in the 1952 season; and the nickname was also used by the precursor of the present-day Kansas City Chiefs, when they were the Dallas Texans of the American Football League (AFL). Owner Bob McNair received permission from Chiefs' owner Lamar Hunt to use the Texans nickname for his new team.
Along with the team name, McNair also unveiled the team logo, an abstract depiction of a bull's head, split in such a way to resemble the flag of Texas and the state of Texas, including a lone star to stand for the eye, the five points of which representing pride, courage, strength, tradition and independence. McNair described the colors as "Deep Steel Blue", "Battle Red" and "Liberty White". A year later the Texans unveiled their uniforms during another downtown rally.
The Texans' helmet is dark blue with the Texans bull logo. The helmet was initially white when the team name and logo were unveiled, but was later changed to dark blue. The uniform design consists of red trim and either dark blue or white jerseys. The team typically wears white pants with its blue jerseys and blue pants with its white jerseys. Starting with the 2006 season, the Texans wore all-white for their home opener, and the team began to wear an all-blue combination for home games vs. the Indianapolis Colts. In 2003, the Texans introduced an alternative red jersey with blue trim; they wear this jersey at one home game each year, usually against a division rival. In 2007, the Texans introduced red pants for the first time, pairing them with the red jerseys for an all-red look. (This uniform combination was not well-received and has since been retired). In October 2008 the Texans paired blue socks (instead of the traditional red) with their blue pants and white jerseys. In 2016, the Texans unveiled a new uniform combo against the Jacksonville Jaguars, pairing the red jersey with blue pants and red socks. In 2017, the Texans wear the color rush uniform with all-navy blue.
In 2002, the team wore a patch commemorating their inaugural season. Also, they celebrated 10 years as a franchise by wearing an anniversary patch throughout 2012. Since 2018, the Texans started wearing a memorial patch to honor the late Bob McNair.
The team's official mascot is Toro. The team also has a cheerleading squad simply named the Houston Texans Cheerleaders.
Famous fans of the Texans include Olympic gymnast Simone Biles, actors Dennis Quaid, Jim Parsons, Rico Rodriguez, megachurch pastor Joel Osteen, and astronauts Mark and Scott Kelly.
The Texans are the youngest franchise in the NFL, having only been competing in the NFL since 2002. For that reason, they have not had the history or the reputation on which to build classic rivalries like the ones that often exist between older franchises. Despite this, the team has developed some rivalries. Its natural rivals are its fellow AFC South teams such as the Tennessee Titans, Jacksonville Jaguars, and Indianapolis Colts.
The Tennessee Titans, who were formerly the Houston Oilers before their relocation in 1996, are viewed by many Houston fans as the Texans' chief rival as members of the AFC South.
The Texans also have an AFC South Division rivalry with the Indianapolis Colts, whom the Texans had never defeated in Indianapolis until the 2015 season. More recently, Houston has increased bitterness with the Indianapolis Colts due to their young Houston-native quarterback Andrew Luck having been drafted by the Colts in 2012 and the franchise's first ever sweep of the Colts against Luck in 2016. In 2018 the two teams met in the , with the Colts winning 21–7.
The Texans also have an intrastate/interconference rivalry with the Dallas Cowboys, with whom they contest the so-called Governor's Cup every year (a tradition started between the cities prior to the Oilers relocating) either in the preseason or the regular season for bragging rights in the state of Texas. In 2017, the destruction and flooding caused during Hurricane Harvey a few days before their Week 4 pre-season match up time scheduled caused the game to be relocated to AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. However, out of concern for the safety of the fans and the condition of the player's families & communities, the game was canceled.
As of the end of the 2019 season, the Texans' overall regular season win-loss record is 131–157. The Texans notched the 100th regular season win in their history when they defeated the Tennessee Titans on October 2, 2016. The Texans posted their best-ever season record in 2012, finishing at 12–4. The team's worst-ever seasons on record are 2–14, in both 2005 and 2013. Most recently the Texans finished 10-6 in 2019, winning their sixth AFC South championship.
The Texans are 4–6 all-time in playoff games. All six of the Texans' playoff berths have been as a result of winning the AFC South division championship. The Texans have a 4–2 record all-time in Wild Card Round games but have lost all four games they have played in the Divisional Round. In the 2019 playoffs in the Wild Card Round the Texans, playing at home, overcame an early 16-0 deficit to defeat the Buffalo Bills 22-19 in overtime. The following weekend in their Divisional Round game in Kansas City, the Texans held a 24-0 lead early in the second quarter over the Kansas City Chiefs only to ultimately lose 51-31.
As members of the AFC South, the Texans play 6 of their 16 regular season games against other AFC South teams. As of the end of the 2019 season, the Texans have a cumulative regular season record of 49–59 against their three divisional rivals: 23–13 versus the Jacksonville Jaguars; 17-19 versus the Tennessee Titans; and 9–27 versus the Indianapolis Colts. The Texans have fared slightly better against the rest of the AFC, posting a regular season record of 52–56 against AFC teams from divisions other than the South, with an 18–18 record against AFC East teams, 17–19 against AFC North teams, and 17–19 against AFC West teams. The Texans are 30-42 against NFC teams, tallying a 6–14 record against NFC East teams, 8–8 against NFC North teams, 11-9 against NFC South teams, and 5–11 against NFC West teams.
As of the end of the 2019 season, there is one team against which the Texans have never lost: the Chicago Bears (4–0). There are also two teams which the Texans have never beaten: the Minnesota Vikings (0–4) and Philadelphia Eagles (0–5). According to the NFL's scheduling formula, the Texans' next regular-season games against the Bears and Vikings will be in 2020, and their next regular season game against the Eagles will occur in 2022.
On November 19, 2017, Andre Johnson was the first-ever inductee into the Texans Ring of Honor. On October 6, 2019, Bob McNair was posthumously the second inductee into the Texans Ring of Honor.
, the Texans' flagship radio stations were KILT SportsRadio 610AM and KILT 100.3FM. The AM station has an all-sports format, while the FM station plays contemporary country music. Both are owned by Entercom. Marc Vandermeer is the play-by-play announcer. Heisman Trophy winner Andre Ware provides color commentary, and SportsRadio 610 host Rich Lord serves as the sideline reporter. Preseason games are telecast by KTRK, an ABC owned and operated station. Kevin Kugler calls the preseason games on TV, with former Oilers running back Spencer Tillman providing color commentary. Regular season games are aired over CBS affiliate KHOU, FOX affiliate KRIV if the Texans host an NFC team, and NBC affiliate KPRC for Sunday night games.
Spanish-language radio broadcasts of the team's games are aired on KGOL ESPN Deportes 1180AM. Enrique Vásquez is the play-by-play announcer. José Jojo Padrón provides color commentary, and Fernando Hernández serves as sideline reporter.
Texans Radio Affiliates
The theme song of the Texans is "It's Football Time In Houston" by Clay Walker, played after every Texans touchdown. The song was donated by Walker to the city of Houston. The Texans tried to introduce a new fight song in 2003, but quickly returned to the original after a negative reception by fans.
The Texans' defensive squad takes the field to the sound of "Bulls on Parade" by Rage Against the Machine. The Texans started using the song after former linebacker Connor Barwin coined the nickname in a tweet in 2011.
On January 5, 2012, local Houston rap artists Slim Thug, Paul Wall and ZRo released a song titled "HOUSTON" supporting the Houston Texans. The YouTube video has amassed over a million views becoming unofficially the Texans' most popular theme song.
"Hats Off to the Bull" by the hard rock band Chevelle has become another popular theme song of the entire team. It is frequently played at home games.
Community outreach by the Houston Texans is primarily operated by the Houston Texans Foundation, who works with multiple community partners. The Houston Texans organization is also a supporter of the character education program, Heart of a Champion. In 2017, the 15th annual Houston Texans Charity Golf Classic raised more than $380,000 for the Foundation. More than $27.2 million has been raised for the Foundation since its creation in 2002.
Texans DE J.J. Watt raised $41.6 million in relief funds for Hurricane Harvey after the storm devastated the city in 2017.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=13864
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Harold Holt
Harold Edward Holt, (5 August 190817 December 1967), was an Australian politician who served as the 17th Prime Minister of Australia, in office from 1966 until his presumed drowning death in 1967. He was the leader of the Liberal Party during that time.
Holt, born in Sydney, lived in Melbourne from 1920. He was the first prime minister born in the twentieth century, after the Federation of Australia. He studied law at the University of Melbourne and had his own legal practice, becoming, at twenty-seven years of age, the member for Fawkner in the House of Representatives at a 1935 by-election. A protégé of Robert Menzies, he was a minister in the 1939 United Australia Party government. He held a series of minor portfolios until the government's defeat in 1941. His tenure was interrupted by a brief stint in the Australian Army, which ended when he was recalled to cabinet following the deaths of three ministers in the 1940 Canberra air disaster. He joined the new Liberal Party upon its creation in 1945.
When the Liberals came to office in 1949, Holt became a senior figure in the new government. As Minister for Immigration (1949–56), he expanded the post-war immigration scheme and relaxed the White Australia policy for the first time. He was also influential as Minister for Labour and National Service (1949–58), where he handled several industrial relations disputes. Holt was elected deputy leader of the Liberal Party in 1956, and after the 1958 election replaced Arthur Fadden as Treasurer. He oversaw the creation of the Reserve Bank of Australia and the decimal Australian dollar, but was blamed for a credit crunch that almost cost the Coalition the 1961 election. However, the economy soon rebounded and Holt retained his place as Menzies' heir apparent.
Holt became prime minister in January 1966, elected unopposed as Liberal leader following Menzies' retirement. He fought a general election later that year, winning a landslide victory. The Holt Government continued the dismantling of the White Australia policy, amended the constitution to give the federal government responsibility for indigenous affairs, and took Australia out of the sterling area. Holt promoted greater engagement with Asia and the Pacific, and made visits to a number of East Asian countries. His government expanded Australia's involvement in the Vietnam War, and maintained close ties with the United States under President Lyndon B. Johnson. While visiting the White House, Holt proclaimed that he was "all the way with LBJ", a remark which was poorly received at home.
After just under two years in office, Holt disappeared while swimming at Cheviot Beach, Victoria, in rough conditions. He was presumed dead, although his body was never recovered; his disappearance spawned a number of conspiracy theories. Holt was the third Australian prime minister to die in office. He was succeeded by Country Party leader John McEwen on an interim basis and then by John Gorton. His death was commemorated in a number of ways, among them by the establishment of the Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Centre.
Holt was born on 5 August 1908 at his parents' home in Stanmore, Sydney, New South Wales. He was the first of two sons born to Olive May (née Williams; formerly Pearce) and Thomas James Holt; his younger brother Clifford was born in 1910. His parents had married seven months before his birth, in January 1908. On his father's side, Holt was descended from James Holt, a cobbler from Birmingham, England, who arrived in New South Wales in 1829. His paternal grandfather, Thomas Holt Sr., owned a large farming property in Nubba, and was twice elected mayor of nearby Wallendbeen. Holt's father trained as a schoolteacher in Sydney and when Harold was born, worked as a physical education teacher at the Cleveland Street School in Surry Hills. Holt's mother was born in Eudunda, South Australia, and had Cornish, English, German, and Irish ancestry; her sister was the actress Vera Pearce. His maternal grandmother Hannah Maria Berkholz was a Barossa German born in Angaston, South Australia; she was the daughter of Carl Berkholz, born in Potsdam, Prussia.
In 1914, Holt's parents moved to Adelaide, where his father became the licensee of a hotel in Payneham. He and his brother stayed behind in Sydney, living with an uncle and attending Randwick Public School. In late 1916, Holt was sent to live with grandparents in the country, where he briefly attended the Nubba State School. He returned to Sydney the following year, and for three years was enrolled at Abbotsholme College, a private school in Killara; his parents separated around that time. In 1920, Holt began boarding at Wesley College, Melbourne. He was a popular and talented student, winning a scholarship in his final year and graduating second in his class. Holt generally spent school holidays with his relatives in Nubba or with schoolmates, rather than with his parents – his father had begun working as a talent agent, touring the country on the Tivoli circuit, while his mother died in 1925. He was 16 at the time, and was unable to attend the funeral.
In 1927, Holt began studying law at the University of Melbourne, living at Queen's College on a scholarship. He represented the university in cricket and football, and was also active in various student organisations, serving as president of the Law Students' Society and of the Queen's College social club. Holt won prizes for oratory and essay-writing, and was a member of the inter-university debating team. He graduated with a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1930. Holt's father – living in London – invited to him to continue his studies in England, but he declined the offer.
Holt served his articles of clerkship with the firm of Fink, Best, & Miller. He was admitted to the Victorian Bar in late 1932, and opened his own legal practice the following year. However, clients during the Depression were scarce and frequently underpaid, so Holt lived in a boardinghouse and often relied upon the hospitality of friends. Drawing on his family connections in show business, he eventually accepted an offer to become secretary of the Victorian Cinematograph Exhibitors' Association, a film industry lobby group. In this capacity he appeared several times before the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration. This had a positive effect on his own practice, and he eventually took on two partners, first Jack Graham and later James Newman. The firm of Holt, Graham, & Newman was dissolved in 1963, following a financial dispute and subsequently reconstituted as Holt, Newman, & Holt, with Holt's son Sam as the new addition. Holt's involvement in the practice declined once he entered politics and ceased altogether in 1949, although he did not formally retire until assuming the prime ministership.
In 1933, Holt joined the Young Nationalists, the youth wing of the United Australia Party. He cultivated a friendship with Mabel Brookes, and through Brookes became acquainted with senior members of the influential Australian Women's National League (AWNL). He also secured the patronage of Robert Menzies, with whom he shared a similar background and political views. At the 1934 federal election, Holt stood for the UAP in the Division of Yarra. It was a safe seat for the Labor Party, held by the party's leader (and former prime minister) James Scullin. Holt lost heavily, as was expected, but was praised for his campaigning. Early the following year, he contested Clifton Hill – another safe Labor seat – at the Victorian state election, losing to Bert Cremean. Holt was eventually elected to parliament on his third attempt, winning a federal by-election for the seat of Fawkner in August 1935; his predecessor, George Maxwell, had died in office. He won UAP preselection against five other candidates, a victory which "Smith's Weekly" attributed to his "political godmothers" in the AWNL. His new seat was centred on Melbourne's wealthy inner-eastern suburbs.
Holt was twenty-seven years old when he entered parliament, making him its youngest member. He kept a relatively low profile in his first few years, but spoke on a wide range of topics. When Robert Menzies became prime minister in April 1939, he made Holt one of four ministers without portfolio. His inclusion was made possible by the collapse of the coalition with the Country Party – previously a certain number of positions had been reserved for Country MPs, but the new ministry was composed solely of UAP members. Although Holt officially had no portfolio, he effectively served as an assistant minister to Richard Casey, who headed the Department of Supply and Development. He was given responsibility for the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), and also acted for periods as Minister for Trade and Customs and Minister for Civil Aviation and Air while the incumbents were overseas. Holt's first stint as a government minister came to an end in March 1940, when the coalition with the Country Party was reinstituted. His replacement was Arthur Fadden, another future prime minister.
Holt enlisted in the Militia in February 1939, joining a part-time artillery unit for businessmen and professionals. He was given indefinite leave during his ministerial service. In May 1940, without resigning his seat, Holt enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force with the intent of becoming a full-time soldier. Several of his parliamentary colleagues did likewise at various points in the war. Holt was posted to the 2/4th Field Regiment, holding the rank of gunner. He had been offered a commission as an officer in the Royal Australian Air Force, but declined due to his lack of experience. In a press statement, Holt said "as the youngest member of the House, I could not feel happy in my position if I were not prepared to make some sacrifice and take an active part". He was sent to Puckapunyal for training, and expected to be posted to North Africa or Palestine.
Holt's brief military career came to an end as a result of the Canberra air disaster on 13 August, which killed three senior government ministers. Menzies called an early general election for 21 September, which resulted in a hung parliament and a UAP–Country minority government. Holt was given leave from the army to campaign, and won re-election with a large majority. Menzies subsequently asked him to return to cabinet, to which he agreed. Holt was sworn in as Minister for Labour and National Service on 28 October, and formally resigned from the army the same day. He was placed in charge of the new Department of Labour and National Service, which took over most of the responsibilities of the previous Department of Industry. He also became a member of the bipartisan Advisory War Council, although he personally favoured the establishment of a national unity government with the Labor Party.
As labour minister, Holt's foremost task was to prevent industrial disputes from disrupting the war effort. He met with union leaders and employer groups, and secured their agreement to a streamlining of the arbitration process while the war was underway. He had also been made Minister in charge of Scientific and Industrial Research, which gave him responsibility for the CSIR and its wartime efforts. In April 1941, Holt sponsored and oversaw the passage of the "Child Endowment Act", which introduced a universal child endowment scheme; newspapers labelled him "the godfather to a million Australian children". When leadership troubles hit the Coalition later in the year, Holt initially supported Menzies. However, he and five cabinet colleagues eventually transferred their allegiance to Arthur Fadden, the leader of the Country Party, believing this way the only to ensure stable government. Menzies felt he had been betrayed, but forgave Holt and accepted his assurances that he had been acting in the best interests of the country.
Holt retained his portfolios in the Fadden Government, which lasted only 40 days before being defeated on a confidence motion in October 1941. After going into opposition, he kept a reasonably low profile for the remainder of the war, except for his membership of the Joint Committee on War Expenditure. He was criticised by some for not re-joining the army, and at the 1943 election was opposed by Brigadier William Cremor, whose campaign was funded by Sydney businessmen (including Keith Murdoch). He lost a significant portion of his primary vote, but suffered only a small swing on the two-party-preferred count. Menzies returned as leader of the UAP in September 1943, and Holt was initially a candidate for the deputy leadership; he withdrew once former prime minister Billy Hughes entered the race. Holt was in favour of the creation of the Liberal Party, but played little role in the practical aspects of its establishment. He became an official member of the new party in February 1945.
After eight years in opposition, the Coalition won the federal election of December 1949 and Menzies began his record-setting second period as Prime Minister. In a redistribution held ahead of that election, Holt's majority in Fawkner nearly disappeared. He transferred to Higgins, one of several new seats created in the 1949 redistribution. The seat was created as a safe Liberal seat; it had been carved out of the wealthier portions of Fawkner. Holt won it easily. He was appointed to the prestigious portfolios of Minister for Labour and National Service (1949–1958; he had previously served in this portfolio 1940–41) and Minister for Immigration (1949–1956), by which time he was being touted in the press as a "certain successor to Menzies and a potential Prime Minister". In Immigration, Holt continued and expanded the massive immigration programme initiated by his ALP predecessor, Arthur Calwell. However, he displayed a more flexible and caring attitude than Calwell, who was a strong advocate of the White Australia policy. One of his first acts was to intervene in the case of Lorenzo Gamboa, a Filipino man with an Australian wife and children who had been denied entry by Calwell due to his race. Holt reversed the decision, allowing Gamboa to settle in Australia permanently.
Holt excelled in the Labour portfolio and has been described as one of the best Labour ministers since Federation. Although the conditions were ripe for industrial unrest—Communist influence in the union movement was then at its peak, and the right-wing faction in Cabinet was openly agitating for a showdown with the unions—the combination of strong economic growth and Holt's enlightened approach to industrial relations saw the number of working hours lost to strikes fall dramatically, from over two million in 1949 to just 439,000 in 1958. He also had ministerial responsibility for the Melbourne Olympics in 1956.
Holt fostered greater collaboration between the government, the courts, employers and trade unions. He enjoyed good relationships with union leaders like Albert Monk, President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions; and Jim Healy, leader of the radical Waterside Workers Federation;and he gained a reputation for tolerance, restraint and a willingness to compromise, although his controversial decision to use troops to take control of cargo facilities during a waterside dispute in Bowen, Queensland in September 1953 provoked bitter criticism.
Holt's personal profile and political standing grew throughout the 1950s. He served on numerous committees and overseas delegations, he was appointed a Privy Counsellor in 1953, and in 1954 he was named one of Australia's six best-dressed men. In 1956, he was elected Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party and became Leader of the House, and from this point on, he was generally acknowledged as Menzies' heir apparent.
In December 1958, following the retirement of Arthur Fadden, Holt succeeded him as Treasurer. Holt had little knowledge or interest in economics, but the job cemented his position as Menzies' likely successor. As Treasurer, Holt relied strongly on the advice of Treasury secretary Roland Wilson. His achievements included major reforms to the banking system (originated by Fadden)including the establishment of the Reserve Bank of Australiaand the planning and preparation for the introduction of decimal currency. It was Holt who convinced Cabinet to call the new currency the "dollar" rather than the "royal".
The economy Holt inherited was growing strongly, aided by the opening of new iron ore mines. However, in 1959, inflation was running at 4.5% and Treasury was alarmed. Holt was reluctant to act, but in November 1960 introduced a deflationary package of tax changes. He also reluctantly agreed to an interest rate rise by the Reserve Bank. The credit squeeze was nicknamed the "Holt jolt". The economy went into recession, and unemployment rose to three percent, which was considered high for the time and contrary to the government's policy of full employment.
The credit squeeze brought the Coalition dangerously close to losing the 1961 election, with the Coalition being returned with a precarious one-seat majority. There were calls for Holt to be sacked, but he retained Menzies' support. He later described 1960–61 as "my most difficult year in public life". Most of the deflationary measures were reversed in 1962, and unemployment dropped down to 1.5 percent by August 1963. In later budgets, Holt retreated to his Queensland holiday home while it was being prepared. He said that the 1965 budget "has had the best reception yet of any in the series I have presented".
Holt was sworn in as prime minister on 26 January 1966, following the retirement of Robert Menzies six days earlier. He won the leadership election unopposed, with William McMahon elected as his deputy. His swearing in was delayed by the death of Defence Minister Shane Paltridge; he and Menzies both served as pallbearers at Paltridge's state funeral on 25 January. Holt was the first Australian prime minister born in the 20th century and the first born after federation. He was almost fourteen years younger than his predecessor, but, at the age of 57, was still the fourth-oldest man to assume the office. He had been an MP for over 30 years before becoming prime minister, still the longest wait for any non-caretaker Prime Minister. The only person who had a longer wait was his caretaker successor John McEwen, who had served 33 years before ascending to the post. Stylistically, Holt was more informal and contemporary than Menzies, and his wife accompanied him into the political spotlight. He gave the media an unprecedented level of access, and was the first prime minister to conduct regular press conferences and grant regular television interviews. His press secretary, Tony Eggleton, accompanied him virtually every time he travelled.
Holt's initial cabinet was virtually unchanged from that of his predecessor. John Gorton and Les Bury were promoted to replace Menzies and Paltridge, but there were no other changes in composition. There were also no major changes in portfolio, outside of McMahon's promotion to Treasurer in place of Holt. A notable addition to the outer ministry was Senator Annabelle Rankin as Minister for Housing – the first woman to hold a ministerial portfolio. A minor reshuffle occurred after the 1966 election, with Doug Anthony and Ian Sinclair added to cabinet and Charles Barnes demoted to the outer ministry. The only new government department created during Holt's tenure was the Department of Education and Science, established in December 1966, which was the first federal department specific to either of those areas.
On 26 November 1966, Holt fought his first and only general election as prime minister, winning a somewhat unexpected landslide victory. The Coalition secured 56.9 percent of the two-party-preferred vote, gaining 10 seats and bringing its total number of seats in the House of Representatives to 82 out of 124; the Liberal Party was only two seats away from forming majority government in its own right. It was a higher margin victory of victory than Menzies had achieved in eight elections as Liberal leader, and was the Labor Party's worst electoral defeat in 31 years.
Holt received little credit for the Coalition's election victory, even from within his own party. It was generally held that the Labor Party's poor campaign had been the major factor in its defeat. Arthur Calwell, the Leader of the Opposition, was 70 years old and had limited personal popularity – a Gallup poll before the election placed his personal approval rating at 24 percent, compared with Holt's 60 percent. Calwell had suffered a damaging rift with his deputy Gough Whitlam earlier in the year, and the general public still perceived the party as divided. In an election where the Vietnam War was a major campaign issue, he and Whitlam publicly contradicted each other on major policy decisions. Labor ran on an anti-war platform, but struggled to appeal to voters concerned about national security; combined with Calwell's dedication to the White Australia policy, this allowed the party to be portrayed as isolationist and naive about external affairs. Calwell was far less telegenic than his opponent, and was seen as gruff and antagonistic where Holt was suave and easy-going. At a rally in Adelaide a week before the election, Calwell accused Holt of having "chickened out of World War II – just as his three stepsons are chickening out of the war in Vietnam today". His attack on Holt's family – which he refused to withdraw – was viewed as desperate and undignified, and it was pointed out that, unlike Holt, Calwell had performed no military service in World War II.
In early 1967, Arthur Calwell retired as ALP leader and Gough Whitlam succeeded him. Whitlam proved a far more effective opponent, both in the media and in parliament, and Labor soon began to recover from its losses and gain ground, with Whitlam repeatedly besting Holt in Parliament. By this time, the long-suppressed tensions between the Coalition partners over economic and trade policies were also beginning to emerge. Throughout his reign as Liberal leader, Menzies had enforced strict party discipline but, once he was gone, dissension began to surface. Some Liberals soon became dissatisfied by what they saw as Holt's weak leadership. Alan Reid asserts that Holt was being increasingly criticised within the party in the months before his death, that he was perceived as being "vague, imprecise and evasive" and "nice to the point that his essential decency was viewed as weakness".
According to his biographer Tom Frame, "Holt's inclinations and sympathies were those of the political centre [...] he was a pragmatist rather than a philosopher, but he nonetheless claimed a philosophical lineage connecting him with Alfred Deakin and approvingly quoted his statement that 'we are liberal always, radical often, and reactionary never'.".
Holt as prime minister was sometimes criticised for a failure to be assertive on economic matters. A major drought in 1965 had led to slowdown in growth, but he was unwilling to increase public spending in case it increased inflation. The Australian dollar – a legacy of Holt's period as Treasurer – came into circulation on 14 February 1966, less than a month after his prime ministership began. In November 1967, the British government unexpectedly announced that it would be devaluing the pound sterling by 14 percent. Holt announced that the Australian government would not follow suit, effectively withdrawing Australia from the sterling area. The decision was strongly opposed by the Country Party, who feared it would disadvantage primary industry. John McEwen, the Country Party leader, issued a public statement criticising the government, which caused a breakdown in his relations with Holt and nearly led to the collapse of the Coalition. "The Bulletin" said that the withdrawal was "quite certain to mean the end of any remaining special relationship between Australia and Britain". There were no other important economic policy reforms made by the Holt Government, although Australia did become a founding member of the Asian Development Bank in 1966.
As prime minister, Holt continued the liberalisation of immigration law that he had begun as Minister for Immigration. When he came to office, what remained of the White Australia policy was upheld by ministerial decree rather than by explicit legislation. In March 1966, the residency requirement for naturalisation was changed to a uniform five years; it had previously been 15 years for non-whites. Discriminatory provisions relating to family reunification were also removed. As a result, in the two years after March 1966 around 3,000 Asian immigrants were granted Australian citizenship, compared with 4,100 in the preceding two decades. Additionally, Immigration Minister Hubert Opperman announced that potential immigrants to Australia would be assessed solely "on the basis of their suitability as settlers, their ability to integrate readily, and their possession of qualifications which are in fact positively useful to Australia"; non-whites had previously had to demonstrate that they were "highly qualified and distinguished" to gain entry.
Keith Wilson believed that the Holt Government's reforms ensured that "from now on there will not be in any of our laws or in any of our regulations anything that discriminates against migrants on the grounds of colour or race". However, there would not be a practical change in the composition of Australia's immigration intake for many more years. Holt maintained that "every country reserves to itself the right to decide what the composition of its people shall be", and promised "a community life free from serious minority and racial problems". He was careful to frame his changes as simply a modification of existing policy, in order to avoid alienating organised labour (historically the greatest supporters of restricting non-white immigration). The Labor Party had only removed "White Australia" from its platform in 1965, and Opposition Leader Arthur Calwell stated he was "determined to continue to oppose, for many obvious reasons, any attempt to create a multi-racial society in our midst". However, Holt was less circumspect outside Australia, telling British journalists that no White Australia policy existed and ordering Australian embassies to promote the changes to Asian governments and media outlets.
In 1967, the Holt Government amended the constitution to alter section 51 (xxvi) and remove section 127. This gave the federal government the power to legislate specifically for Indigenous Australians, and also allowed indigenous people to be enumerated in the census. The constitutional amendments required a referendum before they could be enacted, which passed with over 90 percent of the vote; it remains the largest referendum majority in Australian history. Holt personally considered the amendments unnecessary and mostly symbolic, but thought they would be well received by the international community (particularly Asia). According to Barrie Dexter, he was privately shocked by the referendum result, having been uncertain whether it would even pass.
Holt came to regard the referendum as indicative of a shift in the national mood. In the following months, he toured Aboriginal communities and consulted with indigenous leaders, including Charles Perkins and Kath Walker. Despite opposition from state governments, he created a new Office of Aboriginal Affairs within the Prime Minister's Department, as well as a new advisory body called the Council of Aboriginal Affairs (chaired by H. C. Coombs). According to Coombs and Paul Hasluck, Holt had little interest in indigenous affairs before becoming prime minister. Despite this, he brought about a fundamental shift in the way policy was handled, paving the way for the federal government to assume many of the powers and responsibilities that had previously been the preserve of the states. Indigenous academic Gary Foley has said that Holt's death was a setback for Aboriginal people, as his successors did not show the same commitment to the framework that he established.
The Holt Government also unsuccessfully attempted to remove section 24 of the constitution (the so-called "nexus clause"), which requires the number of members in the House of Representatives to be "as nearly as practicable, twice the number of senators". The resulting referendum did not come close to passing, with only 40 percent voting in favour nationwide and only one state (New South Wales) recording a majority. All three major-party leaders campaigned for the "Yes" vote, while opposition came mainly from Coalition backbenchers and Democratic Labor Party senators. Supporters of the "No" vote successfully argued that section 24 protected the influence of the Senate, and thus the interests of less populous states and rural areas. Holt did make one other significant legal reform, albeit one that did not require a constitutional amendment. In September 1967, he announced that his government would use section 74 of the constitution to remove the potential for High Court cases to be appealed to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The necessary legislation was not passed until after his death.
In November 1967, in one of his last major policy statements, Holt announced the establishment of the National Gallery of Australia and the Australia Council for the Arts. The National Gallery, which did not open until 1982, was the first arts-related major infrastructure project to be funded by the federal government; previous projects had been funded by state governments or by private subscription. Holt said it would "add significantly to the cultural life of Australia and the national capital". The other element of his announcement, the Australia Council for the Arts, was the first national arts council, intended to provide arms-length advice to the Prime Minister's Department on arts funding. Rupert Myer has suggested that "Holt's legacy ought to be a core belief in, and broad public demand for, the sustained support of cultural activity from all three tiers of government".
Holt believed it was his responsibility as prime minister "to reflect the modern Australia to my fellow countrymen, to our allies and the outside world at large". His approach to national security emphasised opposition to international communism and the need to engage more with Asia. Holt said that the "great central fact of modern history" was "the tremendous power conflict between the communist world and the free world". He was a strong believer in the domino theory and containment, holding that communism had to be fought wherever it occurred in order to prevent it spreading to neighbouring countries. In April 1967, Holt told parliament that "geographically we are part of Asia, and increasingly we have become aware of our involvement in the affairs of Asia – our greatest dangers and our highest hopes are centred in Asia's tomorrows". Gough Whitlam said that Holt "made Australia better known in Asia and he made Australians more aware of Asia than ever before [...] this I believe was his most important contribution to our future".
Personal diplomacy was Holt's strong point – he believed diplomatic ties could be strengthened by making intimate connections with other world leaders. This approach was disliked by his external affairs minister, Paul Hasluck, who in his memoirs accused him of believing in "instant diplomacy" and crediting his personal charms for advances made by diplomatic officials. As prime minister, Holt's first overseas trip was to South-East Asia in April 1966, where he visited Malaysia, Singapore, South Vietnam, and Thailand. He toured Cambodia, Laos, South Korea, and Taiwan in March and April 1967, and had planned to visit Burma, India, Indonesia, Japan, and Pakistan in 1968. Most of those countries had never before been visited by an Australian prime minister. There were also a number of reciprocal visits from East Asian leaders, including Eisaku Satō of Japan, Souvanna Phouma of Laos, and Thanom Kittikachorn of Thailand. The most controversial of those occurred in January 1967, when Prime Minister Nguyễn Cao Kỳ of South Vietnam visited on Holt's personal invitation – issued without consulting cabinet. Public sentiment was beginning to turn against the war, and Ky's visit was met with large demonstrations; opposition leader Arthur Calwell issued a statement calling him a "miserable little butcher". Ky nonetheless handled himself well, and "The Bulletin" called his visit a "personal triumph".
The Vietnam War was the dominant foreign policy issue during Holt's term in office. He was a strong supporter of Australian involvement in the war, which had begun in 1962, and accused its critics of adopting a "Lotus Land" attitude. As well as citing Australia's SEATO obligations to South Vietnam, Holt justified the war on the grounds that Australia was morally obligated to "resist communist subversion and aggression" and "defend the right of every people to choose their own social and economic order". He held that "unless there is security for all small nations, there cannot be security for any small nation".
In March 1966, Holt announced that the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, would be withdrawn and replaced by the 1st Australian Task Force, a self-contained brigade-sized unit based at Nui Dat. This effectively tripled the number of Australian troops in Vietnam to around 4,500, and also included 1,500 national servicemen – the first conscripts to serve in the conflict. By the final months of Holt's prime ministership, Australia had over 8,000 personnel stationed in South Vietnam, drawn from all three branches of the Australian Defence Force; the final troop increase was announced in October 1967. Holt "never deviated from his whole-hearted support for American bombing of North Vietnam and the hope that steadily increasing the number of foreign troops deployed to South Vietnam would lead to military victory and a solution to the crisis". John Gorton later said it was "ironical that, being a man of peace, he should have presided over one of the greatest build-ups of military power that Australia has found itself engaged in".
The government's handling of the war initially enjoyed broad public support, and was considered a key contributor to the landslide election victory in 1966 – referred to by some as a "khaki election". By the end of the following year, however, opinion polls were showing that public sentiment had turned against the war, and previously supportive media outlets had begun to criticised Holt's decision-making. He did not live long enough to see the mass demonstrations experienced by his successors. Political opposition to the war was initially led by Opposition Leader Arthur Calwell, who promised a total withdrawal from the conflict and labelled it a "cruel, unwinnable civil war". His replacement, Gough Whitlam, adopted a more pragmatic approach, focusing on policy specifics (particularly the government's apparent lack of an exit strategy) rather than the validity of the war itself.
Holt cultivated a close relationship with the United States under President Lyndon B. Johnson. He believed that "without the American shield most of us who live in Asia and the South Pacific would have a continuing sense of insecurity". Cooperation between the two countries extended beyond the Vietnam War. Holt approved the construction of several Earth stations for use by NASA and American intelligence agencies, including Pine Gap, Honeysuckle Creek, and Tidbinbilla. This made Australia "the most substantial centre for American missile and space operations outside the continental United States".
Holt and Johnson developed a personal friendship. They were the same age, and had first met in 1942, when Johnson visited Melbourne as a naval officer; afterwards they shared a similar career trajectory. Holt visited the U.S. twice while in office, in June and July 1966, and on the latter visit was invited to stay at Camp David. He and Johnson reportedly played tennis, lounged by the pool, and watched movies together. In October 1966, Johnson made the first visit to Australia by an incumbent American president; Vice President Hubert Humphrey had visited in February of that year. He toured five cities, and was greeted by large crowds as well as a number of anti-war demonstrators, who disrupted the presidential motorcade. The opposition criticised the visit as a publicity stunt. Johnson later returned to Australia for Holt's memorial service, and invited his widow Zara to stay with him when she visited the United States in 1969.
On his first visit to the U.S., Holt made what was widely viewed as a "faux pas" while delivering a ceremonial address at the White House. Departing from his prepared remarks, he said: "And so, sir, in the lonelier and perhaps even more disheartening moments which come to any national leader, I hope there will be a corner of your mind and heart which takes cheer from the fact that you have an admiring friend, a staunch friend that will be "all the way with LBJ"." Holt had meant it to be a "light-hearted gesture of goodwill towards a generous host", referencing the slogan used in Johnson's 1964 presidential campaign. It was interpreted as such by his immediate audience, but once it was reported back in Australia it came to be viewed as a "foolish, sycophantic and dangerous statement" that was indicative of Australian subservience. Bill Hayden said Holt's remarks "shocked and insulted many Australians [...] its seeming servility was an embarrassment and a worry". Newspaper editorials generally agreed with Holt's assertion that he had been misinterpreted, but still criticised him for making an error in judgment. His comments intensified anti-war sentiments among those who were already opposed to the war, but had little electoral impact. Nonetheless, "all the way with LBJ" is still remembered as Holt's "best-known utterance".
Holt was a strong supporter of the Commonwealth of Nations, and believed its member states had moral obligations to one another – particularly Britain, as the former "mother country". However, his relationship with Harold Wilson, the British prime minister, was somewhat frosty. He repeatedly lobbied Wilson to maintain a strong British presence "East of Suez", in order to complement American efforts, and in early 1967 received assurances that no reduction was being contemplated. However, by the middle of the year Wilson had announced that Britain intended to close all of its bases in Asia by the early 1970s (except for Hong Kong). In response to Holt's concerns, it was suggested by Wilson that a British naval base could be established in Cockburn Sound. Holt rejected this outright, and felt that Wilson had deliberately misled him as to his intentions.
Holt's popularity and political standing was damaged by his perceived poor handling of a series of controversies that emerged during 1967. In April, the ABC's new nightly current affairs program "This Day Tonight" ran a story which criticised the government's decision not to reappoint the Chair of the ABC Board, Sir James Darling. Holt responded rashly, questioning the impartiality of the ABC and implying political bias on the part of journalist Mike Willesee (whose father Don Willesee was an ALP Senator and future Whitlam government minister), and his statement drew strong protests from both Willesee and the Australian Journalists' Association.
In May, increasing pressure from the media and within the Liberal Party forced Holt to announce a parliamentary debate on the question of a second inquiry into the 1964 sinking of to be held on 16 May. The debate included the maiden speech by newly elected NSW Liberal MP Edward St John QC, who used the opportunity to criticize the government's attitude to new evidence about the disaster. An enraged Holt interrupted St John's speech, in defiance of the parliamentary convention that maiden speeches are heard in silence; his blunder embarrassed the government and further undermined Holt's support in the Liberal Party. A few days later, Holt announced a new Royal Commission into the disaster.
In October the government became embroiled in another embarrassing controversy over the alleged misuse of V.I.P. aircraft, which came to a head when John Gorton (Government Leader in the Senate) tabled documents that showed that Holt had unintentionally misled Parliament in his earlier answers on the matter. Support for his leadership was eroded even further by his refusal to sack the Minister for Air, Peter Howson, in order to defuse the scandal, fuelling criticism from within the party that Holt was "weak" and lacked Menzies' ruthlessness. Much of the blame for the episode within the Public Service was visited upon Sir John Bunting, Secretary of the Prime Minister's Department, although other figures such as the Deputy Secretary Peter Lawler were able to protect themselves. One of John Gorton's first acts upon becoming Prime Minister in January 1968 was to sideline Bunting by creating a separate Department of the Cabinet Office with Bunting as its head, and replaced him with Lenox Hewitt.
In November 1967, the government suffered a serious setback in the Senate election, winning just 42.8 per cent of the vote against Labor's 45 per cent. The coalition also lost the seats of Corio and Dawson to Labor in by-elections. Alan Reid says that, within the party, the reversal was blamed on Holt's mishandling of the V.I.P. planes scandal. Disquiet was growing about his leadership style and possible health problems.
Holt loved the ocean, particularly spearfishing, and had holiday homes at Portsea, Victoria, and Bingil Bay, Queensland. On 17 December 1967, while Holt was spending the weekend at Portsea, he and four companions decided to drive to Point Nepean to watch sailor Alec Rose pass through The Rip on his solo circumnavigation attempt. On their way back to Portsea, Holt convinced the group to stop at remote Cheviot Beach for a swim before lunch – he had spearfished there on many previous occasions, and claimed to "know this beach like the back of my hand". Because of the rough conditions, only one other person, Alan Stewart, joined Holt in the water. Stewart kept close to shore, but Holt swam out into deeper water and was seemingly caught up in a rip, eventually disappearing from view. One of the witnesses, Marjorie Gillespie, described it as "like a leaf being taken out [...] so quick and final".
Holt's disappearance sparked "one of the largest search operations in Australian history", but no trace of his body was ever found. A police report released in early 1968 made no definitive findings about Holt's death, while a coronial inquest in 2005 returned a verdict of accidental drowning. It is generally accepted that Holt overestimated his swimming ability. Some have alleged that Holt committed suicide, but those close to him rejected this as uncharacteristic of his personality. Conspiracy theories have included suggestions that Holt faked his own death, was assassinated by the CIA, or was collected by a submarine so that he could defect to China.
A memorial service for Holt was held at St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne, on 22 December, and attended by numerous world leaders. Aged 59 at the time of his death, Holt became the third Australian prime minister to die in office, after Joseph Lyons (1939) and John Curtin (1945). John McEwen, the leader of the Country Party, was sworn in as caretaker prime minister on 19 December. The Liberal Party held a leadership election on 9 January 1968, in which John Gorton defeated Paul Hasluck, Billy Snedden, and Les Bury. Gorton was a member of the Senate, and in line with constitutional convention transferred to the House of Representatives at the by-election caused by Holt's death.
While at university, Holt met Zara Dickins, the daughter of a Melbourne businessman; there was an "instant mutual attraction". They made plans to marry once Holt had graduated, but after a financial dispute chose to separate. Zara went on a trip to Britain, where she was introduced to James Fell, a British Indian Army officer. She accompanied Fell to India, and then in early 1935 returned to Australia where Holt again proposed marriage. She declined his offer, and married Fell a short time later, going to live with him in Jabalpur. Holt had entered parliament by that time, and was soon being profiled as "the most eligible bachelor in parliament". He briefly dated Lola Thring, the daughter of his father's business partner, F. W. Thring, but his widowed father Tom was also interested in her (to his son's "disgust"). Tom Holt married Lola in 1936, and their daughter Frances (Harold's half-sister) was born in 1940; Tom Holt died in 1945.
In 1937, Zara returned to Australia to give birth to her first child, Nicholas. She had two more children, twins Sam and Andrew, in 1939. Her marriage with Fell broke down a short time later, and in late 1940 she returned to Australia permanently and resumed a relationship with Holt. Their relationship did not become public for some time, in order to avoid Holt being implicated in Zara's divorce proceedings. They eventually married on 8 October 1946, at Zara's parents' home on St Georges Road, Toorak. They initially lived on nearby Washington Street, but in 1954 bought the St Georges Road house. Holt legally adopted Zara's three children, and as young men they changed their surname to his. According to biographer Tom Frame, it was an "open secret" that Holt was the biological father of the twins, as they shared his physical appearance and had been conceived at a time when Zara was known to have been in Melbourne.
Zara Holt was a successful businesswoman, owning a chain of dress shops, and out-earned her husband even as prime minister. It was her success that allowed the couple to purchase two holiday homes, one at Portsea, Victoria, and the other at Bingil Bay, Queensland. She nonetheless made sacrifices for her husband's political career, accompanying him on all but one of his overseas trips, which could last for weeks.
After her husband's death, Zara remarried in 1969 to one of his Liberal Party colleagues, Jeff Bate. She was widowed a second time in 1984, and died in 1989. In a 1988 interview with "The Sydney Morning Herald", Zara stated that her husband Harold had carried on "dozens" of extramarital affairs. In his biography of Holt, Tom Frame wrote: "I have not included the names of women with whom Holt allegedly had a sexual relationship because I was unable to confirm or deny that most of these relationships took place […] by their very nature they were always illicit and Holt was very discreet."
Holt was the first Prime Minister born in the twentieth century. Holt was an enthusiastic sportsman and avid swimmer, which was a stark differentiation to that of Menzies and the majority of his predecessors and colleagues. Like later successor Bob Hawke, this resonated with positive effect within the electorate. His oratory skills were vastly superior to that of Arthur Calwell whom Holt resoundingly beat in 1966. Holt's rhetorician was, however, considered a match to that of new Labor leader Gough Whitlam. Whitlam himself later said of Holt:
Holt has been described as an "apathetic agnostic". He was baptised Anglican, attended Methodist schools, and married with Presbyterian forms, but neither he nor his wife had any interest in religion. His lack of religiosity apparently had little impact on his political prospects, and was not generally remarked upon. Alick Downer believed that Holt's thoughts "lay in this world not the next". According to his friend Simon Warrender, he "was an agnostic whose "raison d'être" was dedication to his career". Holt had a reputation as something of a fatalist, and frequently quoted from Andrew Marvell's "carpe diem" poem "To His Coy Mistress". He was also fond of Rudyard Kipling's poem "If—", which Warrender said he used as a "guiding light in his political and private life".
Harold Holt is commemorated by the Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Centre in the Melbourne suburb of Glen Iris. The complex was under construction at the time of Holt's disappearance, and since he was the local member, it was named in his memory. The irony of commemorating a man who is presumed to have drowned with a swimming pool has been a source of wry amusement for many Australians.
In 1968, the newly commissioned United States Navy "Knox"-class destroyer escort was named in his honour. It was launched by Holt's widow Dame Zara at the Todd Shipyards in Los Angeles on 3 May 1969, and was the first American warship to bear the name of a foreign leader.
In 1969, a plaque commemorating Holt was bolted to the seafloor off Cheviot Beach after a memorial ceremony. It bears the inscription:
Other memorials include:
By way of a folk memorial, he is recalled in the Australian vernacular expression "do a Harold Holt" (or "do the Harry"), rhyming slang for "do a bolt" meaning "to disappear suddenly and without explanation", although this is usually employed in the context of disappearance from a social gathering rather than a case of presumed death.
In the Queen's Birthday Honours of June 1968, Holt's widow Zara Holt was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, becoming Dame Zara Holt DBE. She later married for a third time, to a Liberal party colleague of Holt's, Jeff Bate, and was then known as Dame Zara Bate.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=13867
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Heavy metal music
Heavy metal (or simply metal) is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the United Kingdom and the United States. With roots in blues rock, psychedelic rock, and acid rock, the bands that created heavy metal developed a thick, massive sound, characterized by highly amplified distortion, extended guitar solos, emphatic beats, and overall loudness. The genre's lyrics and performance styles are sometimes associated with aggression and machismo.
In 1968, three of the genre's most famous pioneers, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple were founded. Though they came to attract wide audiences, they were often derided by critics. Following the blueprint laid down by Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, several American bands modified heavy metal into more accessible forms during the 1970s: the raw, sleazy sound and outrageous stage shows of Alice Cooper and Kiss; the blues-rooted rock of Aerosmith; and the flashy guitar leads and wild party rock of Van Halen. During the mid-1970s, Judas Priest helped spur the genre's evolution by discarding much of its blues influence; Motörhead introduced a punk rock sensibility and an increasing emphasis on speed. Beginning in the late 1970s, bands in the new wave of British heavy metal such as Iron Maiden and Def Leppard followed in a similar vein. Before the end of the decade, heavy metal fans became known as "metalheads" or "headbangers".
During the 1980s, glam metal became popular with groups such as Bon Jovi and Mötley Crüe. Underground scenes produced an array of more aggressive styles: thrash metal broke into the mainstream with bands such as Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax, while other extreme subgenres of heavy metal such as death metal and black metal remain subcultural phenomena. Since the mid-1990s popular styles have further expanded the definition of the genre. These include groove metal and nu metal, the latter of which often incorporates elements of grunge and hip hop.
Heavy metal is traditionally characterized by loud distorted guitars, emphatic rhythms, dense bass-and-drum sound, and vigorous vocals. Heavy metal subgenres variously emphasize, alter, or omit one or more of these attributes. "The New York Times" critic Jon Pareles writes, "In the taxonomy of popular music, heavy metal is a major subspecies of hard-rock—the breed with less syncopation, less blues, more showmanship and more brute force." The typical band lineup includes a drummer, a bassist, a rhythm guitarist, a lead guitarist, and a singer, who may or may not be an instrumentalist. Keyboard instruments are sometimes used to enhance the fullness of the sound. Deep Purple's Jon Lord played an overdriven Hammond organ. In 1970, John Paul Jones used a Moog synthesizer on "Led Zeppelin III"; by the 1990s, in "almost every subgenre of heavy metal" synthesizers were used.
The electric guitar and the sonic power that it projects through amplification has historically been the key element in heavy metal. The heavy metal guitar sound comes from a combined use of high volumes and heavy distortion. For classic heavy metal guitar tone, guitarists maintain gain at moderate levels, without excessive preamp or pedal distortion, to retain open spaces and air in the music; the guitar amplifier is turned up loud to produce the characteristic "punch and grind". Thrash metal guitar tone has scooped mid-frequencies and tightly compressed sound with multiple bass frequencies. Guitar solos are "an essential element of the heavy metal code ... that underscores the significance of the guitar" to the genre. Most heavy metal songs "feature at least one guitar solo", which is "a primary means through which the heavy metal performer expresses virtuosity". Some exceptions are nu metal and grindcore bands, which tend to omit guitar solos. With rhythm guitar parts, the "heavy crunch sound in heavy metal ... [is created by] palm muting" the strings with the picking hand and using distortion. Palm muting creates a tighter, more precise sound and it emphasizes the low end.
The lead role of the guitar in heavy metal often collides with the traditional "frontman" or bandleader role of the vocalist, creating a musical tension as the two "contend for dominance" in a spirit of "affectionate rivalry". Heavy metal "demands the subordination of the voice" to the overall sound of the band. Reflecting metal's roots in the 1960s counterculture, an "explicit display of emotion" is required from the vocals as a sign of authenticity. Critic Simon Frith claims that the metal singer's "tone of voice" is more important than the lyrics.
The prominent role of the bass is also key to the metal sound, and the interplay of bass and guitar is a central element. The bass guitar provides the low-end sound crucial to making the music "heavy". The bass plays a "more important role in heavy metal than in any other genre of rock". Metal basslines vary widely in complexity, from holding down a low pedal point as a foundation to doubling complex riffs and licks along with the lead or rhythm guitars. Some bands feature the bass as a lead instrument, an approach popularized by Metallica's Cliff Burton with his heavy emphasis on bass guitar solos and use of chords while playing bass in the early 1980s. Lemmy of Motörhead often played overdriven power chords in his bass lines.
The essence of heavy metal drumming is creating a loud, constant beat for the band using the "trifecta of speed, power, and precision". Heavy metal drumming "requires an exceptional amount of endurance", and drummers have to develop "considerable speed, coordination, and dexterity ... to play the intricate patterns" used in heavy metal. A characteristic metal drumming technique is the cymbal choke, which consists of striking a cymbal and then immediately silencing it by grabbing it with the other hand (or, in some cases, the same striking hand), producing a burst of sound. The metal drum setup is generally much larger than those employed in other forms of rock music. Black metal, death metal and some "mainstream metal" bands "all depend upon double-kicks and blast beats".
In live performance, loudness—an "onslaught of sound", in sociologist Deena Weinstein's description—is considered vital. In his book "Metalheads", psychologist Jeffrey Arnett refers to heavy metal concerts as "the sensory equivalent of war". Following the lead set by Jimi Hendrix, Cream and The Who, early heavy metal acts such as Blue Cheer set new benchmarks for volume. As Blue Cheer's Dick Peterson put it, "All we knew was we wanted more power." A 1977 review of a Motörhead concert noted how "excessive volume in particular figured into the band's impact." Weinstein makes the case that in the same way that melody is the main element of pop and rhythm is the main focus of house music, powerful sound, timbre, and volume are the key elements of metal. She argues that the loudness is designed to "sweep the listener into the sound" and to provide a "shot of youthful vitality".
Heavy metal performers tended to be almost exclusively male until at least the mid-1980s apart from exceptions such as Girlschool. However, by the 2010s women were making more of an impact, and PopMatters' Craig Hayes argues that metal "clearly empowers women". In the sub-genres of symphonic and power metal, there has been a sizable number of bands that have had women as the lead singers; bands such as Nightwish, Delain, and Within Temptation have featured women as lead singers with men playing instruments.
The rhythm in metal songs is emphatic, with deliberate stresses. Weinstein observes that the wide array of sonic effects available to metal drummers enables the "rhythmic pattern to take on a complexity within its elemental drive and insistency". In many heavy metal songs, the main groove is characterized by short, two-note or three-note rhythmic figures—generally made up of 8th or 16th notes. These rhythmic figures are usually performed with a staccato attack created by using a palm-muted technique on the rhythm guitar.
Brief, abrupt, and detached rhythmic cells are joined into rhythmic phrases with a distinctive, often jerky texture. These phrases are used to create rhythmic accompaniment and melodic figures called riffs, which help to establish thematic hooks. Heavy metal songs also use longer rhythmic figures such as whole note- or dotted quarter note-length chords in slow-tempo power ballads. The tempos in early heavy metal music tended to be "slow, even ponderous". By the late 1970s, however, metal bands were employing a wide variety of tempos. In the 2000s decade, metal tempos range from slow ballad tempos (quarter note = 60 beats per minute) to extremely fast blast beat tempos (quarter note = 350 beats per minute).
One of the signatures of the genre is the guitar power chord. In technical terms, the power chord is relatively simple: it involves just one main interval, generally the perfect fifth, though an octave may be added as a doubling of the root. When power chords are played on the lower strings at high volumes and with distortion, additional low frequency sounds are created, which add to the "weight of the sound" and create an effect of "overwhelming power". Although the perfect fifth interval is the most common basis for the power chord, power chords are also based on different intervals such as the minor third, major third, perfect fourth, diminished fifth, or minor sixth. Most power chords are also played with a consistent finger arrangement that can be slid easily up and down the fretboard.
Heavy metal is usually based on riffs created with three main harmonic traits: modal scale progressions, tritone and chromatic progressions, and the use of pedal points. Traditional heavy metal tends to employ modal scales, in particular the Aeolian and Phrygian modes. Harmonically speaking, this means the genre typically incorporates modal chord progressions such as the Aeolian progressions I-♭VI-♭VII, I-♭VII-(♭VI), or I-♭VI-IV-♭VII and Phrygian progressions implying the relation between I and ♭II (I-♭II-I, I-♭II-III, or I-♭II-VII for example). Tense-sounding chromatic or tritone relationships are used in a number of metal chord progressions. In addition to using modal harmonic relationships, heavy metal also uses "pentatonic and blues-derived features".
The tritone, an interval spanning three whole tones—such as C to F#—was a forbidden dissonance in medieval ecclesiastical singing, which led monks to call it "diabolus in musica"—"the devil in music".
Heavy metal songs often make extensive use of pedal point as a harmonic basis. A pedal point is a sustained tone, typically in the bass range, during which at least one foreign (i.e., dissonant) harmony is sounded in the other parts. According to Robert Walser, heavy metal harmonic relationships are "often quite complex" and the harmonic analysis done by metal players and teachers is "often very sophisticated". In the study of heavy metal chord structures, it has been concluded that "heavy metal music has proved to be far more complicated" than other music researchers had realized.
Robert Walser stated that, alongside blues and R&B, the "assemblage of disparate musical styles known ... as 'classical music has been a major influence on heavy metal since the genre's earliest days. Also that metal's "most influential musicians have been guitar players who have also studied classical music. Their appropriation and adaptation of classical models sparked the development of a new kind of guitar virtuosity [and] changes in the harmonic and melodic language of heavy metal."
In an article written for "Grove Music Online", Walser stated that the "1980s brought on ... the widespread adaptation of chord progressions and virtuosic practices from 18th-century European models, especially Bach and Antonio Vivaldi, by influential guitarists such as Ritchie Blackmore, Marty Friedman, Jason Becker, Uli Jon Roth, Eddie Van Halen, Randy Rhoads and Yngwie Malmsteen". Kurt Bachmann of Believer has stated that "If done correctly, metal and classical fit quite well together. Classical and metal are probably the two genres that have the most in common when it comes to feel, texture, creativity."
Although a number of metal musicians cite classical composers as inspiration, classical and metal are rooted in different cultural traditions and practices—classical in the art music tradition, metal in the popular music tradition. As musicologists Nicolas Cook and Nicola Dibben note, "Analyses of popular music also sometimes reveal the influence of 'art traditions'. An example is Walser's linkage of heavy metal music with the ideologies and even some of the performance practices of nineteenth-century Romanticism. However, it would be clearly wrong to claim that traditions such as blues, rock, heavy metal, rap or dance music derive primarily from "art music'."
According to scholars David Hatch and Stephen Millward, Black Sabbath, and the numerous heavy metal bands that they inspired, have concentrated lyrically "on dark and depressing subject matter to an extent hitherto unprecedented in any form of pop music". They take as an example Sabbath's second album "Paranoid" (1970), which "included songs dealing with personal trauma—'Paranoid' and 'Fairies Wear Boots' (which described the unsavoury side effects of drug-taking)—as well as those confronting wider issues, such as the self-explanatory 'War Pigs' and 'Hand of Doom'." Deriving from the genre's roots in blues music, sex is another important topic—a thread running from Led Zeppelin's suggestive lyrics to the more explicit references of glam metal and nu metal bands.
The thematic content of heavy metal has long been a target of criticism. According to Jon Pareles, "Heavy metal's main subject matter is simple and virtually universal. With grunts, moans and subliterary lyrics, it celebrates ... a party without limits ... [T]he bulk of the music is stylized and formulaic." Music critics have often deemed metal lyrics juvenile and banal, and others have objected to what they see as advocacy of misogyny and the occult. During the 1980s, the Parents Music Resource Center petitioned the U.S. Congress to regulate the popular music industry due to what the group asserted were objectionable lyrics, particularly those in heavy metal songs. Andrew Cope states that claims that heavy metal lyrics are misogynistic are "clearly misguided" as these critics have "overlook[ed] the overwhelming evidence that suggests otherwise". Music critic Robert Christgau called metal "an expressive mode [that] it sometimes seems will be with us for as long as ordinary white boys fear girls, pity themselves, and are permitted to rage against a world they'll never beat".
Heavy metal artists have had to defend their lyrics in front of the U.S. Senate and in court. In 1985, Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider was asked to defend his song "Under the Blade" at a U.S. Senate hearing. At the hearing, the PMRC alleged that the song was about sadomasochism and rape; Snider stated that the song was about his bandmate's throat surgery. In 1986, Ozzy Osbourne was sued over the lyrics of his song "Suicide Solution". A lawsuit against Osbourne was filed by the parents of John McCollum, a depressed teenager who committed suicide allegedly after listening to Osbourne's song. Osbourne was not found to be responsible for the teen's death. In 1990, Judas Priest was sued in American court by the parents of two young men who had shot themselves five years earlier, allegedly after hearing the subliminal statement "do it" in the song Better by You, Better than Me, it was featured on the album Stained Class (1978), the song was also a Spooky Tooth cover. While the case attracted a great deal of media attention, it was ultimately dismissed. In 1991, UK police seized death metal records from the British record label Earache Records, in an "unsuccessful attempt to prosecute the label for obscenity".
In some predominantly Muslim countries, heavy metal has been officially denounced as a threat to traditional values. In countries such as Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon, and Malaysia, there have been incidents of heavy metal musicians and fans being arrested and incarcerated. In 1997, the Egyptian police jailed many young metal fans and they were accused of "devil worship" and blasphemy, after police found metal recordings during searches of their homes. In 2013, Malaysia banned Lamb of God from performing in their country, on the grounds that the "band's lyrics could be interpreted as being religiously insensitive" and blasphemous. Some people considered heavy metal music to being a leading factor for mental health disorders, and thought that heavy metal fans were more likely to suffer with a poor mental health, but study has proven that this is not true and the fans of this music have a lower or similar percentage of people suffering from poor mental health.
For many artists and bands, visual imagery plays a large role in heavy metal. In addition to its sound and lyrics, a heavy metal band's image is expressed in album cover art, logos, stage sets, clothing, design of instruments, and music videos.
Down-the-back long hair is the "most crucial distinguishing feature of metal fashion". Originally adopted from the hippie subculture, by the 1980s and 1990s heavy metal hair "symbolised the hate, angst and disenchantment of a generation that seemingly never felt at home", according to journalist Nader Rahman. Long hair gave members of the metal community "the power they needed to rebel against nothing in general".
The classic uniform of heavy metal fans consists of light colored, ripped frayed or torn blue jeans, black T-shirts, boots, and black leather or denim jackets. Deena Weinstein writes, "T-shirts are generally emblazoned with the logos or other visual representations of favorite metal bands." In the 1980s, a range of sources, from punk and goth music to horror films, influenced metal fashion. Many metal performers of the 1970s and 1980s used radically shaped and brightly colored instruments to enhance their stage appearance.
Fashion and personal style was especially important for glam metal bands of the era. Performers typically wore long, dyed, hairspray-teased hair (hence the nickname, "hair metal"); makeup such as lipstick and eyeliner; gaudy clothing, including leopard-skin-printed shirts or vests and tight denim, leather, or spandex pants; and accessories such as headbands and jewelry. Pioneered by the heavy metal act X Japan in the late 1980s, bands in the Japanese movement known as visual kei—which includes many nonmetal groups—emphasize elaborate costumes, hair, and makeup.
Many metal musicians when performing live engage in headbanging, which involves rhythmically beating time with the head, often emphasized by long hair. The il cornuto, or devil horns, hand gesture was popularized by vocalist Ronnie James Dio while with Black Sabbath and Dio. Although Gene Simmons of Kiss claims to have been the first to make the gesture on the 1977 "Love Gun" album cover, there is speculation as to who started the phenomenon.
Attendees of metal concerts do not dance in the usual sense. It has been argued that this is due to the music's largely male audience and "extreme heterosexualist ideology". Two primary body movements used are headbanging and an arm thrust that is both a sign of appreciation and a rhythmic gesture. The performance of air guitar is popular among metal fans both at concerts and listening to records at home. According to Deena Weinstein, thrash metal concerts have two elements that are not part of the other metal genres: moshing and stage diving, which "were imported from the punk/hardcore subculture". Weinstein states that moshing participants bump and jostle each other as they move in a circle in an area called the "pit" near the stage. Stage divers climb onto the stage with the band and then jump "back into the audience".
It has been argued that heavy metal has outlasted many other rock genres largely due to the emergence of an intense, exclusionary, strongly masculine subculture. While the metal fan base is largely young, white, male, and blue-collar, the group is "tolerant of those outside its core demographic base who follow its codes of dress, appearance, and behavior". Identification with the subculture is strengthened not only by the group experience of concert-going and shared elements of fashion, but also by contributing to metal magazines and, more recently, websites. Attending live concerts in particular has been called the "holiest of heavy metal communions."
The metal scene has been characterized as a "subculture of alienation", with its own code of authenticity. This code puts several demands on performers: they must appear both completely devoted to their music and loyal to the subculture that supports it; they must appear uninterested in mainstream appeal and radio hits; and they must never "sell out". Deena Weinstein states that for the fans themselves, the code promotes "opposition to established authority, and separateness from the rest of society".
Musician and filmmaker Rob Zombie observes, "Most of the kids who come to my shows seem like really imaginative kids with a lot of creative energy they don't know what to do with" and that metal is "outsider music for outsiders. Nobody wants to be the weird kid; you just somehow end up being the weird kid. It's kind of like that, but with metal you have all the weird kids in one place". Scholars of metal have noted the tendency of fans to classify and reject some performers (and some other fans) as "poseurs" "who pretended to be part of the subculture, but who were deemed to lack authenticity and sincerity".
The origin of the term "heavy metal" in a musical context is uncertain. The phrase has been used for centuries in chemistry and metallurgy, where the periodic table organizes elements of both light and heavy metals (e.g., uranium). An early use of the term in modern popular culture was by countercultural writer William S. Burroughs. His 1962 novel "The Soft Machine" includes a character known as "Uranian Willy, the Heavy Metal Kid". Burroughs' next novel, "Nova Express" (1964), develops the theme, using "heavy metal" as a metaphor for addictive drugs: "With their diseases and orgasm drugs and their sexless parasite life forms—Heavy Metal People of Uranus wrapped in cool blue mist of vaporized bank notes—And The Insect People of Minraud with metal music". Inspired by Burroughs' novels, the term was used in the title of the 1967 album "Featuring the Human Host and the Heavy Metal Kids" by Hapshash and the Coloured Coat, which has been claimed to be its first use in the context of music. The phrase was later lifted by Sandy Pearlman, who used the term to describe The Byrds for their supposed "aluminium style of context and effect", particularly on their album "The Notorious Byrd Brothers" (1968).
Metal historian Ian Christe describes what the components of the term mean in "hippiespeak": "heavy" is roughly synonymous with "potent" or "profound," and "metal" designates a certain type of mood, grinding and weighted as with metal. The word "heavy" in this sense was a basic element of beatnik and later countercultural hippie slang, and references to "heavy music"—typically slower, more amplified variations of standard pop fare—were already common by the mid-1960s, such as in reference to Vanilla Fudge. Iron Butterfly's debut album, released in early 1968, was titled "Heavy". The first use of "heavy metal" in a song lyric is in reference to a motorcycle in the Steppenwolf song "Born to Be Wild", also released that year: "I like smoke and lightning/Heavy metal thunder/Racin' with the wind/And the feelin' that I'm under."
An early documented use of the phrase in rock criticism appears in Sandy Pearlman's February 1967 "Crawdaddy" review of the Rolling Stones' "Got Live If You Want It" (1966), albeit as a description of the sound rather than as a genre: "On this album the Stones go metal. Technology is in the saddle—as an ideal and as a method." Another appears in the May 11, 1968, issue of "Rolling Stone", in which Barry Gifford wrote about the album "A Long Time Comin'" by U.S. band Electric Flag: "Nobody who's been listening to Mike Bloomfield—either talking or playing—in the last few years could have expected this. This is the new soul music, the synthesis of white blues and heavy metal rock." In January 1970 Lucian K. Truscott IV reviewing "Led Zeppelin II" for the Village Voice described the sound as "heavy" and made comparisons with Blue Cheer and Vanilla Fudge.
Other early documented uses of the phrase are from reviews by critic Mike Saunders. In the November 12, 1970 issue of "Rolling Stone", he commented on an album put out the previous year by the British band Humble Pie: ""Safe as Yesterday Is," their first American release, proved that Humble Pie could be boring in lots of different ways. Here they were a noisy, unmelodic, heavy metal-leaden shit-rock band with the loud and noisy parts beyond doubt. There were a couple of nice songs ... and one monumental pile of refuse". He described the band's latest, self-titled release as "more of the same 27th-rate heavy metal crap".
In a review of Sir Lord Baltimore's "Kingdom Come" in the May 1971 "Creem", Saunders wrote, "Sir Lord Baltimore seems to have down pat most all the best heavy metal tricks in the book". "Creem" critic Lester Bangs is credited with popularizing the term via his early 1970s essays on bands such as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. Through the decade, "heavy metal" was used by certain critics as a virtually automatic putdown. In 1979, lead "New York Times" popular music critic John Rockwell described what he called "heavy-metal rock" as "brutally aggressive music played mostly for minds clouded by drugs", and, in a different article, as "a crude exaggeration of rock basics that appeals to white teenagers".
Coined by Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward, "downer rock" was one of the earliest terms used to describe this style of music and was applied to acts such as Sabbath and Bloodrock. "Classic Rock" magazine described the downer rock culture revolving around the use of Quaaludes and the drinking of wine. Later the term would be replaced by "heavy metal".
Earlier on, as "heavy metal" emerged partially from heavy psychedelic rock, also known as acid rock, "acid rock" was often used interchangeably with "heavy metal" and "hard rock". “Acid rock” generally describes heavy, hard, or raw psychedelic rock. Musicologist Steve Waksman stated that "the distinction between acid rock, hard rock, and heavy metal can at some point never be more than tenuous", while percussionist John Beck defined "acid rock" as synonymous with hard rock and heavy metal.
Apart from "acid rock", the terms "heavy metal" and "hard rock" have often been used interchangeably, particularly in discussing bands of the 1970s, a period when the terms were largely synonymous. For example, the 1983 "Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll" includes this passage: "known for its aggressive blues-based hard-rock style, Aerosmith was the top American heavy-metal band of the mid-Seventies".
Heavy metal's quintessential guitar style, built around distortion-heavy riffs and power chords, traces its roots to early 1950s Memphis blues guitarists such as Joe Hill Louis, Willie Johnson, and particularly Pat Hare, who captured a "grittier, nastier, more ferocious electric guitar sound" on records such as James Cotton's "" (1954); the late 1950s instrumentals of Link Wray, particularly "Rumble" (1958); the early 1960s surf rock of Dick Dale, including "Let's Go Trippin'" (1961) and "Misirlou" (1962); and The Kingsmen's version of "Louie Louie" (1963) which made it a garage rock standard.
However, the genre's direct lineage begins in the mid-1960s. American blues music was a major influence on the early British rockers of the era. Bands like The Rolling Stones and The Yardbirds developed blues rock by recording covers of classic blues songs, often speeding up the tempos. As they experimented with the music, the UK blues-based bands—and the U.S. acts they influenced in turn—developed what would become the hallmarks of heavy metal, in particular, the loud, distorted guitar sound. The Kinks played a major role in popularising this sound with their 1964 hit "You Really Got Me".
In addition to The Kinks' Dave Davies, other guitarists such as The Who's Pete Townshend and The Yardbirds' Jeff Beck were experimenting with feedback. Where the blues rock drumming style started out largely as simple shuffle beats on small kits, drummers began using a more muscular, complex, and amplified approach to match and be heard against the increasingly loud guitar. Vocalists similarly modified their technique and increased their reliance on amplification, often becoming more stylized and dramatic. In terms of sheer volume, especially in live performance, The Who's "bigger-louder-wall-of-Marshalls" approach was seminal to the development of the later heavy metal sound.
The combination of blues rock with psychedelic rock and acid rock formed much of the original basis for heavy metal. The variant or subgenre of psychedelic rock often known as "acid rock" was particularly influential on heavy metal; acid rock is often defined as a heavier, louder, or harder variant of psychedelic rock, or the more extreme side of the psychedelic rock genre, frequently containing a loud, improvised, and heavily distorted guitar-centered sound. Acid rock has been described as psychedelic rock at its "rawest and most intense," emphasizing the heavier qualities associated with both the positive and negative extremes of the psychedelic experience rather than only the idyllic side of psychedelia. American acid rock garage bands such as the 13th Floor Elevators epitomized the frenetic, heavier, darker and more psychotic sound of acid rock, a sound characterized by droning guitar riffs, amplified feedback, and guitar distortion, while the 13th Floor Elevators' sound in particular featured yelping vocals and "occasionally demented" lyrics. Frank Hoffman notes that: "Psychedelia was sometimes referred to as 'acid rock'. The latter label was applied to a pounding, hard rock variant that evolved out of the mid-1960s garage-punk movement. ... When rock began turning back to softer, roots-oriented sounds in late 1968, acid-rock bands mutated into heavy metal acts."
One of the most influential bands in forging the merger of psychedelic rock and acid rock with the blues rock genre was the British power trio Cream, who derived a massive, heavy sound from unison riffing between guitarist Eric Clapton and bassist Jack Bruce, as well as Ginger Baker's double bass drumming. Their first two LPs, "Fresh Cream" (1966) and "Disraeli Gears" (1967), are regarded as essential prototypes for the future style of heavy metal. The Jimi Hendrix Experience's debut album, "Are You Experienced" (1967), was also highly influential. Hendrix's virtuosic technique would be emulated by many metal guitarists and the album's most successful single, "Purple Haze", is identified by some as the first heavy metal hit. Vanilla Fudge, whose first album also came out in 1967, has been called "one of the few American links between psychedelia and what soon became heavy metal", and the band has been cited as an early American heavy metal group. On their self-titled debut album, Vanilla Fudge created "loud, heavy, slowed-down arrangements" of contemporary hit songs, blowing these songs up to "epic proportions" and "bathing them in a trippy, distorted haze."
During the late 1960s, many psychedelic singers, such as Arthur Brown, began to create outlandish, theatrical and often macabre performances; which in itself became incredibly influential to many metal acts. The American psychedelic rock band Coven, who opened for early heavy metal influencers such as Vanilla Fudge and the Yardbirds, portrayed themselves as practitioners of witchcraft or black magic, using dark—Satanic or occult—imagery in their lyrics, album art, and live performances. Live shows consisted of elaborate, theatrical "Satanic rites." Coven's 1969 debut album, "Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls", featured imagery of skulls, black masses, inverted crosses, and Satan worship, and both the album artwork and the band's live performances marked the first appearances in rock music of the sign of the horns, which would later become an important gesture in heavy metal culture. At the same time in England, the band Black Widow were also among the first psychedelic rock bands to use occult and Satanic imagery and lyrics, though both Black Widow and Coven's lyrical and thematic influences on heavy metal were quickly overshadowed by the darker and heavier sounds of Black Sabbath.
Critics disagree over who can be thought of as the first heavy metal band. Most credit either Led Zeppelin or Black Sabbath, with American commentators tending to favour Led Zeppelin and British commentators tending to favour Black Sabbath, though many give equal credit to both. Deep Purple, the third band in what is sometimes considered the "unholy trinity" of heavy metal, despite being slightly older than Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, fluctuated between many rock styles until late 1969 when they took a heavy metal direction. A few commentators—mainly American—argue for other groups including Iron Butterfly, Steppenwolf or Blue Cheer as the first to play heavy metal.
In 1968, the sound that would become known as heavy metal began to coalesce. That January, the San Francisco band Blue Cheer released a cover of Eddie Cochran's classic "Summertime Blues", from their debut album "Vincebus Eruptum", that many consider the first true heavy metal recording. The same month, Steppenwolf released its self-titled debut album, including "Born to Be Wild", which refers to "heavy metal thunder" in describing a motorcycle. In July, the Jeff Beck Group, whose leader had preceded Page as The Yardbirds' guitarist, released its debut record: "Truth" featured some of the "most molten, barbed, downright funny noises of all time," breaking ground for generations of metal ax-slingers. In September, Page's new band, Led Zeppelin, made its live debut in Denmark (billed as The New Yardbirds). The Beatles' "White Album", released the following month, included "Helter Skelter", then one of the heaviest-sounding songs ever released by a major band. The Pretty Things' rock opera "S.F. Sorrow", released in December, featured "proto heavy metal" songs such as "Old Man Going" and "I See You". Iron Butterfly's 1968 song "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" is sometimes described as an example of the transition between acid rock and heavy metal or the turning point in which acid rock became "heavy metal", and both Iron Butterfly's 1968 album "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" and Blue Cheer's 1968 album "Vincebus Eruptum" have been described as laying the foundation of heavy metal and greatly influential in the transformation of acid rock into heavy metal.
In this counterculture period MC5, who began as part of the Detroit garage rock scene, developed a raw distorted style that has been seen as a major influence on the future sound of both heavy metal and later punk music. The Stooges also began to establish and influence a heavy metal and later punk sound, with songs such as "I Wanna Be Your Dog", featuring pounding and distorted heavy guitar power chord riffs. Pink Floyd released two of their heaviest and loudest songs to date; "Ibiza Bar" and "The Nile Song", which was regarded as "one of the heaviest songs the band recorded". King Crimson's debut album started with "21st Century Schizoid Man," which was considered heavy metal by several critics.
In January 1969, Led Zeppelin's self-titled debut album was released and reached number 10 on the "Billboard" album chart. In July, Zeppelin and a power trio with a Cream-inspired, but cruder sound, Grand Funk Railroad, played the Atlanta Pop Festival. That same month, another Cream-rooted trio led by Leslie West released "Mountain", an album filled with heavy blues rock guitar and roaring vocals. In August, the group—now itself dubbed Mountain—played an hour-long set at the Woodstock Festival, exposing the crowd of 300,000 people to the emerging sound of heavy metal. Mountain's proto-metal or early heavy metal hit song "Mississippi Queen" from the album "Climbing!" is especially credited with paving the way for heavy metal and was one of the first heavy guitar songs to receive regular play on radio. In September 1969, the Beatles released the album "Abbey Road" containing the track "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" which has been credited as an early example of or influence on heavy metal or doom metal. In October 1969, British band High Tide debuted with the heavy, proto-metal album "Sea Shanties".
Led Zeppelin defined central aspects of the emerging genre, with Page's highly distorted guitar style and singer Robert Plant's dramatic, wailing vocals. Other bands, with a more consistently heavy, "purely" metal sound, would prove equally important in codifying the genre. The 1970 releases by Black Sabbath ("Black Sabbath"generally accepted as the first heavy metal album and "Paranoid") and Deep Purple ("In Rock") were crucial in this regard.
Birmingham's Black Sabbath had developed a particularly heavy sound in part due to an industrial accident guitarist Tony Iommi suffered before cofounding the band. Unable to play normally, Iommi had to tune his guitar down for easier fretting and rely on power chords with their relatively simple fingering. The bleak, industrial, working class environment of Birmingham, a manufacturing city full of noisy factories and metalworking, has itself been credited with influencing Black Sabbath's heavy, chugging, metallic sound and the sound of heavy metal in general. Deep Purple had fluctuated between styles in its early years, but by 1969 vocalist Ian Gillan and guitarist Ritchie Blackmore had led the band toward the developing heavy metal style. In 1970, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple scored major UK chart hits with "Paranoid" and "Black Night", respectively. That same year, two other British bands released debut albums in a heavy metal mode: Uriah Heep with "...Very 'Eavy ...Very 'Umble" and UFO with "UFO 1". Bloodrock released their self-titled debut album, containing a collection of heavy guitar riffs, gruff style vocals and sadistic and macabre lyrics. The influential Budgie brought the new metal sound into a power trio context, creating some of the heaviest music of the time. The occult lyrics and imagery employed by Black Sabbath and Uriah Heep would prove particularly influential; Led Zeppelin also began foregrounding such elements with its fourth album, released in 1971. In 1973, Deep Purple released the song "Smoke on the Water", with the iconic riff that's usually considered as the most recognizable one in "heavy rock" history, as a single of the classic live album Made in Japan.
On the other side of the Atlantic, the trend-setting group was Grand Funk Railroad, described as "the most commercially successful American heavy-metal band from 1970 until they disbanded in 1976, [they] established the Seventies success formula: continuous touring". Other influential bands identified with metal emerged in the U.S., such as Sir Lord Baltimore ("Kingdom Come," 1970), Blue Öyster Cult ("Blue Öyster Cult", 1972), Aerosmith ("Aerosmith", 1973) and Kiss ("Kiss", 1974). Sir Lord Baltimore's 1970 debut album and both Humble Pie's debut and self-titled third album were all among the first albums to be described in print as "heavy metal", with "As Safe As Yesterday Is" being referred to by the term "heavy metal" in a 1970 review in "Rolling Stone" magazine. Various smaller bands from the U.S., U.K, and Continental Europe, including Bang, Josefus, Leaf Hound, Primeval, Hard Stuff, Truth and Janey, Dust, JPT Scare Band, Frijid Pink, Cactus, May Blitz, Captain Beyond, Toad, Granicus, Iron Claw, and Yesterday's Children, though lesser known outside of their respective scenes, proved to be greatly influential on the emerging metal movement. In Germany, Scorpions debuted with "Lonesome Crow" in 1972. Blackmore, who had emerged as a virtuoso soloist with Deep Purple's highly influential album "Machine Head" (1972), left the band in 1975 to form Rainbow with Ronnie James Dio, singer and bassist for blues rock band Elf and future vocalist for Black Sabbath and heavy metal band Dio. Rainbow with Ronnie James Dio would expand on the mystical and fantasy-based lyrics and themes sometimes found in heavy metal, pioneering both power metal and neoclassical metal. These bands also built audiences via constant touring and increasingly elaborate stage shows.
As described above, there are arguments about whether these and other early bands truly qualify as "heavy metal" or simply as "hard rock". Those closer to the music's blues roots or placing greater emphasis on melody are now commonly ascribed the latter label. AC/DC, which debuted with "High Voltage" in 1975, is a prime example. The 1983 "Rolling Stone" encyclopedia entry begins, "Australian heavy-metal band AC/DC". Rock historian Clinton Walker writes, "Calling AC/DC a heavy metal band in the seventies was as inaccurate as it is today. ... [They] were a rock 'n' roll band that just happened to be heavy enough for metal". The issue is not only one of shifting definitions, but also a persistent distinction between musical style and audience identification: Ian Christe describes how the band "became the stepping-stone that led huge numbers of hard rock fans into heavy metal perdition".
In certain cases, there is little debate. After Black Sabbath, the next major example is Britain's Judas Priest, which debuted with "Rocka Rolla" in 1974. In Christe's description,
Black Sabbath's audience was ... left to scavenge for sounds with similar impact. By the mid-1970s, heavy metal aesthetic could be spotted, like a mythical beast, in the moody bass and complex dual guitars of Thin Lizzy, in the stagecraft of Alice Cooper, in the sizzling guitar and showy vocals of Queen, and in the thundering medieval questions of Rainbow. ... Judas Priest arrived to unify and amplify these diverse highlights from hard rock's sonic palette. For the first time, heavy metal became a true genre unto itself.
Though Judas Priest did not have a top 40 album in the United States until 1980, for many it was the definitive post-Sabbath heavy metal band; its twin-guitar attack, featuring rapid tempos and a non-bluesy, more cleanly metallic sound, was a major influence on later acts. While heavy metal was growing in popularity, most critics were not enamored of the music. Objections were raised to metal's adoption of visual spectacle and other trappings of commercial artifice, but the main offense was its perceived musical and lyrical vacuity: reviewing a Black Sabbath album in the early 1970s, leading critic Robert Christgau described it as "dull and decadent ... dim-witted, amoral exploitation."
Punk rock emerged in the mid-1970s as a reaction against contemporary social conditions as well as what was perceived as the overindulgent, overproduced rock music of the time, including heavy metal. Sales of heavy metal records declined sharply in the late 1970s in the face of punk, disco, and more mainstream rock. With the major labels fixated on punk, many newer British heavy metal bands were inspired by the movement's aggressive, high-energy sound and "lo-fi", do it yourself ethos. Underground metal bands began putting out cheaply recorded releases independently to small, devoted audiences.
Motörhead, founded in 1975, was the first important band to straddle the punk/metal divide. With the explosion of punk in 1977, others followed. British music papers such as the "NME" and "Sounds" took notice, with "Sounds" writer Geoff Barton christening the movement the "New Wave of British Heavy Metal". NWOBHM bands including Iron Maiden, Saxon, and Def Leppard re-energized the heavy metal genre. Following the lead set by Judas Priest and Motörhead, they toughened up the sound, reduced its blues elements, and emphasized increasingly fast tempos.
"This seemed to be the resurgence of heavy metal," noted Ronnie James Dio, who joined Black Sabbath in 1979. "I've never thought there was a "desurgence" of heavy metal – if that's a word! – but it was important to me that, yet again "[after Rainbow]", I could be involved in something that was paving the way for those who are going to come after me."
By 1980, the NWOBHM had broken into the mainstream, as albums by Iron Maiden and Saxon, as well as Motörhead, reached the British top 10. Though less commercially successful, NWOBHM bands such as Venom and Diamond Head would have a significant influence on metal's development. In 1981, Motörhead became the first of this new breed of metal bands to top the UK charts with the live album "No Sleep 'til Hammersmith".
The first generation of metal bands was ceding the limelight. Deep Purple broke up soon after Blackmore's departure in 1975, and Led Zeppelin split following drummer John Bonham's death in 1980. Black Sabbath were plagued with infighting and substance abuse, while facing fierce competition from their opening band, the Los Angeles band Van Halen. Eddie Van Halen established himself as one of the leading metal guitarists of the era. His solo on "Eruption", from the band's self-titled 1978 album, is considered a milestone. Eddie Van Halen's sound even crossed over into pop music when his guitar solo was featured on the track "Beat It" by Michael Jackson (a U.S. number 1 in February 1983).
Inspired by Van Halen's success, a metal scene began to develop in Southern California during the late 1970s. Based on the clubs of L.A.'s Sunset Strip, bands such as Quiet Riot, Ratt, Mötley Crüe, and W.A.S.P. were influenced by traditional heavy metal of the earlier 1970s. These acts incorporated the theatrics (and sometimes makeup) of glam metal or "hair metal" such as Alice Cooper and Kiss. Glam metal bands were often visually distinguished by long, overworked hair styles accompanied by wardrobes which were sometimes considered cross-gender. The lyrics of these glam metal bands characteristically emphasized hedonism and wild behavior, including lyrics which involved sexual expletives and the use of narcotics.
In the wake of the new wave of British heavy metal and Judas Priest's breakthrough "British Steel" (1980), heavy metal became increasingly popular in the early 1980s. Many metal artists benefited from the exposure they received on MTV, which began airing in 1981—sales often soared if a band's videos screened on the channel. Def Leppard's videos for "Pyromania" (1983) made them superstars in America and Quiet Riot became the first domestic heavy metal band to top the "Billboard" chart with "Metal Health" (1983). One of the seminal events in metal's growing popularity was the 1983 US Festival in California, where the "heavy metal day" featuring Ozzy Osbourne, Van Halen, Scorpions, Mötley Crüe, Judas Priest, and others drew the largest audiences of the three-day event.
Between 1983 and 1984, heavy metal went from an 8 percent to a 20 percent share of all recordings sold in the U.S. Several major professional magazines devoted to the genre were launched, including "Kerrang!" (in 1981) and "Metal Hammer" (in 1984), as well as a host of fan journals. In 1985, "Billboard" declared, "Metal has broadened its audience base. Metal music is no longer the exclusive domain of male teenagers. The metal audience has become older (college-aged), younger (pre-teen), and more female".
By the mid-1980s, glam metal was a dominant presence on the U.S. charts, music television, and the arena concert circuit. New bands such as L.A.'s Warrant and acts from the East Coast like Poison and Cinderella became major draws, while Mötley Crüe and Ratt remained very popular. Bridging the stylistic gap between hard rock and glam metal, New Jersey's Bon Jovi became enormously successful with its third album, "Slippery When Wet" (1986). The similarly styled Swedish band Europe became international stars with "The Final Countdown" (1986). Its title track hit number 1 in 25 countries. In 1987, MTV launched a show, "Headbanger's Ball", devoted exclusively to heavy metal videos. However, the metal audience had begun to factionalize, with those in many underground metal scenes favoring more extreme sounds and disparaging the popular style as "light metal" or "hair metal".
One band that reached diverse audiences was Guns N' Roses. In contrast to their glam metal contemporaries in L.A., they were seen as much more raw and dangerous. With the release of their chart-topping "Appetite for Destruction" (1987), they "recharged and almost single-handedly sustained the Sunset Strip sleaze system for several years". The following year, Jane's Addiction emerged from the same L.A. hard-rock club scene with its major label debut, "Nothing's Shocking". Reviewing the album, "Rolling Stone" declared, "as much as any band in existence, Jane's Addiction is the true heir to Led Zeppelin". The group was one of the first to be identified with the "alternative metal" trend that would come to the fore in the next decade. Meanwhile, new bands such as New York's Winger and New Jersey's Skid Row sustained the popularity of the glam metal style.
Many subgenres of heavy metal developed outside of the commercial mainstream during the 1980s such as crossover thrash. Several attempts have been made to map the complex world of underground metal, most notably by the editors of AllMusic, as well as critic Garry Sharpe-Young. Sharpe-Young's multivolume metal encyclopedia separates the underground into five major categories: thrash metal, death metal, black metal, power metal, and the related subgenres of doom and gothic metal.
In 1990, a review in "Rolling Stone" suggested retiring the term "heavy metal" as the genre was "ridiculously vague". The article stated that the term only fueled "misperceptions of rock & roll bigots who still assume that five bands as different as Ratt, Extreme, Anthrax, Danzig and Mother Love Bone" sound the same.
Thrash metal emerged in the early 1980s under the influence of hardcore punk and the new wave of British heavy metal, particularly songs in the revved-up style known as speed metal. The movement began in the United States, with Bay Area thrash metal being the leading scene. The sound developed by thrash groups was faster and more aggressive than that of the original metal bands and their glam metal successors. Low-register guitar riffs are typically overlaid with shredding leads. Lyrics often express nihilistic views or deal with social issues using visceral, gory language. Thrash has been described as a form of "urban blight music" and "a palefaced cousin of rap".
The subgenre was popularized by the "Big Four of Thrash": Metallica, Anthrax, Megadeth, and Slayer. Three German bands, Kreator, Sodom, and Destruction, played a central role in bringing the style to Europe. Others, including San Francisco Bay Area's Testament and Exodus, New Jersey's Overkill, and Brazil's Sepultura and Sarcófago, also had a significant impact. Although thrash began as an underground movement, and remained largely that for almost a decade, the leading bands of the scene began to reach a wider audience. Metallica brought the sound into the top 40 of the "Billboard" album chart in 1986 with "Master of Puppets", the genre's first platinum record. Two years later, the band's "...And Justice for All" hit number 6, while Megadeth and Anthrax also had top 40 records on the American charts.
Though less commercially successful than the rest of the Big Four, Slayer released one of the genre's definitive records: "Reign in Blood" (1986) was credited for incorporating heavier guitar timbres, and for including explicit depictions of death, suffering, violence and occult into thrash metal's lyricism. Slayer attracted a following among far-right skinheads, and accusations of promoting violence and Nazi themes have dogged the band. Even though Slayer did not receive substantial media exposure, their music played a key role in the development of extreme metal.
In the early 1990s, thrash achieved breakout success, challenging and redefining the metal mainstream. Metallica's self-titled 1991 album topped the "Billboard" chart, as the band established international following. Megadeth's "Countdown to Extinction" (1992) debuted at number two, Anthrax and Slayer cracked the top 10, and albums by regional bands such as Testament and Sepultura entered the top 100.
Thrash soon began to evolve and split into more extreme metal genres. "Slayer's music was directly responsible for the rise of death metal," according to MTV News. The NWOBHM band Venom was also an important progenitor. The death metal movement in both North America and Europe adopted and emphasized the elements of blasphemy and diabolism employed by such acts. Florida's Death, San Francisco Bay Area's Possessed, and Ohio's Necrophagia are recognized as seminal bands in the style. Both groups have been credited with inspiring the subgenre's name, the latter via its 1984 demo "Death Metal" and the song "Death Metal", from its 1985 debut album "Seven Churches" (1985). In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Swedish death metal became notable and melodic forms of death metal were created.
Death metal utilizes the speed and aggression of both thrash and hardcore, fused with lyrics preoccupied with Z-grade slasher movie violence and Satanism. Death metal vocals are typically bleak, involving guttural "death growls", high-pitched screaming, the "death rasp", and other uncommon techniques. Complementing the deep, aggressive vocal style are downtuned, heavily distorted guitars and extremely fast percussion, often with rapid double bass drumming and "wall of sound"–style blast beats. Frequent tempo and time signature changes and syncopation are also typical.
Death metal, like thrash metal, generally rejects the theatrics of earlier metal styles, opting instead for an everyday look of ripped jeans and plain leather jackets. One major exception to this rule was Deicide's Glen Benton, who branded an inverted cross on his forehead and wore armor on stage. Morbid Angel adopted neo-fascist imagery. These two bands, along with Death and Obituary, were leaders of the major death metal scene that emerged in Florida in the mid-1980s. In the UK, the related style of grindcore, led by bands such as Napalm Death and Extreme Noise Terror, emerged from the anarcho-punk movement.
The first wave of black metal emerged in Europe in the early and mid-1980s, led by the United Kingdom's Venom, Denmark's Mercyful Fate, Switzerland's Hellhammer and Celtic Frost, and Sweden's Bathory. By the late 1980s, Norwegian bands such as Mayhem and Burzum were heading a second wave. Black metal varies considerably in style and production quality, although most bands emphasize shrieked and growled vocals, highly distorted guitars frequently played with rapid tremolo picking, a dark atmosphere and intentionally lo-fi production, often with ambient noise and background hiss.
Satanic themes are common in black metal, though many bands take inspiration from ancient paganism, promoting a return to supposed pre-Christian values. Numerous black metal bands also "experiment with sounds from all possible forms of metal, folk, classical music, electronica and avant-garde". Darkthrone drummer Fenriz explains, "It had something to do with production, lyrics, the way they dressed and a commitment to making ugly, raw, grim stuff. There wasn't a generic sound."
Although bands such as Sarcófago had been donning corpsepaint, by 1990, Mayhem was regularly wearing corpsepaint; many other black metal acts also adopted the look. Bathory inspired the Viking metal and folk metal movements and Immortal brought blast beats to the fore. Some bands in the Scandinavian black metal scene became associated with considerable violence in the early 1990s, with Mayhem and Burzum linked to church burnings. Growing commercial hype around death metal generated a backlash; beginning in Norway, much of the Scandinavian metal underground shifted to support a black metal scene that resisted being co-opted by the commercial metal industry.
By 1992, black metal scenes had begun to emerge in areas outside Scandinavia, including Germany, France, and Poland. The 1993 murder of Mayhem's Euronymous by Burzum's Varg Vikernes provoked intensive media coverage. Around 1996, when many in the scene felt the genre was stagnating, several key bands, including Burzum and Finland's Beherit, moved toward an ambient style, while symphonic black metal was explored by Sweden's Tiamat and Switzerland's Samael. In the late 1990s and early 2000s decade, Norway's Dimmu Borgir brought black metal closer to the mainstream, as did Cradle of Filth.
During the late 1980s, the power metal scene came together largely in reaction to the harshness of death and black metal. Though a relatively underground style in North America, it enjoys wide popularity in Europe, Japan, and South America. Power metal focuses on upbeat, epic melodies and themes that "appeal to the listener's sense of valor and loveliness". The prototype for the sound was established in the mid-to-late 1980s by Germany's Helloween, which in their 1987 and 1988 Keeper of the Seven Keys albums combined the power riffs, melodic approach, and high-pitched, "clean" singing style of bands like Judas Priest and Iron Maiden with thrash's speed and energy, "crystalliz[ing] the sonic ingredients of what is now known as power metal".
Traditional power metal bands like Sweden's HammerFall, England's DragonForce, and America's Iced Earth have a sound clearly indebted to the classic NWOBHM style. Many power metal bands such as America's Kamelot, Finnish groups Nightwish, Stratovarius and Sonata Arctica, Italy's Rhapsody of Fire, and Russia's Catharsis feature a keyboard-based "symphonic" sound, sometimes employing orchestras and opera singers. Power metal has built a strong fanbase in Japan and South America, where bands like Brazil's Angra and Argentina's Rata Blanca are popular.
Closely related to power metal is progressive metal, which adopts the complex compositional approach of bands like Rush and King Crimson. This style emerged in the United States in the early and mid-1980s, with innovators such as Queensrÿche, Fates Warning, and Dream Theater. The mix of the progressive and power metal sounds is typified by New Jersey's Symphony X, whose guitarist Michael Romeo is among the most recognized of latter-day shredders.
Emerging in the mid-1980s with such bands as California's Saint Vitus, Maryland's The Obsessed, Chicago's Trouble, and Sweden's Candlemass, the doom metal movement rejected other metal styles' emphasis on speed, slowing its music to a crawl. Doom metal traces its roots to the lyrical themes and musical approach of early Black Sabbath. The Melvins have also been a significant influence on doom metal and a number of its subgenres. Doom emphasizes melody, melancholy tempos, and a sepulchral mood relative to many other varieties of metal.
The 1991 release of "Forest of Equilibrium", the debut album by UK band Cathedral, helped spark a new wave of doom metal. During the same period, the doom-death fusion style of British bands Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride, and Anathema gave rise to European gothic metal, with its signature dual-vocalist arrangements, exemplified by Norway's Theatre of Tragedy and Tristania. New York's Type O Negative introduced an American take on the style.
In the United States, sludge metal, mixing doom and hardcore, emerged in the late 1980s—Eyehategod and Crowbar were leaders in a major Louisiana sludge scene. Early in the next decade, California's Kyuss and Sleep, inspired by the earlier doom metal bands, spearheaded the rise of stoner metal, while Seattle's Earth helped develop the drone metal subgenre. The late 1990s saw new bands form such as the Los Angeles–based Goatsnake, with a classic stoner/doom sound, and Sunn O))), which crosses lines between doom, drone, and dark ambient metal—the "New York Times" has compared their sound to an "Indian raga in the middle of an earthquake".
The era of heavy metal's mainstream dominance in North America came to an end in the early 1990s with the emergence of Nirvana and other grunge bands, signaling the popular breakthrough of alternative rock. Grunge acts were influenced by the heavy metal sound, but rejected the excesses of the more popular metal bands, such as their "flashy and virtuosic solos" and "appearance-driven" MTV orientation.
Glam metal fell out of favor due not only to the success of grunge, but also because of the growing popularity of the more aggressive sound typified by Metallica and the post-thrash groove metal of Pantera and White Zombie. In 1991, the band Metallica released their album "Metallica", also known as "The Black Album", which moved the band's sound out of the thrash metal genre and into standard heavy metal. The album was certified 16× Platinum by the RIAA. A few new, unambiguously metal bands had commercial success during the first half of the decade—Pantera's "Far Beyond Driven" topped the "Billboard" chart in 1994—but, "In the dull eyes of the mainstream, metal was dead". Some bands tried to adapt to the new musical landscape. Metallica revamped its image: the band members cut their hair and, in 1996, headlined the alternative musical festival Lollapalooza founded by Jane's Addiction singer Perry Farrell. While this prompted a backlash among some long-time fans, Metallica remained one of the most successful bands in the world into the new century.
Like Jane's Addiction, many of the most popular early 1990s groups with roots in heavy metal fall under the umbrella term "alternative metal". Bands in Seattle's grunge scene such as Soundgarden, credited as making a "place for heavy metal in alternative rock", and Alice in Chains were at the center of the alternative metal movement. The label was applied to a wide spectrum of other acts that fused metal with different styles: Faith No More combined their alternative rock sound with punk, funk, metal, and hip hop; Primus joined elements of funk, punk, thrash metal, and experimental music; Tool mixed metal and progressive rock; bands such as Fear Factory, Ministry and Nine Inch Nails began incorporating metal into their industrial sound, and vice versa, respectively; and Marilyn Manson went down a similar route, while also employing shock effects of the sort popularized by Alice Cooper. Alternative metal artists, though they did not represent a cohesive scene, were united by their willingness to experiment with the metal genre and their rejection of glam metal aesthetics (with the stagecraft of Marilyn Manson and White Zombie—also identified with alt-metal—significant, if partial, exceptions). Alternative metal's mix of styles and sounds represented "the colorful results of metal opening up to face the outside world."
In the mid- and late 1990s came a new wave of U.S. metal groups inspired by the alternative metal bands and their mix of genres. Dubbed "nu metal", bands such as Slipknot, Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit, Papa Roach, P.O.D., Korn and Disturbed incorporated elements ranging from death metal to hip hop, often including DJs and rap-style vocals. The mix demonstrated that "pancultural metal could pay off". Nu metal gained mainstream success through heavy MTV rotation and Ozzy Osbourne's 1996 introduction of Ozzfest, which led the media to talk of a resurgence of heavy metal. In 1999, "Billboard" noted that there were more than 500 specialty metal radio shows in the United States, nearly three times as many as ten years before. While nu metal was widely popular, traditional metal fans did not fully embrace the style. By early 2003, the movement's popularity was on the wane, though several nu metal acts such as Korn or Limp Bizkit retained substantial followings.
Metalcore, a hybrid of extreme metal and hardcore punk, emerged as a commercial force in the mid-2000s decade. Through the 1980s and 1990s, metalcore was mostly an underground phenomenon; pioneering bands include Earth Crisis, other prominent bands include Converge, Hatebreed and Shai Hulud. By 2004, melodic metalcore—influenced as well by melodic death metal—was popular enough that Killswitch Engage's "The End of Heartache" and Shadows Fall's "The War Within" debuted at numbers 21 and 20, respectively, on the "Billboard" album chart.
Evolving even further from metalcore comes mathcore, a more rhythmically complicated and progressive style brought to light by bands such as The Dillinger Escape Plan, Converge, and Protest the Hero. Mathcore's main defining quality is the use of odd time signatures, and has been described to possess rhythmic comparability to free jazz.
Heavy metal remained popular in the 2000s, particularly in continental Europe. By the new millennium Scandinavia had emerged as one of the areas producing innovative and successful bands, while Belgium, The Netherlands and especially Germany were the most significant markets. Metal music is more favorably embraced in Scandinavia and Northern Europe than other regions due to social and political openness in these regions. Established continental metal bands that placed multiple albums in the top 20 of the German charts between 2003 and 2008, including Finnish band Children of Bodom, Norwegian act Dimmu Borgir, Germany's Blind Guardian and Sweden's HammerFall.
In the 2000s, an extreme metal fusion genre known as deathcore emerged. Deathcore incorporates elements of death metal, hardcore punk and metalcore. Deathcore features characteristics such as death metal riffs, hardcore punk breakdowns, death growling, "pig squeal"-sounding vocals, and screaming. Deathcore bands include Whitechapel, Suicide Silence, Despised Icon and Carnifex.
The term "retro-metal" has been used to describe bands such as Texas-based The Sword, California's High on Fire, Sweden's Witchcraft, and Australia's Wolfmother. The Sword's "Age of Winters" (2006) drew heavily on the work of Black Sabbath and Pentagram, Witchcraft added elements of folk rock and psychedelic rock, and Wolfmother's self-titled 2005 debut album had "Deep Purple-ish organs" and "Jimmy Page-worthy chordal riffing". Mastodon, which plays in a progressive/sludge style, has inspired claims of a metal revival in the United States, dubbed by some critics the "New Wave of American Heavy Metal".
By the early 2010s, metalcore was evolving to more frequently incorporate synthesizers and elements from genres beyond rock and metal. The album "Reckless & Relentless" by British band Asking Alexandria (which sold 31,000 copies in its first week), and The Devil Wears Prada's 2011 album "Dead Throne" (which sold 32,400 in its first week) reached up to number 9 and 10, respectively, on the "Billboard" 200 chart. In 2013, British band Bring Me the Horizon released their fourth studio album Sempiternal to critical acclaim. The album debuted at number 3 on the UK Album Chart and at number 1 in Australia. The album sold 27,522 copies in the US, and charted at number 11 on the US Billboard Chart, making it their highest charting release in America until their follow-up album "That's the Spirit" debuted at no. 2 in 2015.
Also in the 2010s, a metal style called "djent" developed as a spinoff of standard progressive metal. Djent music uses rhythmic and technical complexity, heavily distorted, palm-muted guitar chords, syncopated riffs and polyrhythms alongside virtuoso soloing. Another typical characteristic is the use of extended range seven, eight, and nine-string guitars. Djent bands include Periphery, Tesseract and Textures.
The history of women in heavy metal can be traced back as far as the 1970s when the band Genesis, the forerunner of Vixen, was formed in 1973. Another hard rock band that featured all-female members, The Runaways, was founded in 1975; two members, Joan Jett and Lita Ford, later had successful solo careers. In 1978, with the rise of the new wave of British heavy metal, the band Girlschool was founded, later collaborating with Motörhead under the pseudonym Headgirl in 1980. In 1996, Finnish band Nightwish was founded and has featured women as vocalists. This was followed by more women fronting heavy metal bands, such as Halestorm, Within Temptation, Arch Enemy, and Epica among others. In Japan, the 2010s brought a boom of all-female metal bands including Destrose, Aldious, Mary's Blood, Cyntia, and Lovebites.
Women have had an important role behind the scenes, such as Gaby Hoffmann and Sharon Osbourne. In 1981, Hoffmann helped Don Dokken acquire his first record deal. Hoffmann also became the manager of Accept in 1981 and wrote songs under the pseudonym of "Deaffy" for many of band's studio albums. Vocalist Mark Tornillo stated that Hoffmann still had some influence in songwriting on their later albums. Osbourne, the wife and manager of Ozzy Osbourne, founded the "Ozzfest" music festival and managed several bands, including Motörhead, Coal Chamber, The Smashing Pumpkins, Electric Light Orchestra, Lita Ford and Queen.
The popular media and academia have long charged heavy metal with sexism and misogyny. In the 1980s, American conservative groups like the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) and the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) coopted feminist views on anti-woman violence to form attacks on metal's rhetoric and imagery. According to Robert Christgau in 2001, metal, along with hip hop, have made "reflexive and violent sexism … current in the music".
A general consensus among media and culture scholars posits sexism's existence, to varying degrees, across different subgenres and scenes of metal. In "Gender, Metal and the Media" (2016), British sociologist and music academic Rosemary Lucy Hill cites a variety of historical research and finds, in summary, "sexist attitudes and behaviours of peers at hard rock and metal events; symbolic violence, such as the violently misogynistic imagery in artwork and lyrics; women being faced with a barrage of questions to prove the authenticity of their fandom; the dominance of men in bands and prejudice faced by women musicians; and women fans being represented in the media as groupies, more interested in the musician than the music". Other academics find that femininity is largely suppressed in metal culture, and that metal listeners are more likely to subscribe to misogynistic attitudes and stereotyping of gender roles, more so than in other music genres, with many of these findings corroborated by interviews with female participants.
In response to such claims, debates in the metal media have centered on defining and contextualizing sexism. Hill claims that "understanding what counts as sexism is complex and requires critical work by fans when sexism is normalised." Citing her own research, including interviews of British female fans, she finds that metal offers them an opportunity to feel liberated and genderless, albeit if assimilated into a culture that is largely neglectful of women.
In 2018, "Metal Hammer" editor Eleanor Goodman published an article titled "Does Metal Have a Sexism Problem?", interviewing veteran industry people and artists about the plight of women in metal. Some expressed a history of difficulty receiving professional respect from male counterparts. Among those interviewed was Wendy Dio, who had worked in label, booking, and legal capacities in the music industry before her marriage to and management of metal artist Ronnie James Dio. She said that after marrying Dio, her professional reputation became reduced to her marital role as his wife and her competency was questioned. Gloria Cavalera, former manager of Sepultura and wife of the band's former frontman Max Cavalera, said that since 1996 she has received misogynistic hate-mail and death threats from fans accusing her of causing Max's departure from the group. She added that, "Women take a lot of crap. This whole #metoo thing, do they think it just started? That has gone on since the pictures of the cavemen pulling girls by their hair. Women have always been pushed to the back. I personally think it’s still difficult for women in the industry today, because there’s not a lot of them, even in bands." In her article, Goodman also cited disproportionate gender figures in "Metal Hammer"s Facebook page – 75% of Likes being from men, as opposed to 25% from women – and in bands playing the main stage at the 2018 Bloodstock Open Air festival – Nightwish was the only act of the 17 with a female member.
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Helvetii
The Helvetii ( ), anglicized as Helvetians, were a Celtic tribe or tribal confederation occupying most of the Swiss plateau at the time of their contact with the Roman Republic in the 1st century BC. According to Julius Caesar, the Helvetians were divided into four subgroups or "pagi." Of these Caesar names only the Verbigeni and the Tigurini, while Posidonius mentions the Tigurini and the Tougeni (). They feature prominently in the "Commentaries on the Gallic War," with their failed migration attempt to southwestern Gaul (58 BC) serving as a catalyst for Caesar's conquest of Gaul.
The Helvetians were subjugated after 52 BC, and under Augustus, Celtic oppida, such as Vindonissa or Basilea, were re-purposed as garrisons. In AD 68, a Helvetian uprising was crushed by Aulus Caecina Alienus.
The Swiss plateau was at first incorporated into the Roman province of "Gallia Belgica" (22 BC), later into "Germania Superior" (AD 83).
The Helvetians, like the rest of Gaul, were largely Romanized by the 2nd century.
In the later 3rd century, Roman control over the region waned, and the Swiss plateau was exposed to the invading Alemanni. The Alemanni and Burgundians established permanent settlements in the Swiss plateau in the 5th and 6th centuries, resulting in the early medieval territories of Alemannia (Swabia) and Upper Burgundy.
They are mentioned as "Helvetii" by Cicero (mid-1st c. BC), Caesar (mid-1st c. BC) and Tacitus (early 2nd c. AD), as "Helvetiorum" by Livy (late 1st c. BC), as "Helveti" by Pliny (1st c. AD), and as "Elouḗtioi" (Ἐλουήτιοι) by Ptolemy (2nd c. AD).
The endonym "Helvetii" is mostly derived from a Gaulish "elu-", meaning "gain, prosperity" or "multitude", cognate with Welsh "elw" and Old Irish prefix "il-", meaning "many" or "multiple"
(from the PIE root "*pelh1u-" "many").
The second part of the name has sometimes been interpreted as "*etu-", "terrain, grassland", thus interpreting the tribal name as "rich in land".
The earliest attestation of the name is found in a "graffito" on a vessel from Mantua, dated to c. 300 BC. The inscription in Etruscan letters reads "eluveitie," which has been interpreted as the Etruscan form of the Celtic "elu̯eti̯os" ("the Helvetian"), presumably referring to a man of Helvetian descent living in Mantua.
Of the four Helvetian "pagi" or sub-tribes, Caesar names only the Verbigeni ("Bell. Gall." 1.27) and the Tigurini (1.12), Posidonius the Tigurini and the Tougeni ().
There has been substantial debate in Swiss historiography (beginning with Felix Stähelin 1927) on whether the Tougeni may or may not be identified with the Teutones mentioned by Titus Livius.
According to Caesar, the territory abandoned by the Helvetii had comprised 400 villages and 12 "oppida" (fortified settlements). His tally of the total population taken from captured Helvetian records written in Greek is 263,000 people, including fighting men, old men, women and children. However, the figures are generally dismissed as too high by modern scholars (see hereafter).
Like many other tribes, the Helvetii did not have kings at the time of their clash with Rome but instead seem to have been governed by a class of noblemen (Lat. "equites"). When Orgetorix, one of their most prominent and ambitious noblemen, was making plans to establish himself as their king, he faced execution by burning if found guilty. Caesar does not explicitly name the tribal authorities prosecuting the case and gathering men to apprehend Orgetorix, but he refers to them by the Latin terms "civitas" ("state" or "tribe") and "magistratus" ("officials").
In his "Natural History" (c. 77 AD), Pliny provides a foundation myth for the Celtic settlement of Cisalpine Gaul in which a Helvetian named Helico plays the role of culture hero. Helico had worked in Rome as a craftsman and then returned to his home north of the Alps with a dried fig, a grape, and some oil and wine, the desirability of which caused his countrymen to invade northern Italy.
The Greek historian Posidonius (c. 135–50 BC), whose work is preserved only in fragments by other writers, offers the earliest historical record of the Helvetii. Posidonius described the Helvetians of the late 2nd century BC as "rich in gold but peaceful," without giving clear indication to the location of their territory. His reference to gold washing in rivers has been taken as evidence for an early presence of the Helvetii in the Swiss plateau, with the Emme as being one of the gold-yielding rivers mentioned by Posidonius. This interpretation is now generally discarded, as Posidonius' narrative makes it more likely that the country some of the Helvetians left in order to join in the raids of the Teutones, Cimbri, and Ambrones was in fact southern Germany and not Switzerland.
That the Helvetians originally lived in southern Germany is confirmed by the Alexandrian geographer Claudius Ptolemaios (c. 90–168 AD), who tells us of an Ἐλουητίων ἔρημος (i.e. "Helvetic deserted lands") north of the Rhine. Tacitus knows that the Helvetians once settled in the swath between Rhine, Main, and the Hercynian forest. The abandonment of this northern territory is now usually placed in the late 2nd century BC, around the time of the first Germanic incursions into the Roman world, when the Tigurini and Toygenoi/Toutonoi are mentioned as participants in the great raids.
At the later Vicus "Turicum", probably in the first 1st century BC or even much earlier, the Celts settled at the Lindenhof Oppidium. In 1890, so-called "Potin lumps" were found, whose largest weights at the Prehistoric pile dwelling settlement "Alpenquai" in Zürich, Switzerland. The pieces consist of a large number of fused Celtic coins, which are mixed with charcoal remnants. Some of the 18,000 coins originate from the "Eastern Gaul", others are of the "Zürich" type, that were assigned to the local "Helvetii", which date to around 100 BC. The find is so far unique, and the scientific research assumes that the melting down of the lump was not completed, therefore the aim was to form cultic offerings. The site of the find was at that time at least from the lake shore, and probably to three meters deep in the water. There's also an island sanctuary of the Helvetii in connection with the settlement at the preceding Oppidi Uetliberg on the former "Grosser Hafner" island, as well as the settlement "Kleiner Hafner" at the "Sechseläuten square" on the effluence of the Limmat on Zürichsee lake shore.
The Germanic tribes of the Cimbri and Ambrones probably reached southern Germany around the year 111 BC, where they were joined by the Tigurini, and, probably the Teutoni-Toutonoi-Toygenoi. (The precise identity of the latter group is unclear).
The tribes began a joint invasion of Gaul, including the Roman Provincia Narbonensis, which led to the Tigurini’s victory over a Roman army under L. Cassius Longinus near Agendicum in 107 BC, in which the consul was killed. According to Caesar, the captured Roman soldiers were ordered to pass through under a yoke set up by the triumphant Gauls, a dishonour that called for both public as well as private vengeance. Caesar is the only narrative source for this episode, as the corresponding books of Livy’s histories are preserved only in the "Periochae", short summarising lists of contents, in which hostages given by the Romans, but no yoke, are mentioned.
In 105 BC, the allies defeated another Roman army near Arausio, and went on to harry Spain, Gaul, Noricum, and northern Italy. They split up in two groups in 103 BC, with the Teutones and Ambrones marching on a western route through the "Provincia" and the Cimbri and Tigurini crossing the eastern Alps (probably by the Brenner Pass). While the Teutones and Ambrones were slaughtered in 102 BC by Gaius Marius, the Cimbri and the Tigurini wintered in the Padan plain. The following year, Marius virtually destroyed the Cimbri in the battle of Vercellae. The Tigurini, who had planned on following the Cimbri, turned back over the Alps with their booty and joined those of the Helvetians who had not participated in the raids.
The Helvetii were the first Gallic tribe of the campaign to be confronted by Caesar. He narrates the events of the conflict in the opening sections of "Commentarii de Bello Gallico". Due to the political nature of the "Commentarii", Caesar's purpose in publicizing his own achievements may have distorted the significance of events and the motives of those who participated.
The nobleman Orgetorix is presented as the instigator of a new Helvetian migration, in which the entire tribe was to leave their territory and, according to Caesar, to establish a supremacy over all of Gaul. This exodus was planned over three years, in the course of which Orgetorix conspired with two noblemen from neighbouring tribes, Casticus of the Sequani and Dumnorix of the Aedui, that each should accomplish a coup d'état in his own country, after which the three new kings would collaborate. When word of his aspirations to make himself king reached the Helvetii, Orgetorix was summoned to stand trial, facing execution on the pyre should he be found guilty. For the time being, he averted a verdict by arriving at the hearing set for him with ten thousand followers and bondsmen; yet before the large force mustered by the authorities could apprehend him, he died under unexplained circumstances, the Helvetii believed by his own hand.
Nevertheless, the Helvetii did not give up their planned emigration, but burned their homes in 58 BC. They were joined by a number of tribal groups from neighbouring regions: the Raurici, the Latobrigi, the Tulingi and a group of Boii, who had besieged Noreia. They abandoned their homes completely with the intention of settling among the Santones (Saintonge). The easiest route would take them through the Rhône valley, and thus through the Roman "Provincia Narbonensis".
When they reached the boundaries of the Allobroges, the northernmost tribe of the "Provincia", they found that Caesar had already dismantled the bridge of Geneva to stop their advance. The Helvetians sent “the most illustrious men of their state” to negotiate, promising a peaceful passage through the "Provincia". Caesar stalled them by asking for some time for consideration, which he used to assemble reinforcements and to fortify the southern banks of the Rhône. When the embassy returned on the agreed-upon date, he was strong enough to bluntly reject their offer. The Helvetii now chose the more difficult northern route through the Sequani territory, which traversed the Jura Mountains via a very narrow pass at the site of the modern Fort l'Écluse, but bypassed the "Provincia". After ravaging the lands of the Aedui tribe, who called upon Caesar to help them, they began the crossing of the Saône, which took them several days. As only a quarter of their forces were left on the eastern banks, Caesar attacked and routed them. According to Caesar, those killed had been the Tigurini, on whom he had now taken revenge in the name of the Republic and his family.
After the battle, the Romans quickly bridged the river, thereby prompting the Helvetii to once again send an embassy, this time led by Divico, another figure whom Caesar links to the ignominious defeat of 107 BC by calling him "bello Cassio dux Helvetiorum" (i.e. “leader of the Helvetii in the Cassian campaign”). What Divico had to offer was almost a surrender, namely to have the Helvetii settle wherever Caesar wished them to, although it was combined with the threat of an open battle if Caesar should refuse. Caesar demanded hostages to be given to him and reparations to the Aedui and Allobroges. Divico responded by saying that “they were accustomed to receive, not to give hostages; a fact the Roman people could testify to“, this once again being an allusion to the giving of hostages by the defeated Romans at Agen.
In the cavalry battle that followed, the Helvetii prevailed over Caesar’s Aedui allies under Dumnorix’ command, and continued their journey, while Caesar’s army was being detained by delays in his grain supplies, caused by the Aedui on the instigations of Dumnorix, who had married Orgetorix’ daughter. A few days later, however, near the Aeduan "oppidum" Bibracte, Caesar caught up with the Helvetii and faced them in a major battle, which ended in the Helvetii’s retreat and the capture of most of their baggage by the Romans.
Leaving the largest part of their supplies behind, the Helvetii covered around 60 km in four days, eventually reaching the lands of the Lingones (the modern Langres plateau). Caesar did not pursue them until three days after the battle, while still sending messengers to the Lingones warning them not to assist the Helvetii in any way. The Helvetii then offered their immediate surrender and agreed both to providing hostages and to giving up their weapons the next day. In the course of the night, 6000 of the Verbigeni fled from the camp out of fear of being massacred once they were defenceless. Caesar sent riders after them and ordered those who were brought back to be “counted as enemies”, which probably meant being sold into slavery.
In order for them to defend the Rhine frontier against the Germans, he then allowed the Helvetii, Tulingi and Latobrigi to return to their territories and to rebuild their homes, instructing the Allobroges to supply them with a sufficient supply of grain. Caesar does not mention the Raurici, who seem to have built a new "oppidum" at Basel-Münsterhügel upon their return. The Aedui were granted their wish that the Boii who had accompanied the Helvetii would settle on their own territory as allies in the "oppidum" Gorgobina. The nature of Caesar’s arrangement with the Helvetii and the other tribes is not further specified by the consul himself, but in his speech "Pro Balbo" of 56 BC, Cicero mentions the Helvetii as one among several tribes of "foederati", i.e. allied nations who were neither citizens of the Republic nor her subjects, but obliged by treaty to support the Romans with a certain number of fighting men.
According to the victor, tablets with lists in Greek characters were found at the Helvetian camp, listing in detail all men able to bear arms with their names and giving a total number for the women, children and elderly who accompanied them. The numbers added up to a total of 263,000 Helvetii, 36,000 Tulingi, 14,000 Latobrigi, 23,000 Rauraci, and 32,000 Boii, all in all 368,000 heads, 92,000 of whom were warriors. A census of those who had returned to their homes listed 110,000 survivors, which meant that only about 30 percent of the emigrants had survived the war.
Caesar's report has been partly confirmed by excavations near Geneva and Bibracte. However, much of his account has not yet been corroborated by archaeology, whilst his narrative must in wide parts be considered as biased and, in some points, unlikely. For a start, only one out of the fifteen Celtic "oppida" in the Helvetii territory so far has yielded evidence for destruction by fire. Many other sites, for example the sanctuary at Mormont, do not exhibit any signs of damage for the period in question, and Celtic life continued seemingly undisturbed for the rest of the 1st century BC up to the beginning of the Roman era, with an accent rather on an increase in prosperity than on a “Helvetic twilight”. With the honourable status as "foederati" taken into account, it is hard to believe that the Helvetii ever sustained casualties quite as heavy as those given by the Roman military leader.
In general, numbers written down by ancient military authors have to be taken as gross exaggerations. What Caesar claims to have been 368,000 people is estimated by other sources to be rather around 300,000 (Plutarch), or 200,000 (Appian); in the light of a critical analysis, even these numbers seem far too high. Furger-Gunti considers an army of more than 60,000 fighting men extremely unlikely in the view of the tactics described, and assumes the actual numbers to have been around 40,000 warriors out of a total of 160,000 emigrants. Delbrück suggests an even lower number of 100,000 people, out of which only 16,000 were fighters, which would make the Celtic force about half the size of the Roman body of c. 30,000 men. The real numbers will never be determined exactly. Caesar’s specifications can at least be doubted by looking at the size of the baggage train that an exodus of 368,000 people would have required: Even for the reduced numbers that Furger-Gunti uses for his calculations, the baggage train would have stretched for at least 40 km, perhaps even as far as 100 km.
In spite of the now much more balanced numerical weight we have to assume for the two opposing armies, the battle seems far less glorious a victory than Caesar presented it to be. The main body of the Helvetii withdrew from the battle at nightfall, abandoning, as it seemed, most of their wagons, which they had drawn up into a wagon fort; they retreated northwards in a forced night march and reached the territory of the Lingones four days after the battle. What Caesar implies to have been a desperate flight without stopping could actually have been an ordered retreat of moderate speed, covering less than 40 km a day. Caesar himself does not appear as a triumphant victor in turn, being unable to pursue the Helvetii for three days, “both on account of the wounds of the soldiers and the burial of the slain“. However, it is clear that Caesar’s warning to the Lingones not to supply his enemies was quite enough to make the Helvetii leaders once again offer peace. On what terms this peace was made is debatable, but as said before, the conclusion of a "foedus" casts some doubt on the totality of the defeat.
As Caesar’s account is heavily influenced by his political agenda, it is difficult to determine the actual motive of the Helvetii movement of 58 BC. One might see the movement in the light of a Celtic retreat from areas which were later to become Germanic; it can be debated whether they ever had plans to settle in the Saintonge, as Caesar claims (Bell. Gall. 1,10.). It was certainly in the latter’s personal interest to emphasise any kind of parallel between the traumatic experience of the Cimbrian and Teutonic incursions and the alleged threat that the Helvetii were to the Roman world. The Tigurini’s part in the destruction of L. Cassius Longinus and his army was a welcome pretext to engage in an offensive war in Gaul whose proceeds permitted Caesar not only to fulfil his obligations to the numerous creditors he owed money to, but also to further strengthen his position within the late Republic. In this sense, even the character of Divico, who makes his appearance in the "Commentarii" half a century after his victory over L. Cassius Longinus, seems more like another hackneyed argument stressing Caesar’s justification to attack, than like an actual historical figure. That the victor of Agen was still alive in 58 BC or, if yes, that he was physically still capable of undertaking such a journey at all, seems more than doubtful. Nevertheless, Divico became somewhat of a hero within the Swiss national feeling of the 19th century and in the course of the "Geistige Landesverteidigung" of the 20th century.
The Helvetii and Rauraci most likely lost their status as "foederati" only six years after the battle of Bibracte, when they supported Vercingetorix in 52 BC with 8,000 and 2,000 men, respectively. Sometime between 50 and 45 BC, the Romans founded the "Colonia Iulia Equestris" at the site of the Helvetian settlement "Noviodunum" (modern Nyon), and around 44 BC the "Colonia Raurica" on Rauracan territory. These colonies were probably established as a means of controlling the two most important military access routes between the Helvetian territory and the rest of Gaul, blocking the passage through the Rhône valley and Sundgau.
In the course of Augustus' reign, Roman dominance became more concrete. Some of the traditional Celtic oppida were now used as legionary garrisons, such as Vindonissa or Basilea (modern Basel); others were relocated, such as the hill-fort on the Bois de Châtel, whose inhabitants founded the new “capital” of the civitas at nearby Aventicum. First incorporated into the Roman province of "Gallia Belgica", later into the "Germania Superior" and finally into the Diocletian province of "Maxima Sequanorum", the former territories of the Helvetii and their inhabitants were as thoroughly romanised as the rest of Gaul.
What seems to have been the last action of the Helvetii as a tribal entity happened shortly after the death of emperor Nero in 68 AD. Like the other Gallic tribes, the Helvetii were organised as a "civitas"; they even retained their traditional grouping into four "pagi" and enjoyed a certain inner autonomy, including the defence of certain strongholds by their own troops. In the civil war which followed Nero’s death, the "civitas Helvetiorum" supported Galba; unaware of his death, they refused to accept the authority of his rival, Vitellius. The Legio XXI Rapax, stationed in Vindonissa and favouring Vitellius, stole the pay of a Helvetian garrison, which prompted the Helvetians to intercept Vitellian messengers and detain a Roman detachment. Aulus Caecina Alienus, a former supporter of Galba who was now at the head of a Vitellian invasion of Italy, launched a massive punitive campaign, crushing the Helvetii under their commander Claudius Severus and routing the remnants of their forces at Mount Vocetius, killing and enslaving thousands. The capital Aventicum surrendered, and Julius Alpinus, head of what was now seen as a Helvetian uprising, was executed. In spite of the extensive damage and devastations the "civitas" had already sustained, according to Tacitus the Helvetii were saved from total annihilation owing to the pleas of one Claudius Cossus, a Helvetian envoy to Vitellius, and, as Tacitus puts it, “of well-known eloquence”.
Roman occupation in the aftermath of the Gallic Wars had pacified the Celtic-Germanic contact zone along the Rhine. The Suebi and Marcomanni who under Ariovistus had planned to invade Gaul were pushed back beyond the Black Forest, where they amalgamated into the future Alemanni.
The Romans allowed Germanic tribes such as the Ubii, Triboci, Nemetes and Vangiones to settle in the deserted areas left of the Rhine. On the right bank of the Upper Rhine , which according to the testimony of Tacitus ("Germania" 28) had formerly also been occupied by the Helvetians, both the historical and archaeological records are sparse.
Ptolemy (2.4.11) in the 2nd century uses the term "Eremus Helvetiorum" (also rendered "Heremus Helvetiorum") "desolation of the Helvetians" to refer to this area (largely corresponding to modern Baden). The term was adopted by Aegidius Tschudi in the 16th century, and remains in use in modern historiography (German: "").
It has been proposed that the area inhabited by the Helvetians had extended beyond the Swiss plateau, far into what is now Baden-Württemberg, but had been displaced in the course of the Cimbrian War, some two generations prior to Caesar's invasion of Gaul.
The Swiss plateau was gradually romanized during the 1st to 3rd centuries.
The principal Roman settlements were the cities of Iulia Equestris (Nyon), Aventicum (Avenches), Augusta Raurica (Augst) and Vindonissa (Windisch). Evidence has also been found of almost twenty Roman villages ("vici") and hundreds of villas.
In the course of Romanization, the Celtic polytheism of the Helvetians was syncretized with Roman religion. The Celtic deities came to be worshiped under the names of their Roman counterparts, and Roman gods acquired the names of local gods, such as "Mars Caturix", "Mercurius Cissonius" and "Jupiter Poeninus".
A major cultic center of Gallo-Roman religion, consisting of eight chapels or small temples, was found in Allmendingen near Thun. It consisted of eight chapels or small temples surrounded by a wall. Deities worshipped at the site included Mars (presumably in lieu of Caturix) and Rosmerta as well as Mithras.
Although the Gaulish language had mostly been ousted by Latin by the 3rd century, many Celtic toponyms have survived in Switzerland. Of the ten largest present-day Swiss cities, at least six have Celtic placename etymologies,
and most major Swiss rivers have either Celtic or pre-Celtic names.
The order and prosperity of the "Pax Romana" ended with the Crisis of the Third Century. In 260, when the Gallic Empire briefly seceded from Rome, emperor Gallienus withdrew the legions from the Rhine to fight the usurper Ingenuus, allowing the Alemanni to invade the Swiss plateau. There, cities, villages and most "villae" were raided or sacked by marauding bands. The numerous caches of coins recovered from the period between 250 and 280 attest to the severity of the crisis.
The Helvetii were re-discovered as the forebears of the Swiss in the early historiography of Switzerland, in the late 15th to early 16th century. Their name was adopted as the Latin equivalent of the designation "Switzer", and the Swiss Confederacy was given the Latin name of "Republica Helvetiorum". The name of the national personification of Switzerland, "Helvetia", and the country's contemporary Neo-Latin name, "Confoederatio Helvetica" (abbreviated CH), are derived from this tradition.
In 2015, the star 51 Pegasi, the first main-sequence star found to have an exoplanet, was named Helvetios after the Helvetii.
The distribution of La Tène culture burials in Switzerland indicates that the Swiss plateau between Lausanne and Winterthur was relatively densely populated. Settlement centres existed in the Aare valley between Thun and Bern, and between Lake Zurich and the river Reuss. The Valais and the regions around Bellinzona and Lugano also seem to have been well-populated; however, those lay outside the Helvetian borders.
Almost all the Helvetic "oppida" were built in the vicinity of the larger rivers of the Swiss midlands. Not all of them existed at the same time. For most of them, we do not have any idea as to what their Gaulish names might have been, with one or two possible exceptions.
Where a pre-Roman name is preserved, it is added in brackets. Those marked with an asterisk (*) were most likely occupied by neighbouring tribes (Raurici, Veragri, etc.) rather than the Helvetii.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=13870
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Heretics of Dune
Heretics of Dune is a 1984 science fiction novel by Frank Herbert, the fifth in his "Dune" series of six novels. It was ranked as the No. 13 hardcover fiction best seller of 1984 by "The New York Times".
Fifteen hundred years have passed since the 3,500-year reign of the God Emperor Leto II Atreides ended with his assassination; humanity is firmly on the Golden Path, Leto's plan to save humanity from destruction. By crushing the aspirations of humans for over three thousand years, Leto caused the Scattering, an explosion of humanity into the rest of the universe upon his death. Now, some of those who went out into the universe are coming back, bent on conquest. Only the Bene Gesserit perceive the Golden Path and are therefore faced with a choice: keep to their traditional role of hidden manipulators who quietly ease tensions and guide human progress while struggling for their own survival, or embrace the Golden Path and push humanity onward into a new future where humans are free from the threat of extinction.
Much has changed in the millennium and a half since the death of the God Emperor. Sandworms have reappeared on Arrakis (now called Rakis), each containing a fragment of the God Emperor's consciousness, and have renewed the flow of the all-important spice melange to the galaxy. With Leto's death, a very complex economic system built on spice collapsed, resulting in trillions of people leaving known space in a great Scattering. A new civilization has risen, with three dominant powers: the Ixians, whose no-ships are capable of piloting between the stars and are invisible to outside detection; the Bene Tleilax, who have learned to manufacture spice in their axlotl tanks and have created a new breed of Face Dancers; and the Bene Gesserit, a matriarchal order of subtle political manipulators who possess superhuman abilities. However, people from the Scattering are returning with their own peculiar powers. The most powerful of these forces are the Honored Matres, a violent society of women bred and trained for combat and the sexual control of men.
On Rakis, a girl called Sheeana has been discovered who can control the giant worms. The Bene Gesserit intends to use a Tleilaxu-provided Duncan Idaho ghola to gain control of this sandrider, and the religious forces of humanity who they know will ultimately worship her. The Tleilaxu have altered the ghola to bring its physical reflexes up to modern standards. The Bene Gesserit leader, Mother Superior Taraza, brings Miles Teg to guard the new Idaho. Taraza also sends Reverend Mother Darwi Odrade to take command of the Bene Gesserit keep on Rakis. Odrade is a loose cannon; she does not obey normal Bene Gesserit prohibitions about love, and is also Teg's biological daughter. Bene Gesserit Imprinter Lucilla is also sent by Taraza to bind Idaho's loyalty to the Sisterhood with her sexual talents. However, Lucilla must deal with Reverend Mother Schwangyu, head of the ghola project but also the leader of a faction within the Bene Gesserit who feel the gholas are a danger.
Above the planet Gammu, Taraza is captured and held hostage by the Honored Matres aboard an Ixian no-ship. The Honored Matres insist Taraza invite Teg to the ship, hoping to gain control of the ghola project. Teg manages to turn the tables on the Matres, and rescues the Mother Superior and her party. An attack is then made on Sheeana on Rakis, which is prevented by the intervention of the Bene Gesserit. Odrade starts training Sheeana as a Bene Gesserit. At about the same time an attempt is made on the life of Idaho, but Teg is able to defeat it. Teg flees with Duncan and Lucilla into the countryside. In an ancient Harkonnen no-globe, Teg proceeds to awaken Idaho's original memories, but does so before Lucilla can imprint Duncan and thus tie him to the Sisterhood. In the meantime, Taraza has sent her trusted general Burzmali to search for Teg and his party, who finally establishes contact with Teg, his former mentor. During the operation, however, Teg and his companions are ambushed. Teg is captured while Lucilla and Duncan escape. Teg is tortured by a T-Probe, but under pressure discovers new abilities: drastically increased physical capabilities and an uncertain type of prescience, which he uses to easily escape. At the same time, Idaho is ambushed and taken hostage.
Taraza arranges a meeting with the Tleilaxu Master Waff, who is soon forced to tell her what he knows about the Honored Matres. When pressed on the issue of Idaho, he also admits that the Bene Tleilax have conditioned their own agenda into him. As the meeting draws to a close, Taraza accidentally divines that Waff is a Zensunni, giving the Bene Gesserit a lever to understand their ancient competitor. She and Odrade meet Waff again on Rakis. He tries to assassinate Taraza but Odrade convinces him that the Sisterhood shares the religious beliefs of the Bene Tleilax. Taraza offers full alliance with them against the onslaught of forces out of the Scattering. This agreement causes consternation among the Bene Gesserit, but Odrade realizes that Taraza's plan is to destroy Rakis. By destroying the planet, the Bene Gesserit would be dependent on the Tleilaxu for the spice, ensuring an alliance.
Lucilla arrives at a Bene Gesserit safe house to discover it has been taken over by a young Honored Matre named Murbella, who has partially subdued Idaho. After being defeated in a quick bout of personal combat, Murbella assumes that Lucilla is the Great Honored Matre, and allows Lucilla and Burzmali to watch through the window of a locked room while she completes the sexual enslavement of the ghola. However, hidden Tleilaxu conditioning kicks in, and Duncan responds with an equal technique, one that overwhelms Murbella; the experience restores in him the entire memories from all of the hundreds of previous Idaho gholas. Stunned and exhausted, Murbella dimly realizes that the man is the ghola they had been warned to search for, and unlocks the door to the room to gain Lucilla's assistance in killing him. But Lucilla says, "We will kill no one. This ghola goes to Rakis."
The Honored Matres attack Rakis, killing Taraza. Odrade becomes temporary leader of the Bene Gesserit before escaping with Sheeana into the desert on a worm. Teg also goes to a supposed safe house, only to discover the Honored Matres. He unleashes himself upon the complex, and finds that his prescient powers allow him to 'see' shielded no-ships; he captures one and locates Duncan and Lucilla. They are taken to Rakis with him and the now-hostage Murbella. When they arrive, Teg intercepts Odrade and Sheeana and their giant worm, having seen Taraza's master plan with his new vision. He loads them all up in his no-ship, finally leading his troops out on a last suicidal defense of Rakis, designed to attract the rage of the Honored Matres. The Honored Matres attack Rakis, destroying the planet and the sandworms except for the one the Bene Gesserit escape with. They intend to drown the worm in a mixture of water and spice, turning it into sandtrout which will turn the secret Bene Gesserit planet Chapterhouse into another Dune, but with the collective consciousness of the God Emperor diluted into just one sandworm, freeing humanity from the shadow of his prescience forever.
"Heretics of Dune" was ranked as the No. 13 hardcover fiction best seller of 1984 by "The New York Times".
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=13871
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Halakha
Halakha (; , ; also transliterated as halacha, halakhah, halachah, or halocho) ( ) is the collective body of Jewish religious laws derived from the written and Oral Torah. Halakha is based on biblical commandments ("mitzvot"), subsequent Talmudic and rabbinic law, and the customs and traditions compiled in the many books such as the "Shulchan Aruch". "Halakha" is often translated as "Jewish Law", although a more literal translation might be "the way to behave" or "the way of walking". The word derives from the root that means "to behave" (also "to go" or "to walk"). "Halakha" guides not only religious practices and beliefs, but also numerous aspects of day-to-day life.
Historically, in the Jewish diaspora, "halakha" served many Jewish communities as an enforceable avenue of law – both civil and religious, since no differentiation exists in classical Judaism. Since the Jewish Enlightenment ("Haskalah") and Jewish emancipation, some have come to view the "halakha" as less binding in day-to-day life, as it relies on rabbinic interpretation, as opposed to the authoritative, canonical text recorded in the Hebrew Bible. Under contemporary Israeli law, certain areas of Israeli family and personal status law are under the authority of the rabbinic courts, so are treated according to "halakha". Some differences in "halakha" are found among Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, Sephardi, Yemenite, Ethiopian and other Jewish communities who historically lived in isolation.
The word "halakha" is derived from the Hebrew root "halakh" – "to walk" or "to go". Taken literally, therefore, "halakha" translates as "the way to walk", rather than "law". The word "halakha" refers to the corpus of rabbinic legal texts, or to the overall system of religious law. The term may also be related to Akkadian ', a property tax, rendered in Aramaic as ', designating one or several obligations.
"Halakha" is often contrasted with "aggadah" ("the telling"), the diverse corpus of rabbinic exegetical, narrative, philosophical, mystical, and other "non-legal" texts. At the same time, since writers of "halakha" may draw upon the aggadic and even mystical literature, a dynamic interchange occurs between the genres. "Halakha" also does not include the parts of the Torah not related to commandments.
"Halakha" constitutes the practical application of the 613 "mitzvot" ("commandments") in the Torah, as developed through discussion and debate in the classical rabbinic literature, especially the Mishnah and the Talmud (the "Oral Torah"), and as codified in the "Mishneh Torah" and "Shulchan Aruch". Because "halakha" is developed and applied by various halakhic authorities rather than one sole "official voice", different individuals and communities may well have different answers to halakhic questions. With few exceptions, controversies are not settled through authoritative structures because during the Jewish diaspora, Jews lacked a single judicial hierarchy or appellate review process for "halakha".
According to the Talmud ("Tractate Makot"), 613 "mitzvot" are in the Torah, 248 positive ("thou shalt") "mitzvot" and 365 negative ("thou shalt not") "mitzvot", supplemented by seven "mitzvot" legislated by the rabbis of antiquity.
Rabbinic Judaism divides laws into categories:
This division between revealed and rabbinic commandments may influence the importance of a rule, its enforcement and the nature of its ongoing interpretation. Halakhic authorities may disagree on which laws fall into which categories or the circumstances (if any) under which prior rabbinic rulings can be re-examined by contemporary rabbis, but all Halakhic Jews hold that both categories exist and that the first category is immutable, with exceptions only for life-saving and similar emergency circumstances.
A second classical distinction is between the Written Law, laws written in the Hebrew Bible, and the Oral Law, laws which are believed to have been transmitted orally prior to their later compilation in texts such as the Mishnah, Talmud, and rabbinic codes.
Commandments are divided into positive and negative commands, which are treated differently in terms of divine and human punishment. Positive commandments "require" an action to be performed and are considered to bring the performer closer to God. Negative commandments (traditionally 365 in number) "forbid" a specific action, and violations create a distance from God.
A further division is made between "chukim" ("decrees" – laws without obvious explanation, such as "shatnez", the law prohibiting wearing clothing made of mixtures of linen and wool), "mishpatim" ("judgements" – laws with obvious social implications) and "eduyot" ("testimonies" or "commemorations", such as the Shabbat and holidays). Through the ages, various rabbinical authorities have classified some of the 613 commandments in many ways.
A different approach divides the laws into a different set of categories:
Eras of Jewish law
The development of "halakha" in the period before the Maccabees, which has been described as the formative period in the history of its development, is shrouded in obscurity. Y. Baer (in Zion, 17 (1951–52), 1–55) has argued that there was little pure academic legal activity at this period and that many of the laws originating at this time were produced by a means of neighbourly good conduct rules in a similar way as carried out by Greeks in the age of Solon. For example, the first chapter of Bava Kamma, contains a formulation of the law of torts worded in the first person.
The boundaries of Jewish law are determined through the Halakhic process, a religious-ethical system of legal reasoning. Rabbis generally base their opinions on the primary sources of "halakha" as well as on precedent set by previous rabbinic opinions. The major sources and genre of "halakha" consulted include:
In antiquity, the "Sanhedrin" functioned essentially as the Supreme Court and legislature (in the US judicial system) for Judaism, and had the power to administer binding law, including both received law and its own rabbinic decrees, on all Jews—rulings of the Sanhedrin became "halakha"; see Oral law. That court ceased to function in its full mode in 40 CE. Today, the authoritative application of Jewish law is left to the local rabbi, and the local rabbinical courts, with only local applicability. In branches of Judaism that follow "halakha", lay individuals make numerous ad-hoc decisions, but are regarded as not having authority to decide certain issues definitively.
Since the days of the Sanhedrin, however, no body or authority has been generally regarded as having the authority to create universally recognized precedents. As a result, "halakha" has developed in a somewhat different fashion from Anglo-American legal systems with a Supreme Court able to provide universally accepted precedents. Generally, Halakhic arguments are effectively, yet unofficially, peer-reviewed. When a rabbinic "posek" (literally, "he who makes a statement", "decisor") proposes an additional interpretation of a law, that interpretation may be considered binding for the posek's questioner or immediate community. Depending on the stature of the posek and the quality of the decision, an interpretation may also be gradually accepted by other rabbis and members of other Jewish communities.
Under this system there is a tension between the relevance of earlier and later authorities in constraining Halakhic interpretation and innovation. On the one hand, there is a principle in "halakha" not to overrule a specific law from an earlier era, after it is accepted by the community as a law or vow, unless supported by another, relevant earlier precedent; see list below. On the other hand, another principle recognizes the responsibility and authority of later authorities, and especially the "posek" handling a then-current question. In addition, the "halakha" embodies a wide range of principles that permit judicial discretion and deviation (Ben-Menahem).
Notwithstanding the potential for innovation, rabbis and Jewish communities differ greatly on how they make changes in "halakha". Notably, "poskim" frequently extend the application of a law to new situations, but do not consider such applications as constituting a "change" in "halakha". For example, many Orthodox rulings concerning electricity are derived from rulings concerning fire, as closing an electrical circuit may cause a spark. In contrast, Conservative "poskim" consider that switching on electrical equipment is physically and chemically more like turning on a water tap (which is permissible by "halakha") than lighting a fire (which is not permissible), and therefore permitted on Shabbat. The reformative Judaism in some cases explicitly interprets "halakha" to take into account its view of contemporary society. For instance, most Conservative rabbis extend the application of certain Jewish obligations and permissible activities to women (see below).
Within certain Jewish communities, formal organized bodies do exist. Within Modern Orthodox Judaism, there is no one committee or leader, but Modern US-based Orthodox rabbis generally agree with the views set by consensus by the leaders of the Rabbinical Council of America. Within Conservative Judaism, the Rabbinical Assembly has an official Committee on Jewish Law and Standards.
Note that Takkanot, the plural form of "Takkanah" above, in general do not affect or restrict observance of Torah "mitzvot". (In common parlance sometimes people use the general term "takkanah" to refer either "gezeirot" or "takkanot".) However, the Talmud states that in exceptional cases, the Sages had the authority to "uproot matters from the Torah". In Talmudic and classical Halakhic literature, this authority refers to the authority to prohibit some things that would otherwise be Biblically sanctioned ("shev v'al ta'aseh", literally, "thou shall stay seated and not do"). Rabbis may rule that a specific mitzvah from the Torah should not be performed, e. g., blowing the "shofar" on Shabbat, or taking the "lulav and etrog" on Shabbat. These examples of takkanot which may be executed out of caution lest some might otherwise carry the mentioned items between home and the synagogue, thus inadvertently violating a Sabbath "melakha". Another rare and limited form of takkanah involved overriding Torah prohibitions. In some cases, the Sages allowed the temporary violation of a prohibition in order to maintain the Jewish system as a whole. This was part of the basis for Esther's relationship with Ahasuerus (Xeres). For general usage of takkanaot in Jewish history see the article Takkanah. For examples of this being used in Conservative Judaism, see Conservative halakha.
The antiquity of the rules can be determined only by the dates of the authorities who quote them; in general, they cannot safely be declared older than the tanna (from Aramaic, literally, "repeater") to whom they are first ascribed. It is certain, however, that the seven middot (literally, "measurements", and referring to [good] behavior) of Hillel and the thirteen of Ishmael are earlier than the time of Hillel himself, who was the first to transmit them.
The Talmud gives no information concerning the origin of the middot, although the Geonim ("Sages") regarded them as Sinaitic (Law given to Moses at Sinai). The Artscroll Series writes in its Overview to the book of Ezra:
"During the Mishnaitic and Talmudic periods, the Sages of Israel... took the eternal tools of exegesis and used them to reveal the secrets that had always been locked within the words of the Torah, secrets that Moses had taught Israel and that, in turn, had been transmitted orally for over a thousand years until the oral tradition began to crumble due to persecution and a lack of diligence. They did nothing new and certainly made no changes in the Torah; they merely made use of hermeneutic principles that had not been need while the tradition of study was still at its zenith." (pg. xii-xiii)
The middot seem to have been first laid down as abstract rules by the teachers of Hillel, though they were not immediately recognized by all as valid and binding. Different schools interpreted and modified them, restricted or expanded them, in various ways. Rabbi Akiva and rabbi Ishmael and their scholars especially contributed to the development or establishment of these rules. "It must be borne in mind, however, that neither Hillel, Ishmael, nor [a contemporary of theirs named] Eliezer ben Jose sought to give a complete enumeration of the rules of interpretation current in his day, but that they omitted from their collections many rules which were then followed."
Akiva devoted his attention particularly to the grammatical and exegetical rules, while Ishmael developed the logical. The rules laid down by one school were frequently rejected by another because the principles that guided them in their respective formulations were essentially different. According to Akiva, the divine language of the Torah is distinguished from the speech of men by the fact that in the former no word or sound is superfluous.
Some scholars have observed a similarity between these rabbinic rules of interpretation and the hermeneutics of ancient Hellenistic culture. For example, Saul Lieberman argues that the names of rabbi Ishmael's "middot" (e. g., "kal vahomer", literally, a combination of the archaic form of the word for "straw" and the word for "clay" – "straw and clay", referring to the obvious [means of making a mud brick]) are Hebrew translations of Greek terms, although the methods of those "middot" are not Greek in origin.
Orthodox Judaism holds that "halakha" is the divine law as laid out in the Torah (five books of Moses), rabbinical laws, rabbinical decrees, and customs combined. The rabbis, who made many additions and interpretations of Jewish Law, did so only in accordance with regulations they believe were given for this purpose to Moses on Mount Sinai, see . See Orthodox Judaism, Beliefs about Jewish law and tradition.
Conservative Judaism holds that "halakha" is normative and binding, and is developed as a partnership between people and God based on Sinaitic Torah. While there are a wide variety of Conservative views, a common belief is that "halakha" is, and has always been, an evolving process subject to interpretation by rabbis in every time period. See Conservative Judaism, Beliefs.
Reconstructionist Judaism holds that halakha is normative and binding, while also believing that it is an evolving concept and that the traditional halakhic system is incapable of producing a code of conduct that is meaningful for, and acceptable to, the vast majority of contemporary Jews. Reconstructionist founder Mordecai Kaplan believed that "Jewish life [is] meaningless without Jewish law.", and one of the planks of the Society for the Jewish Renascence, of which Kaplan was one of the founders, stated: "We accept the halakha, which is rooted in the Talmud, as the norm of Jewish life, availing ourselves, at the same time, of the method implicit therein to interpret and develop the body of Jewish Law in accordance with the actual conditions and spiritual needs of modern life."
Reform Judaism holds that modern views of how the Torah and rabbinic law developed imply that the body of rabbinic Jewish law is no longer normative (seen as binding) on Jews today. Those in the "traditionalist" wing believe that the "halakha" represents a personal starting-point, holding that each Jew is obligated to interpret the Torah, Talmud and other Jewish works for themselves, and this interpretation will create separate commandments for each person. Those in the liberal and classical wings of Reform believe that in this day and era, most Jewish religious rituals are no longer necessary, and many hold that following most Jewish laws is actually counter-productive. They propose that Judaism has entered a phase of ethical monotheism, and that the laws of Judaism are only remnants of an earlier stage of religious evolution, and need not be followed. This is considered wrong, and even heretical, by Orthodox and Conservative Judaism.
Humanistic Jews value the Torah as a historical, political, and sociological text written by their ancestors. They do not believe "that every word of the Torah is true, or even morally correct, just because the Torah is old". The Torah is both disagreed with and questioned. Humanistic Jews believe that the entire Jewish experience, and not only the Torah, should be studied as a source for Jewish behavior and ethical values.
Jews believe that gentiles are bound by a subset of "halakha" called the Seven Laws of Noah, also referred to as the Noahide Laws. They are a set of imperatives which, according to the Talmud, were given by God to the "children of Noah" – that is, all of humanity.
Despite its internal rigidity, "halakha" has a degree of flexibility in finding solutions to modern problems that are not explicitly mentioned in the Torah. From the very beginnings of Rabbinic Judaism, halakhic inquiry allowed for a "sense of continuity between past and present, a self-evident trust that their pattern of life and belief now conformed to the sacred patterns and beliefs presented by scripture and tradition". According to an analysis by Jewish scholar Jeffrey Rubenstein of Michael Berger's book "Rabbinic Authority", the authority that rabbis hold "derives not from the institutional or personal authority of the sages but from a "communal" decision to recognize that authority, much as a community recognizes a certain judicial system to resolve its disputes and interpret its laws." Given this covenental relationship, rabbis are charged with connecting their contemporary community with the traditions and precedents of the past.
When presented with contemporary issues, rabbis go through a halakhic process to find an answer. The classical approach has permitted new rulings regarding modern technology. For example, some of these rulings guide Jewish observers about the proper use of electricity on the Sabbath and holidays. Often, as to the applicability of the law in any given situation, the proviso is to "consult your local rabbi or posek". This notion lends rabbis a certain degree of local authority; however, for more complex questions the issue is passed onto higher rabbis who will then issue a "teshuvot", which is a "responsa" that is binding. Indeed, rabbis will continuously issue different opinions and will constantly review each other's work so as to maintain the truest sense of "halakha". Overall, this process allows rabbis to maintain connection of traditional Jewish law to modern life. Of course, the degree of flexibility depends on the sect of Judaism, with Reform being the most flexible, Conservative somewhat in the middle, and Orthodox being much more stringent and rigid. Modern critics, however, have charged that with the rise of movements that challenge the "divine" authority of "halakha", traditional Jews have greater reluctance to change, not only the laws themselves but also other customs and habits, than traditional Rabbinical Judaism did prior to the advent of Reform in the 19th century.
Orthodox Jews believe that "halakha" is a religious system whose core represents the revealed will of God. Although Orthodox Judaism acknowledges that rabbis have made many decisions and decrees regarding Jewish Law where the written Torah itself is nonspecific, they did so only in accordance with regulations received by Moses on Mount Sinai (see ). These regulations were transmitted orally until shortly after the destruction of the Second Temple. They were then recorded in the Mishnah, and explained in the Talmud and commentaries throughout history up until the present day. Orthodox Judaism believes that subsequent interpretations have been derived with the utmost accuracy and care. The most widely accepted codes of Jewish law are known as Mishneh Torah and the Shulchan Aruch.
Orthodox Judaism has a range of opinions on the circumstances and extent to which change is permissible. Haredi Jews generally hold that even "minhagim" (customs) must be retained, and existing precedents cannot be reconsidered. Modern Orthodox authorities are more inclined to permit limited changes in customs and some reconsideration of precedent.
The view held by Conservative Judaism is that the Torah is not the word of God in a literal sense. However, the Torah is still held as mankind's record of its understanding of God's revelation, and thus still has divine authority. Therefore, "halakha" is still seen as binding. Conservative Jews use modern methods of historical study to learn how Jewish law has changed over time, and are, in some cases, willing to change Jewish law in the present.
A key practical difference between Conservative and Orthodox approaches is that Conservative Judaism holds that its rabbinical body's powers are not limited to reconsidering later precedents based on earlier sources, but the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS) is empowered to override Biblical and Taanitic prohibitions by "takkanah" (decree) when perceived to be inconsistent with modern requirements or views of ethics. The CJLS has used this power on a number of occasions, most famously in the "driving teshuva", which says that if someone is unable to walk to any synagogue on the Sabbath, and their commitment to observance is so loose that not attending synagogue may lead them to drop it altogether, their rabbi may give them a dispensation to drive there and back; and more recently in its decision prohibiting the taking of evidence on Mamzer status on the grounds that implementing such a status is immoral. The CJLS has also held that the Talmudic concept of "Kavod HaBriyot" permits lifting rabbinic decrees (as distinct from carving narrow exceptions) on grounds of human dignity, and used this principle in a December 2006 opinion lifting all rabbinic prohibitions on homosexual conduct (the opinion held that only male-male anal sex was forbidden by the Bible and that this remained prohibited). Conservative Judaism also made a number of changes to the role of women in Judaism including counting women in a minyan, permitting women to chant from the Torah, and ordaining women as rabbis.
The Conservative approach to halachic interpretation can be seen in the CJLS's acceptance of Rabbi Elie Kaplan Spitz's responsum decreeing the biblical category of "mamzer" as "inoperative." The CJLS adopted the responsum's view that the "morality which we learn through the larger, unfolding narrative of our tradition" informs the application of Mosaic law. The responsum cited several examples of how the rabbinic sages declined to enforce punishments explicitly mandated by Torah law. The examples include the trial of the accused adulteress ("sotah"), the "law of breaking the neck of the heifer," and the application of the death penalty for the "rebellious child." Kaplan Spitz argues that the punishment of the "mamzer" has been effectively inoperative for nearly two thousand years due to deliberate rabbinic inaction. Further he suggested that the rabbis have long regarded the punishment declared by the Torah as immoral, and came to the conclusion that no court should agree to hear testimony on "mamzerut".
The most important codifications of Jewish law include:
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History of ancient Israel and Judah
The Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah were related kingdoms from the Iron Age period of the ancient Levant. The Kingdom of Israel emerged as an important local power by the 10th century BCE before falling to the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 722 BCE. Israel's southern neighbor, the Kingdom of Judah, emerged in the 9th or 8th century BCE and later became a client state of first the Neo-Assyrian Empire and then the Neo-Babylonian Empire before a revolt against the latter led to its destruction in 586 BCE. Following the fall of Babylon to the Achaemenid Empire under Cyrus the Great in 539 BCE, some Judean exiles returned to Jerusalem, inaugurating the formative period in the development of a distinctive Judahite identity in the province of Yehud Medinata.
During the Hellenistic classic period, Yehud was absorbed into the subsequent Hellenistic kingdoms that followed the conquests of Alexander the Great, but in the 2nd century BCE the Judaeans revolted against the Seleucid Empire and created the Hasmonean kingdom. This, the last nominally independent kingdom of Israel, gradually lost its independence from 63 BCE with its conquest by Pompey of Rome, becoming a Roman and later Parthian client kingdom. Following the installation of client kingdoms under the Herodian dynasty, the Province of Judea was wracked by civil disturbances, which culminated in the First Jewish–Roman War, the destruction of the Second Temple, the emergence of Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity. The name Judea (Iudaea) ceased to be used by Greco-Romans after the Bar Kochba revolt of 135 CE.
Other academic terms often used are:
The eastern Mediterranean seaboard the Levant stretches 400 miles north to south from the Taurus Mountains to the Sinai Peninsula, and 70 to 100 miles east to west between the sea and the Arabian Desert. The coastal plain of the southern Levant, broad in the south and narrowing to the north, is backed in its southernmost portion by a zone of foothills, the Shfela; like the plain this narrows as it goes northwards, ending in the promontory of Mount Carmel. East of the plain and the Shfela is a mountainous ridge, the "hill country of Judah" in the south, the "hill country of Ephraim" north of that, then Galilee and Mount Lebanon. To the east again lie the steep-sided valley occupied by the Jordan River, the Dead Sea, and the wadi of the Arabah, which continues down to the eastern arm of the Red Sea. Beyond the plateau is the Syrian desert, separating the Levant from Mesopotamia. To the southwest is Egypt, to the northeast Mesopotamia. The location and geographical characteristics of the narrow Levant made the area a battleground among the powerful entities that surrounded it.
Canaan in the Late Bronze Age was a shadow of what it had been centuries earlier: many cities were abandoned, others shrank in size, and the total settled population was probably not much more than a hundred thousand. Settlement was concentrated in cities along the coastal plain and along major communication routes; the central and northern hill country which would later become the biblical kingdom of Israel was only sparsely inhabited although letters from the Egyptian archives indicate that Jerusalem was already a Canaanite city-state recognising Egyptian overlordship. Politically and culturally it was dominated by Egypt, each city under its own ruler, constantly at odds with its neighbours, and appealing to the Egyptians to adjudicate their differences.
The Canaanite city state system broke down during the Late Bronze Age collapse, and Canaanite culture was then gradually absorbed into that of the Philistines, Phoenicians and Israelites. The process was gradual and a strong Egyptian presence continued into the 12th century BCE, and, while some Canaanite cities were destroyed, others continued to exist in Iron Age I.
The name "Israel" first appears in the Merneptah Stele c. 1209 BCE: "Israel is laid waste and his seed is no more." This "Israel" was a cultural and probably political entity, well enough established for the Egyptians to perceive it as a possible challenge, but an ethnic group rather than an organised state.
Archaeologist Paula McNutt says: "It is probably ... during Iron Age I [that] a population began to identify itself as 'Israelite'," differentiating itself from its neighbours via prohibitions on intermarriage, an emphasis on family history and genealogy, and religion.
In the Late Bronze Age there were no more than about 25 villages in the highlands, but this increased to over 300 by the end of Iron Age I, while the settled population doubled from 20,000 to 40,000. The villages were more numerous and larger in the north, and probably shared the highlands with pastoral nomads, who left no remains. Archaeologists and historians attempting to trace the origins of these villagers have found it impossible to identify any distinctive features that could define them as specifically Israelite collared-rim jars and four-room houses have been identified outside the highlands and thus cannot be used to distinguish Israelite sites, and while the pottery of the highland villages is far more limited than that of lowland Canaanite sites, it develops typologically out of Canaanite pottery that came before. Israel Finkelstein proposed that the oval or circular layout that distinguishes some of the earliest highland sites, and the notable absence of pig bones from hill sites, could be taken as markers of ethnicity, but others have cautioned that these can be a "common-sense" adaptation to highland life and not necessarily revelatory of origins. Other Aramaean sites also demonstrate a contemporary absence of pig remains at that time, unlike earlier Canaanite and later Philistine excavations.
In "The Bible Unearthed" (2001), Finkelstein and Silberman summarised recent studies. They described how, up until 1967, the Israelite heartland in the highlands of western Palestine was virtually an archaeological "terra incognita". Since then, intensive surveys have examined the traditional territories of the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim, and Manasseh. These surveys have revealed the sudden emergence of a new culture contrasting with the Philistine and Canaanite societies existing in the Land of Israel earlier during Iron Age I. This new culture is characterised by a lack of pork remains (whereas pork formed 20% of the Philistine diet in places), by an abandonment of the Philistine/Canaanite custom of having highly decorated pottery, and by the practice of circumcision. The Israelite ethnic identity had originated, not from the Exodus and a subsequent conquest, but from a transformation of the existing Canaanite-Philistine cultures.
Modern scholars therefore see Israel arising peacefully and internally from existing people in the highlands of Canaan.
Unusually favourable climatic conditions in the first two centuries of Iron Age II brought about an expansion of population, settlements and trade throughout the region. In the central highlands this resulted in unification in a kingdom with the city of Samaria as its capital, possibly by the second half of the 10th century BCE when an inscription of the Egyptian pharaoh Shoshenq I, the biblical Shishak, records a series of campaigns directed at the area. Israel had clearly emerged by the middle of the 9th century BCE, when the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III names "Ahab the Israelite" among his enemies at the battle of Qarqar (853). At this time Israel was apparently engaged in a three-way contest with Damascus and Tyre for control of the Jezreel Valley and Galilee in the north, and with Moab, Ammon and Aram Damascus in the east for control of Gilead; the Mesha Stele (c. 830), left by a king of Moab, celebrates his success in throwing off the oppression of the "House of Omri" (i.e., Israel). It bears what is generally thought to be the earliest extra-biblical reference to the name "Yahweh". A century later Israel came into increasing conflict with the expanding Neo-Assyrian Empire, which first split its territory into several smaller units and then destroyed its capital, Samaria (722). Both the biblical and Assyrian sources speak of a massive deportation of people from Israel and their replacement with settlers from other parts of the empire such population exchanges were an established part of Assyrian imperial policy, a means of breaking the old power structure and the former Israel never again became an independent political entity.
Judah emerged as an operational kingdom somewhat later than Israel, probably during the 9th century BCE, but the subject is one of considerable controversy. There are indications that during the 10th and 9th centuries BCE, the southern highlands had been divided between a number of centres, none with clear primacy. During the reign of Hezekiah, between c. 715 and 686 BCE, a notable increase in the power of the Judean state can be observed. This is reflected in archaeological sites and findings, such as the Broad Wall; a defensive city wall in Jerusalem; and the Siloam tunnel, an aqueduct designed to provide Jerusalem with water during an impending siege by the Neo-Assyrian Empire led by Sennacherib; and the Siloam inscription, a lintel inscription found over the doorway of a tomb, has been ascribed to comptroller Shebna. LMLK seals on storage jar handles, excavated from strata in and around that formed by Sennacherib's destruction, appear to have been used throughout Sennacherib's 29-year reign, along with bullae from sealed documents, some that belonged to Hezekiah himself and others that name his servants.
In the 7th century Jerusalem grew to contain a population many times greater than earlier and achieved clear dominance over its neighbours. This occurred at the same time that Israel was being destroyed by the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and was probably the result of a cooperative arrangement with the Assyrians to establish Judah as an Assyrian vassal state controlling the valuable olive industry. Judah prospered as a vassal state (despite a disastrous rebellion against Sennacherib), but in the last half of the 7th century BCE, Assyria suddenly collapsed, and the ensuing competition between Egypt and the Neo-Babylonian Empire for control of the land led to the destruction of Judah in a series of campaigns between 597 and 582.
Babylonian Judah suffered a steep decline in both economy and population and lost the Negev, the Shephelah, and part of the Judean hill country, including Hebron, to encroachments from Edom and other neighbours. Jerusalem, while probably not totally abandoned, was much smaller than previously, and the town of Mizpah in Benjamin in the relatively unscathed northern section of the kingdom became the capital of the new Babylonian province of Yehud Medinata. (This was standard Babylonian practice: when the Philistine city of Ashkalon was conquered in 604, the political, religious and economic elite [but not the bulk of the population] was banished and the administrative centre shifted to a new location). There is also a strong probability that for most or all of the period the temple at Bethel in Benjamin replaced that at Jerusalem, boosting the prestige of Bethel's priests (the Aaronites) against those of Jerusalem (the Zadokites), now in exile in Babylon.
The Babylonian conquest entailed not just the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple, but the liquidation of the entire infrastructure which had sustained Judah for centuries. The most significant casualty was the state ideology of "Zion theology," the idea that the god of Israel had chosen Jerusalem for his dwelling-place and that the Davidic dynasty would reign there forever. The fall of the city and the end of Davidic kingship forced the leaders of the exile community kings, priests, scribes and prophets to reformulate the concepts of community, faith and politics. The exile community in Babylon thus became the source of significant portions of the Hebrew Bible: Isaiah 40–55; Ezekiel; the final version of Jeremiah; the work of the hypothesized priestly source in the Pentateuch; and the final form of the history of Israel from Deuteronomy to 2 Kings. Theologically, the Babylonian exiles were responsible for the doctrines of individual responsibility and universalism (the concept that one god controls the entire world) and for the increased emphasis on purity and holiness. Most significantly, the trauma of the exile experience led to the development of a strong sense of Hebrew identity distinct from other peoples, with increased emphasis on symbols such as circumcision and Sabbath-observance to sustain that distinction.
The concentration of the biblical literature on the experience of the exiles in Babylon disguises the fact that the great majority of the population remained in Judah; for them, life after the fall of Jerusalem probably went on much as it had before. It may even have improved, as they were rewarded with the land and property of the deportees, much to the anger of the community of exiles remaining in Babylon. The assassination around 582 of the Babylonian governor by a disaffected member of the former royal House of David provoked a Babylonian crackdown, possibly reflected in the Book of Lamentations, but the situation seems to have soon stabilised again. Nevertheless, those unwalled cities and towns that remained were subject to slave raids by the Phoenicians and intervention in their internal affairs by Samaritans, Arabs, and Ammonites.
When Babylon fell to the Persian Cyrus the Great in 539 BCE, Judah (or Yehud medinata, the "province of Yehud") became an administrative division within the Persian empire. Cyrus was succeeded as king by Cambyses, who added Egypt to the empire, incidentally transforming Yehud and the Philistine plain into an important frontier zone. His death in 522 was followed by a period of turmoil until Darius the Great seized the throne in about 521. Darius introduced a reform of the administrative arrangements of the empire including the collection, codification and administration of local law codes, and it is reasonable to suppose that this policy lay behind the redaction of the Jewish Torah. After 404 the Persians lost control of Egypt, which became Persia's main rival outside Europe, causing the Persian authorities to tighten their administrative control over Yehud and the rest of the Levant. Egypt was eventually reconquered, but soon afterward Persia fell to Alexander the Great, ushering in the Hellenistic period in the Levant.
Yehud's population over the entire period was probably never more than about 30,000 and that of Jerusalem no more than about 1,500, most of them connected in some way to the Temple. According to the biblical history, one of the first acts of Cyrus, the Persian conqueror of Babylon, was to commission Jewish exiles to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their Temple, a task which they are said to have completed c. 515. Yet it was probably not until the middle of the next century, at the earliest, that Jerusalem again became the capital of Judah. The Persians may have experimented initially with ruling Yehud as a Davidic client-kingdom under descendants of Jehoiachin, but by the mid–5th century BCE, Yehud had become, in practice, a theocracy, ruled by hereditary high priests, with a Persian-appointed governor, frequently Jewish, charged with keeping order and seeing that taxes (tribute) were collected and paid. According to the biblical history, Ezra and Nehemiah arrived in Jerusalem in the middle of the 5th century BCE, the former empowered by the Persian king to enforce the Torah, the latter holding the status of governor with a royal commission to restore Jerusalem's walls. The biblical history mentions tension between the returnees and those who had remained in Yehud, the returnees rebuffing the attempt of the "peoples of the land" to participate in the rebuilding of the Temple; this attitude was based partly on the exclusivism that the exiles had developed while in Babylon and, probably, also partly on disputes over property. During the 5th century BCE, Ezra and Nehemiah attempted to re-integrate these rival factions into a united and ritually pure society, inspired by the prophecies of Ezekiel and his followers.
The Persian era, and especially the period between 538 and 400 BCE, laid the foundations for the unified Judaic religion and the beginning of a scriptural canon. Other important landmarks in this period include the replacement of Hebrew as the everyday language of Judah by Aramaic (although Hebrew continued to be used for religious and literary purposes) and Darius's reform of the empire's bureaucracy, which may have led to extensive revisions and reorganizations of the Jewish Torah. The Israel of the Persian period consisted of descendants of the inhabitants of the old kingdom of Judah, returnees from the Babylonian exile community, Mesopotamians who had joined them or had been exiled themselves to Samaria at a far earlier period, Samaritans, and others.
The beginning of the Hellenistic Period is marked by the conquest of Alexander the Great (333 BCE). When Alexander died in 323, he had no heirs that were able to take his place as ruler of his empire, so his generals divided the empire among themselves. Ptolemy I asserted himself as the ruler of Egypt in 322 and seized Yehud Medinata in 320, but his successors lost it in 198 to the Seleucids of Syria. At first, relations between Seleucids and Jews were cordial, but the attempt of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (174–163) to impose Hellenic cults on Judea sparked the Maccabean Revolt that ended in the expulsion of the Seleucids and the establishment of an independent Jewish kingdom under the Hasmonean dynasty. Some modern commentators see this period also as a civil war between orthodox and hellenized Jews. Hasmonean kings attempted to revive the Judah described in the Bible: a Jewish monarchy ruled from Jerusalem and including all territories once ruled by David and Solomon. In order to carry out this project, the Hasmoneans forcibly converted one-time Moabites, Edomites, and Ammonites to Judaism, as well as the lost kingdom of Israel. Some scholars argue that the Hasmonean dynasty institutionalized the final Jewish biblical canon.
Ptolemy I took control of Egypt in 322 BCE after the death of Alexander the Great. He also took control of Yehud Medinata in 320 because he was very aware that it was a great place to attack Egypt from and was also a great defensive position. However, there were others who also had their eyes on that area. Another former general, Antigonus Monophthalmus, had driven out the satrap of Babylon, Seleucus, in 317 and continued on towards the Levant. Seleucus found refuge with Ptolemy and they both rallied troops against Antigonus' son Demetrius, since Antigonus had retreated back to Asia Minor. Demetrius was defeated at the battle of Gaza and Ptolemy regained control of Yehud Medinata. However, not soon after this Antigonus came back and forced Ptolemy to retreat back to Egypt. This went on until the Battle of Ipsus in 301 where Seleucus' armies defeated Antigonus. Seleucus was given the areas of Syria and Palestine, but Ptolemy would not give up those lands, causing the Syrian Wars between the Ptolemies and Seleucids. Not much is known about the happenings of those in Yehud Medinata from the time of Alexander's death until the Battle of Ipsus due to the frequent battles. At first, the Jews were content with Ptolemy's rule over them. His reign brought them peace and economic stability. He also allowed them to keep their religious practices, so long as they paid their taxes and didn't rebel. After Ptolemy I came Ptolemy II Philadelphus, who was able to keep the territory of Yehud Medinata and brought the dynasty to the peak of its power. He was victorious in both the first and second Syrian Wars, but after trying to end the conflict with the Seleucids by arranging a marriage between his daughter Berenice and the Seleucid king Antiochus II, he died. The arranged marriage did not work and Berenice, Antiochus, and their child were killed from an order of Antiochus' former wife. This was one of the reasons for the third Syrian War. Before all of this, Ptolemy II fought and defeated the Nabataeans. In order to enforce his hold on them, he reinforced many cities in Palestine and built new ones. As a result of this, more Greeks and Macedonians moved to those new cities and brought over their customs and culture, or Hellenism. The Ptolemaic Rule also gave rise to 'tax farmers'. These were the bigger farmers who collected the high taxes of the smaller farmers. These farmers made a lot of money off of this, but it also put a rift between the aristocracy and everyone else. During the end of the Third Syrian War, the high priest Onias II would not pay the tax to the Ptolemy III Euergetes. It is thought that this shows a turning point in the Jew's support of the Ptolemies. The Fourth and Fifth Syrian Wars marked the end of the Ptolemaic control of Palestine. Both of these wars hurt Palestine more than the previous three. That and the combination of the ineffective rulers Ptolemy IV Philopater and Ptolemy V and the might of the large Seleucid army ended the century-long rule of the Ptolemaic Dynasty over Palestine.
The Seleucid Rule of Palestine began in 198 BCE under Antiochus III. He, like the Ptolemies, let the Jews keep their religion and customs and even went so far as to encourage the rebuilding of the temple and city after they welcomed him so warmly into Jerusalem. However, Antiochus owed the Romans a great deal of money. In order to raise this money, he decided to rob a temple. The people at the temple of Bel in Elam were not pleased, so they killed Antiochus and everyone helping him in 187 BCE. He was succeeded by his son Seleucus IV Philopater. He simply defended the area of Palestine from Ptolemy V before being murdered by his minister in 175. His brother Antiochus IV Epiphanes took his place. Before he killed the king, the minister Heliodorus had tried to steal the treasures the temple in Jerusalem. He was informed of this knowledge by a rival of the current High Priest Onias III. Heliodorus was not allowed into the temple, but it required Onias to go explain to the king why one of his ministers was denied access somewhere. In his absence, his rivals put up a new high priest. Onias' brother Jason (a Hellenized version of Joshua) took his place. Now with Jason as high priest and Antiochus IV as king, many Jews adopted Hellenistic ways. Some of these ways, as stated in the Book of 1 Maccabees, were the building of a gymnasium, finding ways to hide their circumcision, and just generally not abiding by the holy covenant. This led to the beginning of the Maccabean Revolt.
According to the Book of Maccabees, many Jews were not happy with the way Hellenism had spread into Judea. Some of these Jews were Mattathias and his sons. Mattathias refused to offer sacrifice when the king told him to. He killed a Jew who was going to do so as well as the king's representative. Because of this, Mattathias and his sons had to flee. This marks the true beginning of the Maccabean Revolt. Judas Maccabeus became the leader of the rebels. He proved to be a successful general, defeating an army lead by Apollonius. They started to catch the attention of King Antiochus IV in 165, who told his chancellor to put an end to the revolt. The chancellor, Lysias, sent three generals to do just that, but they were all defeated by the Maccabees. Soon after, Lysias went himself but, according to 1 and 2 Maccabees he was defeated. There is evidence to show that it was not that simple and that there was negotiation, but Lysias still left. After the death of Antiochus IV in 164, his son, Antiochus V, gave the Jews religious freedom. Lysias claimed to be his regent. Around this time was the re-dedication of the temple. During the siege of the Acra, one of Judas' brothers, Eleazor, was killed. The Maccabees had to retreat back to Jerusalem, where they should have been beaten badly. However, Lysias had to pull out because of a contradiction of who was to be regent for Antiochus V. Shortly after, both were killed by Demetrius I Soter who became the new king. The new high priest, Alcimus, had come to Jerusalem with the company of an army lead by Bacchides. A group of scribes called the Hasideans asked him for his word that he would not harm anyone. He agreed, but killed sixty of them. Around this time Judas was able to make a treaty with the Romans. Soon after this, Judas was killed in Jerusalem fighting Bacchides' army. His brother Jonathan succeeded him. For eight years, Jonathan didn't do much. However, in 153 the Seleucid Empire started to face some problems. Jonathan used this chance to exchange his services of troops for Demetrius so that he could take back Jerusalem. He was appointed high priest by Alexander Balas for the same thing. When conflicts between Egypt and the Seleucids arose, Jonathan occupied the Acra. As conflicts over the throne arose, he completely took control of the Acra. But in 142 he was killed. His brother Simon took his place.
Simon was nominated for the title of high priest, general, and leader by a "great assembly". He reached out to Rome to have them guarantee that Judea would be an independent land. Antiochus VII wanted the cities of Gadara, Joppa, and the Acra back. He also wanted a very large tribute. Simon only wanted to pay a fraction of that for only two of the cites, so Antiochus sent his general Cendebaeus to attack. The general was killed and the army fled. Simon and two of his sons were killed in a plot to overthrow the Hasmoneans. His last remaining son, John Hyrcanus, was supposed to be killed as well, but he was informed of the plan and rushed to Jerusalem to keep it safe. Hyrcanus had many issues to deal with as the new high priest. Antiochus invaded Judea and besieged Jerusalem in 134 BCE. Due to lack of food, Hyrcanus had to make a deal with Antiochus. He had to pay a large sum of money, tear down the walls of the city, acknowledge Seleucid power over Judea, and help the Seleucids fight against the Parthians. Hyrcanus agreed to this, but the war against the Parthians didn't work and Antiochus died in 128. Hyrcanus was able to take back Judea and keep his power. John Hyrcanus also kept good relations with the Roman and the Egyptians, owing to the large number of Jews living there, and conquered Transjordan, Samaria, and Idumea (also known as Edom). Aristobulus I was the first Hasmonean priest-king. He defied his father's wishes that his mother should take over the government and instead had her and all of his brothers except for one thrown in prison. The one not thrown in prison was later killed on his orders. The most significant thing he did during his one-year-reign was conquer most of Galilee. After his death, he was succeeded by his brother Alexander Jannaeus, who was only concerned with power and conquest. He also married his brother's widow, showing little respect for Jewish law. His first conquest was Ptolemais. The people called to Ptolemy IX for aid, as he was in Cyprus. However, it was his mother, Cleopatra III, who came to help Alexander and not her son. Alexander was not a popular ruler. This caused a civil war in Jerusalem that lasted for six years. After Alexander Jannaeus' death, his widow became ruler, but not high priest. The end of the Hasmonean Dynasty was in 63 when the Romans came at the request of the current priest-king Aristobulus II and his competitor Hyrcanus II. In 63 BCE the Roman general Pompey conquered Jerusalem and the Romans put Hyrcanus II up as high priest, but Judea became a client-kingdom of Rome. The dynasty came to an end in 40 BCE when Herod was crowned king of Judah by the Romans. With their help, Herod had seized Jerusalem by 37.
In 40–39 BCE, Herod the Great was appointed King of the Jews by the Roman Senate, and in 6 CE the last ethnarch of Judea, a descendant of Herod's, was deposed by Emperor Augustus, his territories combined with Idumea and Samaria and annexed as Iudaea Province under direct Roman administration.
Henotheism is defined in the dictionary as adherence to one god out of several. Many scholars believe that before monotheism in ancient Israel came a transitional period in between polytheism and monotheism. In this transitional period many followers of the Israelite religion worshiped the god Yahweh but did not deny the existence of other deities accepted throughout the region. Some scholars attribute this henotheistic period to influences from Mesopotamia. There are strong arguments that Mesopotamia, particularly Assyria shared the concept of the cult of Ashur with Israel. This concept entailed adopting the gods of other cultures into their pantheon, with Ashur as the supreme god of all the others. This concept is believed to have influenced the transitional period in Israelite religion in which many people were henotheists. Israelite religion shares many characteristics with Canaanite religion, which itself was formed with influence from Mesopotamian religious traditions. Using Canaanite religion as a base was natural due to the fact that the Canaanite culture inhabited the same region prior to the emergence of Israelite culture. Canaanite religion was a polytheistic religion in which many gods represented unique concepts. Many scholars agree that the Israelite god of Yahweh was adopted from the Canaanite god El. El was the creation god and as such it makes sense for the Israelite supreme god to have El's characteristics. Monotheism in the region of ancient Israel and Judah did not take hold over night and during the intermediate stages most people are believed to have been henotheistic. Before the emergence of Yahweh as the patron god of the region of ancient Israel and Judah not all worshiped him alone, or even at all. The word "Israel" is based on the name El rather than Yahweh.
During this intermediate period of henotheism many families worshiped different gods. Religion was very much centered around the family, as opposed to the community. People sparsely populated the region of Israel and Judah during the time of Moses. As such many different areas worshiped different gods, due to social isolation. It was not until later on in Israelite history that people started to worship Yahweh alone and fully convert to monotheistic values. That switch occurred with the growth of power and influence of the Israelite kingdom and its rulers and can be read about further in the Iron Age Yahwism section below. Evidence from the bible suggests that henotheism did exist: "They [the Hebrews] went and served alien gods and paid homage to them, gods of whom they had no experience and whom he [Yahweh] did not allot to them" (Deut. 29.26). Many believe that this quote goes to show that the early Israelite kingdom followed similar traditions as ancient Mesopotamia, where each major urban center had a supreme god. Each culture then embraced their patron god but did not deny the existence of other cultures' patron gods. In Assyria, the patron god was Ashur, and in ancient Israel, it was Yahweh; however, both Israelite and Assyrian cultures recognized each other's deities during this period.
Some scholars have used the Bible as evidence to argue that most of the people alive during the events recounted in the Old Testament, including Moses, were most likely henotheists. There are many quotes from the Old Testament support this point of view. One quote from Jewish and Christian tradition that supports this claim is the first commandment which in its entirety reads "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me." This quote does not deny the existence of other gods; it merely states that Jews and Christians should consider Yahweh or God the supreme god, incomparable to other supernatural beings. Some scholars attribute the concept of angels and demons found in Judaism and Christianity to the tradition of henotheism. Instead of completely getting rid of the concept of other supernatural beings, these religions changed former deities into angels and demons. Yahweh became the supreme god governing angels, demons and humans, with angels and demons considered more powerful than the average human. This tradition of believing in multiple forms of supernatural beings is attributed by many to the traditions of ancient Mesopotamia and Canaan and their pantheons of gods. Earlier influences from Mesopotamia and Canaan were important in creating the foundation of Israelite religion consistent with the Kingdoms of ancient Israel and Judah, and have since left lasting impacts on some of the biggest and most widespread religions in our world today.
The religion of the Israelites of Iron Age I, like the Ancient Canaanite religion from which it evolved and other religions of the ancient Near East, was based on a cult of ancestors and worship of family gods (the "gods of the fathers"). With the emergence of the monarchy at the beginning of Iron Age II the kings promoted their family god, Yahweh, as the god of the kingdom, but beyond the royal court, religion continued to be both polytheistic and family-centered. The major deities were not numerous El, Asherah, and Yahweh, with Baal as a fourth god, and perhaps Shamash (the sun) in the early period. At an early stage El and Yahweh became fused and Asherah did not continue as a separate state cult, although she continued to be popular at a community level until Persian times.
Yahweh, the national god of both Israel and Judah, seems to have originated in Edom and Midian in southern Canaan and may have been brought to Israel by the Kenites and Midianites at an early stage. There is a general consensus among scholars that the first formative event in the emergence of the distinctive religion described in the Bible was triggered by the destruction of Israel by Assyria in c. 722 BCE. Refugees from the northern kingdom fled to Judah, bringing with them laws and a prophetic tradition of Yahweh. This religion was subsequently adopted by the landowners of Judah, who in 640 BCE placed the eight-year-old Josiah on the throne. Judah at this time was a vassal state of Assyria, but Assyrian power collapsed in the 630s, and around 622 Josiah and his supporters launched a bid for independence expressed as loyalty to "Yahweh alone".
According to the Deuteronomists, as scholars call these Judean nationalists, the treaty with Yahweh would enable Israel's god to preserve both the city and the king in return for the people's worship and obedience. The destruction of Jerusalem, its Temple, and the Davidic dynasty by Babylon in 587/586 BCE was deeply traumatic and led to revisions of the national mythos during the Babylonian exile. This revision was expressed in the Deuteronomistic history, the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings, which interpreted the Babylonian destruction as divinely-ordained punishment for the failure of Israel's kings to worship Yahweh to the exclusion of all other deities.
The Second Temple period (520 BCE 70 CE) differed in significant ways from what had gone before. Strict monotheism emerged among the priests of the Temple establishment during the seventh and sixth centuries BCE, as did beliefs regarding angels and demons. At this time, circumcision, dietary laws, and Sabbath-observance gained more significance as symbols of Jewish identity, and the institution of the synagogue became increasingly important, and most of the biblical literature, including the Torah, was written or substantially revised during this time.
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List of monarchs of Persia
This article lists the monarchs of Persia (Iran) from the establishment of the Median Empire by Medes around 705 BC until the deposition of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979.
Earlier monarchs in the area of modern-day Iran are listed in:
Minor dynasties and vassal monarchs can be found in:
Note: Ancient Persia is generally agreed to have ended with the collapse of the Achaemenid dynasty as a result of the Wars of Alexander the Great.
The Fratarakas appear to have been Governors of the Seleucid Empire.
The Seleucid dynasty gradually lost control of Persia. In 253, the Arsacid dynasty established itself in Parthia. The Parthians gradually expanded their control, until by the mid-2nd century BC, the Seleucids had completely lost control of Persia. Control of eastern territories was permanently lost by Antiochus VII in 129 BC.
For more comprehensive lists of kings, queens, sub-kings and sub-queens of this Era see:
Note: Classical Persia is generally agreed to have ended with the collapse of the Sasanian Empire as a result of the Muslim conquest of Persia.
A Zoroastrian Persian dynasty that held power in the north for over a century before finally falling to the Abbasid Caliphate.
For more comprehensive lists of kings and sub-kings of this Era see:
For more comprehensive lists of kings and sub-kings of this Era see:
For more comprehensive lists of kings and sub-kings of this Era see:
For more comprehensive lists of kings and sub-kings of this Era see:
For more comprehensive lists of kings and sub-kings of this Era see:
For more comprehensive lists of kings and sub-kings of this Era see:
The Buyid Kingdom was divided into a number of separate emirates, of which the most important were Fars, Ray, and Iraq. Generally, one of the emirs held a sort of primus inter pares supremacy over the rest, which would be marked by titles like Amir al-umara and Shahanshah.
For more comprehensive lists of kings and sub-kings of this Era see:
For more comprehensive lists of kings and sub-kings of this Era see:
An empire built from Khwarezm, covering part of Iran and neighbouring Central Asia.
For more comprehensive lists of kings and sub-kings of this Era see:
For more comprehensive lists of kings and sub-kings of this Era see:
For more comprehensive lists of kings and sub-kings of this Era see:
Sources:
Note: Medieval Persia is generally agreed to have ended with rise of the Safavid Empire
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Henry J. Heinz
Henry John Heinz (October 11, 1844 – May 14, 1919) was an American entrepreneur who founded the H. J. Heinz Company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was born in Birmingham, Pennsylvania, the son of German immigrants who came independently to the United States in the early 1840s. Heinz developed his business into a national company which made more than 60 food products; one of its first was tomato ketchup. He was influential for introducing high sanitary standards for food manufacturing. He also exercised a paternal relationship with his workers, providing health benefits, recreation facilities, and cultural amenities. Heinz was the great-grandfather of former U.S. Senator John Heinz of Pennsylvania and, as part of the extended family of the Trumps, a second cousin of Frederick Trump and second cousin twice removed of Donald Trump.
Henry John Heinz was born in Birmingham, Pennsylvania on October 11, 1844, the son of German immigrants John Henry Heinz (1811–1891), of Kallstadt, Palatinate, Kingdom of Bavaria, and Anna Margaretha Schmidt (1822–1899), of Kruspis, Haunetal, Hesse-Kassel. His father immigrated to the United States at age 29 in 1840, his mother at age 21 in 1843. They were married December 4, 1843, in Birmingham, Pennsylvania, on the south side of Pittsburgh, where they first met. Anna Schmidt was the daughter of a Lutheran minister; John Heinz was also Lutheran.
Heinz was raised and confirmed as a Lutheran. Later in life he also worshipped as a member of Methodist and Presbyterian churches, and worked closely with Baptists as well.
Through his mother's family, Henry Heinz was a second cousin to Frederick Trump, who emigrated to the United States in 1885. Trump was the immigrant ancestor and paternal grandfather of Donald Trump of New York City.
Henry John Heinz began packing foodstuffs on a small scale at Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1869. There he founded Heinz Noble & Company with a friend, L. Clarence Noble, and started marketing packaged horseradish. The company went bankrupt in 1875. The following year Heinz founded another company, F & J Heinz, with his brother John Heinz and a cousin, Frederick Heinz. One of this company's first products was tomato ketchup.
The company continued to grow, and in 1888 Heinz bought out his other two partners and reorganized as the H. J. Heinz Company, the name carried to the present day. The company's slogan, "57 varieties," was introduced by Heinz in 1896; by then the company was selling more than 60 different products. Heinz said he chose "5" because it was his lucky number and the number "7" was his wife's lucky number.
H. J. Heinz Company was incorporated in 1905, and Heinz served as its first president, leading in the position for the rest of his life. Under his tutelage, the company was noted for fair treatment of workers and for pioneering safe and sanitary food preparation. He provided his employees with free medical care; recreation facilities such as gyms, swimming pools, and gardens; and educational opportunities such as libraries, free concerts, and lectures. Heinz led a successful lobbying effort in favor of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906. During World War I, he worked with the Food Administration.
He was a director in many financial institutions, and was chairman of a committee to devise ways of protecting Pittsburgh from floods.
At the time of Heinz's death in Pittsburgh at the age of 74, the H. J. Heinz Company had more than 20 food processing plants, and owned seed farms and container factories. Heinz was the grandfather of H. J. Heinz II, the great-grandfather of U.S. Senator H. John Heinz III of Pennsylvania, and great-great grandfather of Henry John Heinz IV, André Thierstein Heinz and Christopher Drake Heinz. Another relative is Teresa Heinz-Kerry, widow of H. John Heinz III, who is married to ex-senator and former United States Secretary of State John Kerry.
Heinz married Sarah Sloan Young Heinz on September 3, 1869. She was of Scots-Irish ancestry and had grown up in the Presbyterian Church. They had five children:
They were raised as Presbyterians.
Heinz was a man of faith. When he visited England, his "tourist stops" included the graves of religious leaders John Bunyan, Isaac Watts, and John Wesley. He visited a chapel that Wesley founded, later writing that "I felt I was upon holy ground." At the beginning of his will Heinz wrote: "I desire to set forth, at the very beginning of this Will, as the most important item in it, a confession of my faith in Jesus Christ as my Savior."
A bronze statue of Heinz by Emil Fuchs was dedicated on October 11, 1924 at the Heinz Company building in Pittsburgh.
Heinz died at his home May 14, 1919, after contracting pneumonia. His funeral was at East Liberty Presbyterian Church. He was buried at Homewood Cemetery in Pittsburgh, in the Heinz Family Mausoleum.
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Heinz
The H. J. Heinz Company is an American food processing company headquartered at One PPG Place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The company was founded by Henry J. Heinz in 1869. Heinz manufactures thousands of food products in plants on six continents, and markets these products in more than 200 countries and territories. The company claims to have 150 number-one or number-two brands worldwide. Heinz ranked first in ketchup in the US with a market share in excess of 50%; the Ore-Ida label held 46% of the frozen potato sector in 2003.
Since 1896, the company has used its "57 Varieties" slogan; it was inspired by a sign advertising 21 styles of shoes, and Henry Heinz chose the number 57 even though the company manufactured more than 60 products at the time. In February 2013, Heinz agreed to be purchased by Berkshire Hathaway and the Brazilian 3G Capital for $23billion. On March 25, 2015, Kraft announced its merger with Heinz, arranged by Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital. The resulting Kraft Heinz Company is the fifth largest food company in the world. Berkshire Hathaway became a majority owner of Heinz on June 18, 2015. After exercising a warrant to acquire 46 million shares of common stock for a total price of over $461million, Berkshire increased its stake to 52.5%. The companies completed the merger on July 2, 2015.
Heinz was founded by and is named for Henry J. Heinz, who was born in the United States to German immigrants. His father was originally from Kallstadt (then part of the Bavarian Rhenish Palatinate, now part of Rhineland-Palatinate). His mother Anna was from Haunetal, Hesse-Kassel, and they met in Pittsburgh.
Henry J. Heinz began packing foodstuffs on a small scale at Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1869. There he founded Heinz Noble & Company with a friend, L. Clarence Noble, and began marketing horseradish. The first product in Heinz and Noble's new Anchor Brand (a name selected for its biblical meaning of hope) was his mother Anna Heinz's recipe for horseradish. The young Heinz manufactured it in the basement of his father's former house.
The company went bankrupt in 1875. The following year Heinz founded another company, F & J Heinz, with his brother John Heinz and a cousin, Frederick Heinz. One of this company's first products was Heinz Tomato Ketchup. The company continued to grow.
In 1888, Heinz bought out his two partners and reorganized the company as the H. J. Heinz Company. Its slogan, "57 varieties", was introduced by Heinz in 1896. Inspired by an advertisement he saw while riding an elevated train in New York City (a shoe store boasting "21 styles"), Heinz picked the number more or less at random because he liked the sound of it, selecting "7" specifically because, as he put it, of the "psychological influence of that figure and of its enduring significance to people of all ages."
In 1905, H. J. Heinz was incorporated, and Heinz served as its first president, holding that position for the rest of his life. Under his leadership, the company pioneered processes for sanitary food preparation, and led a successful lobbying effort in favor of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906. In 1908 he established a processing plant in Leamington, Ontario, Canada for tomatoes and other products. Heinz operated it until 2014, when it was sold.
Heinz was a pioneer in both scientific and "technological innovations to solve problems like bacterial contamination." He personally worked to control the "purity of his products by managing his employees", offering hot showers and weekly manicures for the women handling food. During World War I, he worked with the Food Administration.
In 1914, Heinz Salad Cream was invented in England.
In 1930, Howard Heinz, son of Henry Heinz, helped to fight the downturn of the Great Depression by selling ready-to-serve soups and baby food. They became top sellers. During World War II, "Jack" Heinz led the company as president and CEO to aid the United Kingdom and offset food shortages. Its plant in Pittsburgh was converted for a time to manufacture gliders for the War Department.
In the postwar years, Jack Heinz expanded the company to develop plants in several nations overseas, greatly expanding its international presence. He also acquired Ore-Ida and Starkist Tuna.
In 1959, long-time Heinz employee Frank Armour Jr. was elected president and COO of H. J. Heinz Co., succeeding H. J. Heinz II. He was the first non-family member to hold the job since the company started in 1869. He became vice chairman in 1966, and later became chairman and CEO of Heinz subsidiary, Ore-Ida Foods Inc.
In 1969, Tony O'Reilly joined the company's UK subsidiary, soon becoming its managing director. He moved to Pittsburgh in 1971 when he was promoted to Senior Vice President for the North America and Pacific region. By 1973, board members Robert Burt Gookin and Jack Heinz selected him as COO and President. He became CEO in 1979 and chairman in 1987.
Between 1981 and 1991, Heinz returned 28% annually, doubling the Standard & Poor's average annual return for those years. By 2000, the consolidation of grocery store chains, the spread of retailers such as Walmart, and growth of private-label brands caused competition for shelf space, and put price pressure on the company's products. The decline was also attributed to an inadequate response to broad demographic changes in the United States, particularly the growth in population among Hispanic and increased spending power of African Americans.
On April 4, 1991, former U.S. Senator Henry John Heinz III, the third-generation successor to the Heinz fortune, and six other people were killed when a Bell 412 helicopter and a Piper Aerostar with Heinz aboard collided in mid-air above Merion Elementary School in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania. His fortune passed to his wife, Teresa Heinz.
In 1998, Tony O'Reilly left Heinz after issues with the company's performance. He faced challenges from corporate governance groups and pension funds including CalPERS. He was succeeded by his deputy, William R. Johnson.
In 2001, Heinz acquired the pasta sauce, dry bouillon and soup business of Borden Foods. CEO William R. Johnson stated that "They fit very well with our tomato-based expertise".
Billionaire Nelson Peltz initiated a proxy battle during 2006, culminating in a vote to place five of Peltz's nominees on the Board. After the final vote, two of the five nominees joined the Heinz Board. The new members of the board were Nelson Peltz and Matthew Craig Walsh.
In 2002, Heinz announced that it had sold the StarKist and 9Lives brands to Del Monte Foods.
In June 2008, Heinz began an advertising campaign in the UK for their new 'New York Deli Mayo' products. The advertisement featured two men kissing in a family setting, which drew 200 complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority. On June 24, 2008 Heinz withdrew the advertisement, which had been planned for a five-week run. The company said that some of its customers had expressed concerns. Withdrawing the advert was also controversial, with critics accusing Heinz of homophobia. The gay rights group Stonewall called for a boycott of Heinz products. Some expressed surprise that it had responded to what they said was a relatively small number of complaints, compared to the UK's estimated 3.6 million gay and lesbian consumers. MP Diane Abbott called the decision to withdraw the advert 'ill-considered' and 'likely to offend the gay community'.
On February 14, 2013, it was announced that Heinz would be purchased by Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital for $23billion. Including debt assumption the transaction was valued at $28billion. According to Heinz, the deal was the largest in food industry history. Berkshire Hathaway and 3G would each own half of Heinz, with 3G running the company. Berkshire and 3G paid $72.50 a share. The acquisition was completed in June of that year. Berkshire and 3G immediately named Bernardo Hees, former chief executive of Burger King Worldwide Inc, as the CEO.
On August 13, 2013, Heinz announced it was cutting 600 jobs in North America.
On October 25, 2013, fast-food chain McDonald's announced it would end its 40-year relationship with Heinz, after the former Burger King chief Hees became its CEO.
On March 25, 2015, Kraft Foods Group Inc. announced that it would merge with the H. J. Heinz Company, owned by 3G Capital and Berkshire Hathaway Inc., to form the world's fifth-largest food and beverage company. The companies completed the merger on July 2, 2015.
The Kraft Heinz company's world headquarters are in Chicago, Illinois, with the H. J. Heinz division located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where the company was founded. The company's "keystone" logo is based on that of Pennsylvania, the "keystone state". Heinz Field was named after the Heinz company in 2001.
A majority of its ketchup is produced in Fremont, Ohio, and the rest is made in Muscatine, Iowa.
Heinz opened a pickle factory in Holland, Michigan, in 1897, and it is the largest such facility in the world. The Heinz Portion Control subsidiary is located in Jacksonville, Florida, and produces single-serving containers of ketchup, mustard, salad dressings, jams, jellies and syrups.
Heinz also has factories in the following locations:
Arizona (Phoenix);
California (Chatsworth, Escalon, Irvine, San Diego);
Florida (Fort Myers);
Idaho (Pocatello);
Iowa, (Cedar Rapids, Muscatine);
Massachusetts (Newburyport);
Ohio (Mason, Massillon);
Oregon (Ontario), and
South Carolina (Florence).
In 2000, seven retailers, including Walmart, Albertsons, and Safeway, comprised half of the company's sales by volume.
Heinz Australia's head office is located in Melbourne. Products include canned baked beans in tomato sauce (popularized in the "beanz meanz Heinz" advertising campaign), spaghetti in a similar sauce, and canned soup, condensed soup, and "ready to eat" soups.
Heinz manufactures "Big Red" tomato sauce, and a number of flavored baked bean varieties, as well as canned meals. Heinz also markets the Wattie's brand of canned foods, which are made in New Zealand.
On October 6, 2008, Heinz announced plans to acquire the Australian company Golden Circle which "manufactures more than 500 products, including canned fruit and vegetables, fruit juices, drinks, cordials and jams."
On May 27, 2011, Heinz announced it would close its factory in Girgarre, Victoria, and downsize its factories in Northgate (Brisbane), and Wagga Wagga, with loss of more than 300 jobs. Heinz has other factories in Echuca and Mill Park.
On January 6, 2012, Heinz closed its tomato sauce factory in Girgarre as announced in the previous May. 146 workers lost their jobs. A local group was seeking to purchase the factory and start its own production, with offers of financial assistance from investors. The group's first offer for the site was rejected by Heinz. Girgarre was the second to last tomato sauce factory in Australia, and its closing brought an end to Heinz's 70 years of tomato processing operations in Australia.
Heinz was established in Canada in 1908 in a former tobacco factory in Leamington, Ontario (known as the Tomato Capital of Canada). Most products shipped from Leamington have bilingual English and French labels for distribution throughout Canada, but a substantial amount of product is sent from there to the US. Ketchup is the main product produced there, and the city has been a center of tomato production. The factory also produces Canada Fancy (Grade A) tomato juice, mustard, vinegar, baby food, barbecue sauces, canned pastas, beans, pasta sauces, gravies and soups. Heinz Canada is the major supplier of single-serving and flexible-packaging condiments for most fast food chains in Canada. Leamington is the largest tomato-processing region per acreage in the world. The Leamington plant usually processes more than 250,000 tons of tomatoes per year. Heinz Canada's head office is in North York, Ontario; it also has operations in St. Marys, Ontario; Montreal, Quebec; and Calgary, Alberta.
On November 14, 2013, Heinz announced that the Leamington facility, the second-largest in the company, would close sometime in May 2014. Ketchup processing operations were to be consolidated at the company's US locations. Over 800 local jobs were lost due to the town's largest employer ending operations there. A local effort began in an attempt to save the 105-year-old Leamington plant, and it included creating a Facebook page to gather support. On February 27, 2014 the Highbury Canco Corporation signed a letter of intent to acquire and operate the facility. In April it was reported that Highbury Canco Corporation had received a one-year license to process tomatoes at the facility, saving some 250 jobs.
As a result of this corporate restructuring and the angry Canadian response, a rival food company, French's, began producing their own ketchup brand using Leamington produce. It marketed the brand with an appeal to Canadian patriotism. This successful campaign, combined with a Canadian grassroots effort on Facebook encouraging purchasing of the French's product, resulted in Heinz's market share in Canada dropping from 84 to 76%, a significant shift in a mature market. This undesirable development was exacerbated in 2018 when Canadian tariffs were erected against specific American exports, which includes ketchup produced in the United States, in retaliation to the US President Trump's tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum exports. Heinz conducted a belated public relations campaign in Canada to try to counter the public anger against them, a task made more difficult by public sentiment rising to encourage a boycott of American goods in reaction of US President Trump's rhetoric against Canada.
Heinz Ketchup is available in India in two varieties, the standard Tomato Ketchup and Tomato Chili Sauce. As Indian taste preferences vary among the regions, Western brands such as Heinz must work on Indian interpretations of ketchups for sale in the country. Heinz acquired the former foods division of Glaxo India, gaining the Complan, Glucon D, Glucon C, Sampriti Ghee, and Nycil products and brands. In 2019, Heinz sold a portion of the business, including Complan and Glucon-D, for $627.18 million to Zydus Wellness.
H. J. Heinz Company entered Indonesia in 1999, when it acquired 65 percent share of PT. ABC Central Food, for US$70 million, and formed PT. Heinz ABC Indonesia. The company is based in Jakarta, and manufactures sauces, condiments, juices and syrups.
Serving demand from Indonesia's large population and growing economy, in the early 21st century PT. Heinz ABC Indonesia is the largest Heinz's business in Asia, and one of the largest in the world. It employs 3000 employees, has 3 production facilities, 8 packing facilities, and an extensive distribution network in Java and other parts of Indonesia. Their leading products are Syrup ABC (fruit syrup), Kecap ABC (sweet soy sauce), and Sambal ABC (hot chili sauce).
Heinz sells many products in the Netherlands; the Elst factory in Gelderland is the primary production facility for Heinz sauces for Western Europe. In 2006, production of both HP Sauce and Daddies was transferred from Birmingham, West Midlands to Elst as a result of the acquisition of HP Foods and the subsequent closure of the Aston factory. Subsequently, Heinz suffered severe supply issues for the ex-HP Foods brands as the Elst factory struggled to integrate production, resulting in significant negative coverage from UK retailers. Heinz was forced to begin bottling sauce in Spain, shipping ready-made sauce from Elst, to get product back into supply.
The UK headquarters moved from Hayes to the Shard in London. After opening its first overseas office in London in 1896, the company opened its first UK factory in Peckham, south London in 1905. This was followed by a factory at Harlesden, north-west London in 1919. Bombed twice in World War II, this factory remained in production until 2000. Production was started at a former munitions factory at Standish near Wigan in 1946, before the new factory at Kitt Green, near Wigan, opened in 1959. Heinz also had an infant food factory in Kendal, Cumbria. The site specialized in baby milks, previously under the brand of Farley's, but then manufactured under the name Heinz Nurture.
Heinz produces oriental foods sold under the Amoy brand, used under license from Ajinomoto Co. Inc., Tokyo, Japan.
In July 2001, the Food Standards Agency of the Government of the United Kingdom found Heinz canned baked beans products to be contaminated with the hormone disruptor bisphenol.
In 2013, the Kitt Green facility was listed as one among the world's five largest manufacturing units by the Discovery Channel (the list comprised Reliance's Jamnagar Refinery, Volkswagen's car plant, Kitt Green Foods plant, NASA's Kennedy Space Center and POSCO's steel plant). It is Europe's largest food factory and turns over more than 1 billion cans every year.
On February 22, 2013, Sanquan Food, a Chinese frozen food company, signed a contract to purchase LongFong Food, a subsidiary of Heinz Company in China. With this sale, Heinz (China) will focus on infant foods and sauces in emerging markets such as China. Heinz Hong Kong Limited is the regional office serving for operations in Hong Kong, China and Taiwan.
Heinz currently produces frozen vegetables for export for the New Zealand and Australian market. They also produce mayonnaise and other sauces for the New Zealand and Australian market. Most products sold in New Zealand are sold under the brand name "Watties".
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Huffman coding
In computer science and information theory, a Huffman code is a particular type of optimal prefix code that is commonly used for lossless data compression. The process of finding or using such a code proceeds by means of Huffman coding, an algorithm developed by David A. Huffman while he was a Sc.D. student at MIT, and published in the 1952 paper "A Method for the Construction of Minimum-Redundancy Codes".
The output from Huffman's algorithm can be viewed as a variable-length code table for encoding a source symbol (such as a character in a file). The algorithm derives this table from the estimated probability or frequency of occurrence ("weight") for each possible value of the source symbol. As in other entropy encoding methods, more common symbols are generally represented using fewer bits than less common symbols. Huffman's method can be efficiently implemented, finding a code in time linear to the number of input weights if these weights are sorted. However, although optimal among methods encoding symbols separately, Huffman coding is not always optimal among all compression methods - it is replaced with arithmetic coding or asymmetric numeral systems if better compression ratio is required.
In 1951, David A. Huffman and his MIT information theory classmates were given the choice of a term paper or a final exam. The professor, Robert M. Fano, assigned a term paper on the problem of finding the most efficient binary code. Huffman, unable to prove any codes were the most efficient, was about to give up and start studying for the final when he hit upon the idea of using a frequency-sorted binary tree and quickly proved this method the most efficient.
In doing so, Huffman outdid Fano, who had worked with information theory inventor Claude Shannon to develop a similar code. Building the tree from the bottom up guaranteed optimality, unlike the top-down approach of Shannon–Fano coding.
Huffman coding uses a specific method for choosing the representation for each symbol, resulting in a prefix code (sometimes called "prefix-free codes", that is, the bit string representing some particular symbol is never a prefix of the bit string representing any other symbol). Huffman coding is such a widespread method for creating prefix codes that the term "Huffman code" is widely used as a synonym for "prefix code" even when such a code is not produced by Huffman's algorithm.
Input.
Alphabet formula_1, which is the symbol alphabet of size formula_2.
Tuple formula_3, which is the tuple of the (positive) symbol weights (usually proportional to probabilities), i.e. formula_4.
Output.
Code formula_5, which is the tuple of (binary) codewords, where formula_6 is the codeword for formula_7.
Goal.
Let formula_8 be the weighted path length of code formula_9. Condition: formula_10 for any code formula_11.
We give an example of the result of Huffman coding for a code with five characters and given weights. We will not verify that it minimizes "L" over all codes, but we will compute "L" and compare it to the Shannon entropy "H" of the given set of weights; the result is nearly optimal.
For any code that is "biunique", meaning that the code is "uniquely decodeable", the sum of the probability budgets across all symbols is always less than or equal to one. In this example, the sum is strictly equal to one; as a result, the code is termed a "complete" code. If this is not the case, one can always derive an equivalent code by adding extra symbols (with associated null probabilities), to make the code complete while keeping it "biunique".
As defined by Shannon (1948), the information content "h" (in bits) of each symbol "a"i with non-null probability is
The entropy "H" (in bits) is the weighted sum, across all symbols "a""i" with non-zero probability "w""i", of the information content of each symbol:
As a consequence of Shannon's source coding theorem, the entropy is a measure of the smallest codeword length that is theoretically possible for the given alphabet with associated weights. In this example, the weighted average codeword length is 2.25 bits per symbol, only slightly larger than the calculated entropy of 2.205 bits per symbol. So not only is this code optimal in the sense that no other feasible code performs better, but it is very close to the theoretical limit established by Shannon.
In general, a Huffman code need not be unique. Thus the set of Huffman codes for a given probability distribution is a non-empty subset of the codes minimizing formula_15 for that probability distribution. (However, for each minimizing codeword length assignment, there exists at least one Huffman code with those lengths.)
The technique works by creating a binary tree of nodes. These can be stored in a regular array, the size of which depends on the number of symbols, formula_2. A node can be either a leaf node or an internal node. Initially, all nodes are leaf nodes, which contain the symbol itself, the weight (frequency of appearance) of the symbol and optionally, a link to a parent node which makes it easy to read the code (in reverse) starting from a leaf node. Internal nodes contain a weight, links to two child nodes and an optional link to a parent node. As a common convention, bit '0' represents following the left child and bit '1' represents following the right child. A finished tree has up to formula_2 leaf nodes and formula_18 internal nodes. A Huffman tree that omits unused symbols produces the most optimal code lengths.
The process begins with the leaf nodes containing the probabilities of the symbol they represent. Then, the process takes the two nodes with smallest probability, and creates a new internal node having these two nodes as children. The weight of the new node is set to the sum of the weight of the children. We then apply the process again, on the new internal node and on the remaining nodes (i.e., we exclude the two leaf nodes), we repeat this process until only one node remains, which is the root of the Huffman tree.
The simplest construction algorithm uses a priority queue where the node with lowest probability is given highest priority:
Since efficient priority queue data structures require O(log "n") time per insertion, and a tree with "n" leaves has 2"n"−1 nodes, this algorithm operates in O("n" log "n") time, where "n" is the number of symbols.
If the symbols are sorted by probability, there is a linear-time (O("n")) method to create a Huffman tree using two queues, the first one containing the initial weights (along with pointers to the associated leaves), and combined weights (along with pointers to the trees) being put in the back of the second queue. This assures that the lowest weight is always kept at the front of one of the two queues:
In many cases, time complexity is not very important in the choice of algorithm here, since "n" here is the number of symbols in the alphabet, which is typically a very small number (compared to the length of the message to be encoded); whereas complexity analysis concerns the behavior when "n" grows to be very large.
It is generally beneficial to minimize the variance of codeword length. For example, a communication buffer receiving Huffman-encoded data may need to be larger to deal with especially long symbols if the tree is especially unbalanced. To minimize variance, simply break ties between queues by choosing the item in the first queue. This modification will retain the mathematical optimality of the Huffman coding while both minimizing variance and minimizing the length of the longest character code.
Generally speaking, the process of decompression is simply a matter of translating the stream of prefix codes to individual byte values, usually by traversing the Huffman tree node by node as each bit is read from the input stream (reaching a leaf node necessarily terminates the search for that particular byte value). Before this can take place, however, the Huffman tree must be somehow reconstructed. In the simplest case, where character frequencies are fairly predictable, the tree can be preconstructed (and even statistically adjusted on each compression cycle) and thus reused every time, at the expense of at least some measure of compression efficiency. Otherwise, the information to reconstruct the tree must be sent a priori. A naive approach might be to prepend the frequency count of each character to the compression stream. Unfortunately, the overhead in such a case could amount to several kilobytes, so this method has little practical use. If the data is compressed using canonical encoding, the compression model can be precisely reconstructed with just formula_19 bits of information (where formula_20 is the number of bits per symbol). Another method is to simply prepend the Huffman tree, bit by bit, to the output stream. For example, assuming that the value of 0 represents a parent node and 1 a leaf node, whenever the latter is encountered the tree building routine simply reads the next 8 bits to determine the character value of that particular leaf. The process continues recursively until the last leaf node is reached; at that point, the Huffman tree will thus be faithfully reconstructed. The overhead using such a method ranges from roughly 2 to 320 bytes (assuming an 8-bit alphabet). Many other techniques are possible as well. In any case, since the compressed data can include unused "trailing bits" the decompressor must be able to determine when to stop producing output. This can be accomplished by either transmitting the length of the decompressed data along with the compression model or by defining a special code symbol to signify the end of input (the latter method can adversely affect code length optimality, however).
The probabilities used can be generic ones for the application domain that are based on average experience, or they can be the actual frequencies found in the text being compressed.
This requires that a frequency table must be stored with the compressed text. See the Decompression section above for more information about the various techniques employed for this purpose.
Huffman's original algorithm is optimal for a symbol-by-symbol coding with a known input probability distribution, i.e., separately encoding unrelated symbols in such a data stream. However, it is not optimal when the symbol-by-symbol restriction is dropped, or when the probability mass functions are unknown. Also, if symbols are not independent and identically distributed, a single code may be insufficient for optimality. Other methods such as arithmetic coding often have better compression capability.
Although both aforementioned methods can combine an arbitrary number of symbols for more efficient coding and generally adapt to the actual input statistics, arithmetic coding does so without significantly increasing its computational or algorithmic complexities (though the simplest version is slower and more complex than Huffman coding). Such flexibility is especially useful when input probabilities are not precisely known or vary significantly within the stream. However, Huffman coding is usually faster and arithmetic coding was historically a subject of some concern over patent issues. Thus many technologies have historically avoided arithmetic coding in favor of Huffman and other prefix coding techniques. As of mid-2010, the most commonly used techniques for this alternative to Huffman coding have passed into the public domain as the early patents have expired.
For a set of symbols with a uniform probability distribution and a number of members which is a power of two, Huffman coding is equivalent to simple binary block encoding, e.g., ASCII coding. This reflects the fact that compression is not possible with such an input, no matter what the compression method, i.e., doing nothing to the data is the optimal thing to do.
Huffman coding is optimal among all methods in any case where each input symbol is a known independent and identically distributed random variable having a probability that is dyadic. Prefix codes, and thus Huffman coding in particular, tend to have inefficiency on small alphabets, where probabilities often fall between these optimal (dyadic) points. The worst case for Huffman coding can happen when the probability of the most likely symbol far exceeds 2−1 = 0.5, making the upper limit of inefficiency unbounded.
There are two related approaches for getting around this particular inefficiency while still using Huffman coding. Combining a fixed number of symbols together ("blocking") often increases (and never decreases) compression. As the size of the block approaches infinity, Huffman coding theoretically approaches the entropy limit, i.e., optimal compression . However, blocking arbitrarily large groups of symbols is impractical, as the complexity of a Huffman code is linear in the number of possibilities to be encoded, a number that is exponential in the size of a block. This limits the amount of blocking that is done in practice.
A practical alternative, in widespread use, is run-length encoding. This technique adds one step in advance of entropy coding, specifically counting (runs) of repeated symbols, which are then encoded. For the simple case of Bernoulli processes, Golomb coding is optimal among prefix codes for coding run length, a fact proved via the techniques of Huffman coding. A similar approach is taken by fax machines using modified Huffman coding. However, run-length coding is not as adaptable to as many input types as other compression technologies.
Many variations of Huffman coding exist, some of which use a Huffman-like algorithm, and others of which find optimal prefix codes (while, for example, putting different restrictions on the output). Note that, in the latter case, the method need not be Huffman-like, and, indeed, need not even be polynomial time.
The "n"-ary Huffman algorithm uses the {0, 1, ... , "n" − 1} alphabet to encode message and build an "n"-ary tree. This approach was considered by Huffman in his original paper. The same algorithm applies as for binary ("n" equals 2) codes, except that the "n" least probable symbols are taken together, instead of just the 2 least probable. Note that for "n" greater than 2, not all sets of source words can properly form an "n"-ary tree for Huffman coding. In these cases, additional 0-probability place holders must be added. This is because the tree must form an "n" to 1 contractor; for binary coding, this is a 2 to 1 contractor, and any sized set can form such a contractor. If the number of source words is congruent to 1 modulo "n"-1, then the set of source words will form a proper Huffman tree.
A variation called adaptive Huffman coding involves calculating the probabilities dynamically based on recent actual frequencies in the sequence of source symbols, and changing the coding tree structure to match the updated probability estimates. It is used rarely in practice, since the cost of updating the tree makes it slower than optimized adaptive arithmetic coding, which is more flexible and has better compression.
Most often, the weights used in implementations of Huffman coding represent numeric probabilities, but the algorithm given above does not require this; it requires only that the weights form a totally ordered commutative monoid, meaning a way to order weights and to add them. The Huffman template algorithm enables one to use any kind of weights (costs, frequencies, pairs of weights, non-numerical weights) and one of many combining methods (not just addition). Such algorithms can solve other minimization problems, such as minimizing formula_21, a problem first applied to circuit design.
Length-limited Huffman coding is a variant where the goal is still to achieve a minimum weighted path length, but there is an additional restriction that the length of each codeword must be less than a given constant. The package-merge algorithm solves this problem with a simple greedy approach very similar to that used by Huffman's algorithm. Its time complexity is formula_22, where formula_23 is the maximum length of a codeword. No algorithm is known to solve this problem in formula_24 or formula_25 time, unlike the presorted and unsorted conventional Huffman problems, respectively.
In the standard Huffman coding problem, it is assumed that each symbol in the set that the code words are constructed from has an equal cost to transmit: a code word whose length is "N" digits will always have a cost of "N", no matter how many of those digits are 0s, how many are 1s, etc. When working under this assumption, minimizing the total cost of the message and minimizing the total number of digits are the same thing.
"Huffman coding with unequal letter costs" is the generalization without this assumption: the letters of the encoding alphabet may have non-uniform lengths, due to characteristics of the transmission medium. An example is the encoding alphabet of Morse code, where a 'dash' takes longer to send than a 'dot', and therefore the cost of a dash in transmission time is higher. The goal is still to minimize the weighted average codeword length, but it is no longer sufficient just to minimize the number of symbols used by the message. No algorithm is known to solve this in the same manner or with the same efficiency as conventional Huffman coding, though it has been solved by Karp whose solution has been refined for the case of integer costs by Golin.
In the standard Huffman coding problem, it is assumed that any codeword can correspond to any input symbol. In the alphabetic version, the alphabetic order of inputs and outputs must be identical. Thus, for example, formula_26 could not be assigned code formula_27, but instead should be assigned either formula_28 or formula_29. This is also known as the Hu–Tucker problem, after T. C. Hu and Alan Tucker, the authors of the paper presenting the first formula_25-time solution to this optimal binary alphabetic problem, which has some similarities to Huffman algorithm, but is not a variation of this algorithm. A later method, the Garsia–Wachs algorithm of Adriano Garsia and Michelle L. Wachs (1977), uses simpler logic to perform the same comparisons in the same total time bound. These optimal alphabetic binary trees are often used as binary search trees.
If weights corresponding to the alphabetically ordered inputs are in numerical order, the Huffman code has the same lengths as the optimal alphabetic code, which can be found from calculating these lengths, rendering Hu–Tucker coding unnecessary. The code resulting from numerically (re-)ordered input is sometimes called the "canonical Huffman code" and is often the code used in practice, due to ease of encoding/decoding. The technique for finding this code is sometimes called Huffman–Shannon–Fano coding, since it is optimal like Huffman coding, but alphabetic in weight probability, like Shannon–Fano coding. The Huffman–Shannon–Fano code corresponding to the example is formula_31, which, having the same codeword lengths as the original solution, is also optimal. But in "canonical Huffman code", the result is formula_32.
Arithmetic coding and Huffman coding produce equivalent results — achieving entropy — when every symbol has a probability of the form 1/2"k". In other circumstances, arithmetic coding can offer better compression than Huffman coding because — intuitively — its "code words" can have effectively non-integer bit lengths, whereas code words in prefix codes such as Huffman codes can only have an integer number of bits. Therefore, a code word of length "k" only optimally matches a symbol of probability 1/2"k" and other probabilities are not represented optimally; whereas the code word length in arithmetic coding can be made to exactly match the true probability of the symbol. This difference is especially striking for small alphabet sizes.
Prefix codes nevertheless remain in wide use because of their simplicity, high speed, and lack of patent coverage. They are often used as a "back-end" to other compression methods. DEFLATE (PKZIP's algorithm) and multimedia codecs such as JPEG and MP3 have a front-end model and quantization followed by the use of prefix codes; these are often called "Huffman codes" even though most applications use pre-defined variable-length codes rather than codes designed using Huffman's algorithm.
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High-density lipoprotein
Lipoproteins have long been divided into 5 subgroups, by density/size (an inverse relationship), which also correlates with function and incidence of cardiovascular events. Unlike the larger lipoprotein particles which deliver fat molecules to cells, HDL particles remove fat molecules from cells which need to export fat molecules. The lipids carried include cholesterol, phospholipids, and triglycerides; amounts of each are quite variable.
Increasing concentrations of HDL particles are strongly associated with decreasing accumulation of atherosclerosis within the walls of arteries. This is important because atherosclerosis eventually results in sudden plaque ruptures, cardiovascular disease, stroke and other vascular diseases. HDL particles are sometimes referred to as "good cholesterol" because they can transport fat molecules out of artery walls, reduce macrophage accumulation, and thus help prevent or even regress atherosclerosis, but studies have shown that HDL-lacking mice still have the ability to transport cholesterol to bile, suggesting that there are alternative mechanisms for cholesterol removal.
Because of the high cost of directly measuring HDL and LDL (low-density lipoprotein) protein particles, blood tests are commonly performed for the surrogate value, HDL-C, i.e. the cholesterol associated with ApoA-1/HDL particles. In healthy individuals, about 30% of blood cholesterol, along with other fats, is carried by HDL. This is often contrasted with the amount of cholesterol estimated to be carried within low-density lipoprotein particles, LDL, and called LDL-C. HDL particles remove fats and cholesterol from cells, including within artery wall atheroma, and transport it back to the liver for excretion or re-utilization; thus the cholesterol carried within HDL particles (HDL-C) is sometimes called "good cholesterol" (despite being the same as cholesterol in LDL particles). Those with higher levels of HDL-C tend to have fewer problems with cardiovascular diseases, while those with low HDL-C cholesterol levels (especially less than 40 mg/dL or about 1 mmol/L) have increased rates for heart disease. Higher native HDL levels are correlated with better cardiovascular health, but it does not appear that further increasing one's HDL improves cardiovascular outcomes.
The remainder of the serum cholesterol after subtracting the HDL is the non-HDL cholesterol. The concentration of these other components, which may cause atheroma, is known as the non-HDL-C. This is now preferred to LDL-C as a secondary marker as it has been shown to be a better predictor and it is more easily calculated.
With a size ranging from 5 to 17 nm, HDL is the smallest of the lipoprotein particles. It is the densest because it contains the highest proportion of protein to lipids. Its most abundant apolipoproteins are apo A-I and apo A-II. A rare genetic variant, ApoA-1 Milano, has been documented to be far more effective in both protecting against and regressing arterial disease; atherosclerosis. The liver synthesizes these lipoproteins as complexes of apolipoproteins and phospholipid, which resemble cholesterol-free flattened spherical lipoprotein particles, whose NMR structure was recently published; the complexes are capable of picking up cholesterol, carried internally, from cells by interaction with the ATP-binding cassette transporter A1 (ABCA1). A plasma enzyme called lecithin-cholesterol acyltransferase (LCAT) converts the free cholesterol into cholesteryl ester (a more hydrophobic form of cholesterol), which is then sequestered into the core of the lipoprotein particle, eventually causing the newly synthesized HDL to assume a spherical shape. HDL particles increase in size as they circulate through the bloodstream and incorporate more cholesterol and phospholipid molecules from cells and other lipoproteins, for example by the interaction with the ABCG1 transporter and the phospholipid transport protein (PLTP).
HDL transports cholesterol mostly to the liver or steroidogenic organs such as adrenals, ovary, and testes by both direct and indirect pathways. HDL is removed by HDL receptors such as scavenger receptor BI (SR-BI), which mediate the selective uptake of cholesterol from HDL. In humans, probably the most relevant pathway is the indirect one, which is mediated by cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP). This protein exchanges triglycerides of VLDL against cholesteryl esters of HDL. As the result, VLDLs are processed to LDL, which are removed from the circulation by the LDL receptor pathway. The triglycerides are not stable in HDL, but are degraded by hepatic lipase so that, finally, small HDL particles are left, which restart the uptake of cholesterol from cells.
The cholesterol delivered to the liver is excreted into the bile and, hence, intestine either directly or indirectly after conversion into bile acids. Delivery of HDL cholesterol to adrenals, ovaries, and testes is important for the synthesis of steroid hormones.
Several steps in the metabolism of HDL can participate in the transport of cholesterol from lipid-laden macrophages of atherosclerotic arteries, termed foam cells, to the liver for secretion into the bile. This pathway has been termed "reverse cholesterol transport" and is considered as the classical protective function of HDL toward atherosclerosis.
HDL carries many lipid and protein species, several of which have very low concentrations but are biologically very active. For example, HDL and its protein and lipid constituents help to inhibit oxidation, inflammation, activation of the endothelium, coagulation, and platelet aggregation. All these properties may contribute to the ability of HDL to protect from atherosclerosis, and it is not yet known which are the most important. In addition, a small subfraction of HDL lends protection against the protozoan parasite "Trypanosoma brucei brucei". This HDL subfraction, termed trypanosome lytic factor (TLF), contains specialized proteins that, while very active, are unique to the TLF molecule.
In the stress response, serum amyloid A, which is one of the acute-phase proteins and an apolipoprotein, is under the stimulation of cytokines (interleukin 1, interleukin 6), and cortisol produced in the adrenal cortex and carried to the damaged tissue incorporated into HDL particles. At the inflammation site, it attracts and activates leukocytes. In chronic inflammations, its deposition in the tissues manifests itself as amyloidosis.
It has been postulated that the concentration of large HDL particles more accurately reflects protective action, as opposed to the concentration of total HDL particles. This ratio of large HDL to total HDL particles varies widely and is measured only by more sophisticated lipoprotein assays using either electrophoresis (the original method developed in the 1970s) or newer NMR spectroscopy methods (See also nuclear magnetic resonance and spectroscopy), developed in the 1990s.
Five subfractions of HDL have been identified. From largest (and most effective in cholesterol removal) to smallest (and least effective), the types are 2a, 2b, 3a, 3b, and 3c.
Lipids are a heterogeneous group of compounds which are relatively insoluble in water and soluble in non-polar solvents. Triglycerides (TGs), cholesterol, and phospholipids are the major lipids in the body. They are transported as complexes of lipid and proteins known as lipoproteins.
TGs (triglycerides): TGs are formed by combining glycerol with three molecules of fatty acid. TGs, as major components of VLDL and chylomicrons, play an important role in metabolism. When the body requires fatty acids as an energy source, the hormone glucagon signals the breakdown of the TGs by lipase to release free fatty acids (FFA). TGs are water-insoluble, non-polar neutral fats. These are not the structural components of biological membranes.TGs synthesis and storage mostly occurs in liver and adipose tissue. FFA and glycerol must be activated prior to the synthesis of TGs into Acyl-CoA and glycerol-3-phosphate respectively.
Cholesterol: The name cholesterol originates from the Greek chole- (bile) and stereos (solid), and the chemical suffix-ol for an alcohol. It is an essential structural component of cell membrane, where it is required to establish proper membrane permeability and fluidity. In addition, cholesterol is an important component for the manufacture of bile acids, steroid hormones, and vitamin D. Although cholesterol is an important and necessary molecule, a high level of serum cholesterol is an indicator for diseases such as heart disease. About 20–25% of total daily cholesterol production occurs in the liver.
Phospholipids: Phospholipids are TGs that are covalently bonded to a phosphate group by an ester linkage. Phospholipids perform important functions including regulating membrane permeability and in maintaining electron transport chain in mitochondria. They participate in the reverse cholesterol transport and thus help in the removal of cholesterol from the body. They are involved in signal transmission across membranes and they act as detergents and help in solubilization of cholesterol.
Lipoprotein:
These consist of a central core of a hydrophobic lipid (including TGs and cholesteryl esters) encased in a hydrophilic coat of polar phospholipid, free cholesterol and apolipoprotein. There are six main classes of lipoprotein, differing in the relative proportion of the core lipids and in the type of apoprotein.
Men tend to have noticeably lower HDL levels, with smaller size and lower cholesterol content, than women. Men also have an increased incidence of atherosclerotic heart disease. Alcohol consumption tends to raise HDL levels, and moderate alcohol consumption is associated with lower cardiovascular and all-cause mortality. Recent studies confirm the fact that HDL has a buffering role in balancing the effects of the hypercoagulable state in type 2 diabetics and decreases the high risk of cardiovascular complications in these patients. Also, the results obtained in this study revealed that there was a significant negative correlation between HDL and activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT).
Epidemiological studies have shown that high concentrations of HDL (over 60 mg/dL) have protective value against cardiovascular diseases such as ischemic stroke and myocardial infarction. Low concentrations of HDL (below 40 mg/dL for men, below 50 mg/dL for women) increase the risk for atherosclerotic diseases.
Data from the landmark Framingham Heart Study showed that, for a given level of LDL, the risk of heart disease increases 10-fold as the HDL varies from high to low. On the converse, however, for a fixed level of HDL, the risk increases 3-fold as LDL varies from low to high.
Even people with very low LDL levels are exposed to increased risk if their HDL levels are not high enough.
Clinical laboratories formerly measured HDL cholesterol by separating other lipoprotein fractions using either ultracentrifugation or chemical precipitation with divalent ions such as Mg2+, then coupling the products of a cholesterol oxidase reaction to an indicator reaction. The reference method still uses a combination of these techniques. Most laboratories now use automated homogeneous analytical methods in which lipoproteins containing apo B are blocked using antibodies to apo B, then a colorimetric enzyme reaction measures cholesterol in the non-blocked HDL particles. HPLC can also be used. Subfractions (HDL-2C, HDL-3C) can be measured, but clinical significance of these subfractions has not been determined. The measurement of apo-A reactive capacity can be used to measure HDL cholesterol but is thought to be less accurate.
The American Heart Association, NIH and NCEP provide a set of guidelines for fasting HDL levels and risk for heart disease.
High LDL with low HDL level is an additional risk factor for cardiovascular disease.
As technology has reduced costs and clinical trials have continued to demonstrate the importance of HDL, methods for directly measuring HDL concentrations and size (which indicates function) at lower costs have become more widely available and increasingly regarded as important for assessing individual risk for progressive arterial disease and treatment methods.
Since the HDL particles have a net negative charge and vary by density & size, ultracentrifugation combined with electrophoresis have been utilized since before 1950 to enumerate the concentration of HDL particles and sort them by size with a specific volume of blood plasma. Larger HDL particles are carrying more cholesterol.
Concentration and sizes of lipoprotein particles can be estimated using nuclear magnetic resonance fingerprinting.
The HDL particle concentrations are typically categorized by event rate percentiles based on the people participating and being tracked in the MESA trial, a medical research study sponsored by the United States National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
The lowest incidence of atherosclerotic events over time occurs within those with both the highest concentrations of total HDL particles (the top quarter, >75%) and the highest concentrations of large HDL particles. Multiple additional measures, including LDL particle concentrations, small LDL particle concentrations, VLDL concentrations, estimations of insulin resistance and standard cholesterol lipid measurements (for comparison of the plasma data with the estimation methods discussed above) are routinely provided in clinical testing.
Fasting serum lipids have been associated with short term verbal memory. In a large sample of middle aged adults, low HDL cholesterol was associated with poor memory and decreasing levels over a five-year follow-up period were associated with decline in memory.
While higher HDL levels are correlated with cardiovascular health, no medication used to increase HDL has been proven to improve health. In other words, while high HDL levels might correlate with better cardiovascular health, specifically increasing one's HDL might not increase cardiovascular health. The remaining possibilities are that either good cardiovascular health causes high HDL levels, there is some third factor which causes both, or this is a coincidence with no causal link.
HDL lipoprotein particles that bear apolipoprotein C3 are associated with increased, rather than decreased, risk for coronary heart disease.
Certain changes in diet and exercise may have a positive impact on raising HDL levels:
Most saturated fats increase HDL cholesterol to varying degrees but also raise total and LDL cholesterol. A high-fat, adequate-protein, low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet may have similar response to taking niacin (vitamin B3) as described below (lowered LDL and increased HDL) through beta-hydroxybutyrate coupling the Niacin receptor 1.
HDL levels can be increased by smoking cessation, or mild to moderate alcohol intake.
Cannabis in unadjusted analyses, past and current cannabis use was not associated with higher HDL-C levels. A study performed in 4635 patients demonstrated no effect on the HDL-C levels (P=0.78) [the mean (standard error) HDL-C values in control subjects (never used), past users and current users were 53.4 (0.4), 53.9 (0.6) and 53.9 (0.7) mg/dL, respectively].
Pharmacological therapy to increase the level of HDL cholesterol includes use of fibrates and niacin. Fibrates have not been proven to have an effect on overall deaths from all causes, despite their effects on lipids.
Niacin (vitamin B3) increases HDL by selectively inhibiting hepatic diacylglycerol acyltransferase 2, reducing triglyceride synthesis and VLDL secretion through a receptor HM74 otherwise known as niacin receptor 2 and HM74A / GPR109A, niacin receptor 1.
Pharmacologic (1- to 3-gram/day) niacin doses increase HDL levels by 10–30%, making it the most powerful agent to increase HDL-cholesterol. A randomized clinical trial demonstrated that treatment with niacin can significantly reduce atherosclerosis progression and cardiovascular events. Niacin products sold as "no-flush", "i.e." not having side-effects such as "niacin flush", do not, however, contain free nicotinic acid and are therefore ineffective at raising HDL, while products sold as "sustained-release" may contain free nicotinic acid, but "some brands are hepatotoxic"; therefore the recommended form of niacin for raising HDL is the cheapest, immediate-release preparation. Both fibrates and niacin increase artery toxic homocysteine, an effect that can be counteracted by also consuming a multivitamin with relatively high amounts of the B-vitamins, but multiple European trials of the most popular B-vitamin cocktails, trial showing 30% average reduction in homocysteine, while not showing problems have also not shown any benefit in reducing cardiovascular event rates. A 2011 niacin study was halted early because patients adding niacin to their statin treatment showed no increase in heart health, but did experience an increase in the risk of stroke.
In contrast, while the use of statins is effective against high levels of LDL cholesterol, most have little or no effect in raising HDL cholesterol. Rosuvastatin and pitavastatin, however, have been demonstrated to significantly raise HDL levels.
Lovaza has been shown to increase HDL-C. However, the best evidence to date suggests it has no benefit for primary or secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease.
Though it has not yet been FDA-approved, the PPAR modulator (sometimes referred to as a SARM) GW501516, currently a research chemical (not for human consumption), has shown a positive effect on HDL-C and an antiatherogenic where LDL is an issue.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=13885
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Honolulu
Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii. It is an unincorporated part of and the county seat of the City and County of Honolulu along the southeast coast of the island of Oahu. The city is the main gateway to Hawaii and a major portal into the United States. The city is also a major hub for international business and military defense, as well as being host to a diverse variety of east–west and Pacific cultures, cuisine, and traditions.
Honolulu is the westernmost and southernmost major U.S. city. For statistical purposes, the United States Census Bureau recognizes the approximate area commonly referred to as "City of Honolulu" (not to be confused with the "City and County") as a census county division (CCD). Honolulu is a major financial center of the islands and of the Pacific Ocean. The population of the Honolulu census designated place (CDP) was 345,064 as of the 2019 population estimate, while the Honolulu CCD was 390,738.
"Honolulu" means "sheltered harbor" or "calm port" in Hawaiian. The old name is Kou, a district roughly encompassing the area from Nuuanu Avenue to Alakea Street and from Hotel Street to Queen Street which is the heart of the present downtown district. The city has been the capital of the Hawaiian Islands since 1845 and gained historical recognition following the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan near the city on December 7, 1941.
, Honolulu was ranked high on world livability rankings, and was also ranked as the 2nd safest city in the U.S. It is also the most populated Oceanian city outside Australasia and ranks second to Auckland as the most-populous city in Polynesia.
Evidence of the first settlement of Honolulu by the original Polynesian migrants to the archipelago comes from oral histories and artifacts. These indicate that there was a settlement where Honolulu now stands in the 11th century. After Kamehameha I conquered Oʻahu in the Battle of Nuʻuanu at Nuʻuanu Pali, he moved his royal court from the Island of Hawaiʻi to Waikīkī in 1804. His court relocated in 1809 to what is now downtown Honolulu. The capital was moved back to Kailua-Kona in 1812.
In 1794, Captain William Brown of Great Britain was the first foreigner to sail into what is now Honolulu Harbor. More foreign ships followed, making the port of Honolulu a focal point for merchant ships traveling between North America and Asia.
In 1845, Kamehameha III moved the permanent capital of the Hawaiian Kingdom from Lahaina on Maui to Honolulu. He and the kings that followed him transformed Honolulu into a modern capital, erecting buildings such as St. Andrew's Cathedral, ʻIolani Palace, and Aliʻiōlani Hale. At the same time, Honolulu became the center of commerce in the islands, with descendants of American missionaries establishing major businesses in downtown Honolulu.
Despite the turbulent history of the late 19th century and early 20th century, such as the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893, Hawaiʻi's subsequent annexation by the United States in 1898, followed by a large fire in 1900, and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, Honolulu remained the capital, largest city, and main airport and seaport of the Hawaiian Islands.
An economic and tourism boom following statehood brought rapid economic growth to Honolulu and Hawaiʻi. Modern air travel brings, , 7.6 million visitors annually to the islands, with 62.3% entering at Honolulu International Airport. Today, Honolulu is a modern city with numerous high-rise buildings, and Waikīkī is the center of the tourism industry in Hawaiʻi, with thousands of hotel rooms. The UK consulting firm Mercer, in a 2009 assessment "conducted to help governments and major companies place employees on international assignments", ranked Honolulu 29th worldwide in quality of living; the survey factored in political stability, personal freedom, sanitation, crime, housing, the natural environment, recreation, banking facilities, availability of consumer goods, education, and public services including transportation.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the Urban Honolulu Census-designated place (CDP) has a total area of . of it (88.44%) is land, and of it (11.56%) is water.
Honolulu is the most remote major city in the world. The closest location on the mainland United States to Honolulu is the Point Arena Lighthouse in California, at . (Nautical vessels require some additional distance to circumnavigate Makapuʻu Point.) However, islands off the Mexican coast, and part of the Aleutian Islands of Alaska are slightly closer to Honolulu than the mainland. The volcanic field of the Honolulu Volcanics is partially located inside the city.
Honolulu experiences a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen classification "BSh"), with a mostly dry summer season, due to a rain shadow effect. Temperatures vary little throughout the months, with average high temperatures of and average lows of throughout the year. Temperatures reach or exceed on an average 38 days annually, with lows in the upper 50s °F (14–15 °C) occurring once or twice a year. The highest recorded temperature was on September 19, 1994 and August 31, 2019. The lowest recorded temperature was on February 16, 1902, and January 20, 1969. With high temperatures and humidity, there is a vast tropical influence on the climate, although rainfall falls short of that classification.
The annual average rainfall is , which mainly occurs during the winter months of October through early April, with very little rainfall during the summer. However, both seasons experience a similar number of rainy days. Light showers occur in summer, while heavier rain falls during winter. Honolulu has an average of 278 sunny days and 90 rainy days per year.
Although the city is situated in the tropics, hurricanes are quite rare. The last recorded hurricane that hit near Honolulu was Category 4 Hurricane Iniki in 1992. Tornadoes are also uncommon and usually strike once every 15 years. Waterspouts off the coast are also uncommon, hitting about once every five years.
Honolulu falls under the USDA 12a Plant Hardiness zone.
The average temperature of the sea ranges from in March to in September.
The population of Honolulu was 390,738 according to the 2010 U.S. Census. Of those, 192,781 (49.3%) were male and 197,957 (50.7%) were female. The median age for males was 40.0 and 43.0 for females; the overall median age was 41.3. Approximately 84.7% of the total population was 16 years and over; 82.6% were 18 years and over, 78.8% were 21 years and over, 21.4% were 62 years and over, and 17.8% were 65 years and over.
In terms of race and ethnicity, 54.8% were Asian, 17.9% were White, 1.5% were Black or African American, 0.2% were American Indian or Alaska Native, 8.4% were Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, 0.8% were from "some other race", and 16.3% were from two or more races. Hispanics and Latinos of any race made up 5.4% of the population. In 1970, the Census Bureau reported Honolulu's population as 33.9% white and 53.7% Asian and Pacific Islander.
Asian Americans represent the majority of Honolulu's population. The Asian ethnic groups are Japanese (19.9%), Filipinos (13.2%), Chinese (10.4%), Koreans (4.3%), Vietnamese (2.0%), Asian Indians (0.3%), Laotians (0.3%), Thais (0.2%), Cambodians (0.1%), and Indonesians (0.1%). People solely of Native Hawaiian ancestry made up 3.2% of the population. Samoan Americans made up 1.5% of the population, Marshallese people make up 0.5% of the city's population, and Tongan people comprise 0.3% of its population. People of Guamanian or Chamorro descent made up 0.2% of the population and numbered 841 residents.
Honolulu's urban area was the fourth densest in the United States according to the 2010 U.S. Census.
The largest city and airport in the Hawaiian Islands, Honolulu acts as a natural gateway to the islands' large tourism industry, which brings millions of visitors and contributes $10 billion annually to the local economy. Honolulu's location in the Pacific also makes it a large business and trading hub, particularly between the East and the West. Other important aspects of the city's economy include military defense, research and development, and manufacturing.
Among the companies based in Honolulu are:
Hawaiian Airlines, Island Air, and Aloha Air Cargo are headquartered in the city. Prior to its dissolution, Aloha Airlines was headquartered in the city. At one time Mid-Pacific Airlines had its headquarters on the property of Honolulu International Airport.
In 2009, Honolulu had a 4.5% increase in the average price of rent, maintaining it in the second most expensive rental market ranking among 210 U.S. metropolitan areas.
Since no national bank chains have any branches in Hawaii, many visitors and new residents use different banks. First Hawaiian Bank is the largest and oldest bank in Hawaii and their headquarters are at the First Hawaiian Center, the tallest building in the State of Hawaii.
The Bishop Museum is the largest of Honolulu's museums. It is endowed with the state's largest collection of natural history specimens and the world's largest collection of Hawaiiana and Pacific culture artifacts. The Honolulu Zoo is the main zoological institution in Hawai'i while the Waikīkī Aquarium is a working marine biology laboratory. The Waikīkī Aquarium is partnered with the University of Hawai'i and other universities worldwide. Established for appreciation and botany, Honolulu is home to several gardens: Foster Botanical Garden, Liliʻuokalani Botanical Garden, Walker Estate, among others.
Established in 1900, the Honolulu Symphony is the second oldest US symphony orchestra west of the Rocky Mountains. Other classical music ensembles include the Hawaii Opera Theatre. Honolulu is also a center for Hawaiian music. The main music venues include the Hawaii Theatre, the Neal Blaisdell Center Concert Hall and Arena, and the Waikīkī Shell.
Honolulu also includes several venues for live theater, including the Diamond Head Theatre and Kumu Kahua Theatre.
Various institutions for the visual arts are located in Honolulu.
The Honolulu Museum of Art is endowed with the largest collection of Asian and Western art in Hawaii. It also has the largest collection of Islamic art, housed at the Shangri La estate. Since the merger of the Honolulu Academy of Arts and The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu (now called the Honolulu Museum of Art Spalding House) in 2011, the museum is also the only contemporary art museum in the state. The contemporary collections are housed at main campus (Spalding House) in Makiki and a multi-level gallery in downtown Honolulu at the First Hawaiian Center. The museum hosts a film and video program dedicated to arthouse and world cinema in the museum's Doris Duke Theatre, named for the museum's historic patroness Doris Duke.
The Hawaii State Art Museum (also downtown) boasts pieces by local artists as well as traditional Hawaiian art. The museum is administered by the Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts.
Honolulu also annually holds the Hawaii International Film Festival (HIFF). It showcases some of the best films from producers all across the Pacific Rim and is the largest "East meets West" style film festival of its sort in the United States.
Honolulu's tropical climate lends itself to year-round activities. In 2004, "Men's Fitness" magazine named Honolulu the fittest city in the United States. Honolulu has three large road races:
Ironman Hawaii was first held in Honolulu. It was the first ever Ironman triathlon event and is also the world championship.
The Waikiki Roughwater Swim race is held annually off the beach of Waikiki. Founded by Jim Cotton in 1970, the course is and spans from the New Otani Hotel to the Hilton Rainbow Tower.
Fans of spectator sports in Honolulu generally support the football, volleyball, basketball, rugby union, rugby league, and baseball programs of the University of Hawaii at Mānoa. High school sporting events, especially football, are especially popular.
Honolulu has no professional sports teams. It was the home of the Hawaii Islanders (Pacific Coast League, 1961–87), The Hawaiians (World Football League, 1974–75), Team Hawaii (North American Soccer League, 1977), and the Hawaiian Islanders (af2, 2002–04).
The NCAA football Hawaii Bowl is played in Honolulu. Honolulu has also hosted the NFL's annual Pro Bowl each February from 1980 to 2009. After the 2010 and 2015 games were played in Miami Gardens and Glendale, respectively, the Pro Bowl was once again in Honolulu from 2011 to 2014 with 2016 the most recent. From 1993 to 2008, Honolulu hosted Hawaii Winter Baseball, featuring minor league players from Major League Baseball, Nippon Professional Baseball, Korea Baseball Organization, and independent leagues.
In 2018, the Honolulu Little League team qualified for that year's Little League World Series tournament. The team went undefeated en route to the United States championship game, where it bested Georgia's Peachtree City American Little League team 3-0. In the world championship game, the team faced off against South Korea's South Seoul Little League team. Hawaii pitcher Ka'olu Holt threw a complete game shutout while striking out 8, and Honolulu Little League - again by a score of 3-0 - secured the victory, capturing the 2018 Little League World Series championship as well as Hawaii's third overall title at the Little League World Series.
Venues for spectator sports in Honolulu include:
Aloha Stadium, a venue for American football and soccer, is located in Halawa near Pearl Harbor, just outside Honolulu.
Kirk Caldwell was elected mayor of Honolulu County on November 6, 2012, and began serving as the county's 14th mayor on January 2, 2013. The municipal offices of the City and County of Honolulu, including Honolulu Hale, the seat of the city and county, are located in the Capitol District, as are the Hawaii state government buildings.
The Capitol District is within the Honolulu census county division (CCD), the urban area commonly regarded as the "City" of Honolulu. The Honolulu CCD is located on the southeast coast of Oahu between Makapuu and Halawa. The division boundary follows the Koolau crestline, so Makapuu Beach is in the Ko'olaupoko District. On the west, the division boundary follows Halawa Stream, then crosses Red Hill and runs just west of Aliamanu Crater, so that Aloha Stadium, Pearl Harbor (with the USS Arizona Memorial), and Hickam Air Force Base are actually all located in the island's Ewa CCD.
The Hawaii Department of Public Safety operates the Oahu Community Correctional Center, the jail for the island of Oahu, in Honolulu CCD.
The United States Postal Service operates post offices in Honolulu. The main Honolulu Post Office is located by the international airport at 3600 Aolele Street. Federal Detention Center, Honolulu, operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, is in the CDP.
Several countries have consular facilities in Honolulu. They include consulates of Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Federated States of Micronesia, Australia, and the Marshall Islands.
Colleges and universities in Honolulu include Honolulu Community College, Kapiolani Community College, the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, Chaminade University, and Hawaii Pacific University. UH Mānoa houses the main offices of the University of Hawaii System.
Honolulu is home to three renowned international affairs research institutions. The Pacific Forum, one of the world's leading Asia-Pacific policy research institutes and one of the first organizations in the United States to focus exclusively on Asia, has its main office on Bishop Street in downtown Honolulu. The East–West Center (EWC), an education and research organization established by the U.S. Congress in 1960 to strengthen relations and understanding among the peoples and nations of Asia, the Pacific, and the United States, is headquartered in Mānoa, Honolulu. The Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (APCSS), a U.S. Department of Defense institute is based in Waikīkī, Honolulu. APCSS addresses regional and global security issues and supports the U.S. Pacific Command by developing and sustaining relationships among security practitioners and national security establishments throughout the region.
Hawaii Department of Education operates public schools in Honolulu. Public high schools within the CDP area include Wallace Rider Farrington, Kaiser, Kaimuki, Kalani, Moanalua, William McKinley, and Theodore Roosevelt.
Private schools include Academy of the Pacific, Damien Memorial School, Hawaii Baptist Academy, Iolani School, Lutheran High School of Hawaii, Kamehameha Schools, Maryknoll School, Mid-Pacific Institute, La Pietra, Punahou School, Sacred Hearts Academy, St. Andrew's Priory School, Saint Francis School, Saint Louis School, the Education Laboratory School, Saint Patrick School, Trinity Christian School, and Varsity International School. Hawaii has one of the nation's highest rate of private school attendance.
Hawaii State Public Library System operates public libraries. The Hawaii State Library in the CDP serves as the main library of the system, while the Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, also in the CDP area, serves handicapped and blind people.
Branches in the CDP area include Aiea, Aina Haina, Ewa Beach, Hawaii Kai, Kahuku, Kailua, Kaimuki, Kalihi-Palama, Kaneohe, Kapolei, Liliha, Mānoa, McCully-Moiliili, Mililani, Moanalua, Wahiawa, Waialua, Waianae, Waikīkī-Kapahulu, Waimanalo, and Waipahu.
The Hawaii Japanese School – Rainbow Gakuen (ハワイレインボー学園 "Hawai Reinbō Gakuen"), a supplementary weekend Japanese school, holds its classes in Kaimuki Middle School in Honolulu and has its offices in another building in Honolulu. The school serves overseas Japanese nationals. In addition Honolulu has other weekend programs for the Japanese, Chinese, and Spanish languages.
Honolulu is served by one daily newspaper (the "Honolulu Star-Advertiser"), "Honolulu Magazine", several radio stations and television stations, among other media. Local news agency and CNN-affiliate Hawaii News Now broadcasts and is headquartered out of Honolulu.
Honolulu and the island of Oahu has also been the location for many film and television projects, including "Hawaii Five-0" and "Lost".
Located at the western end of the CDP, Daniel K. Inouye International Airport (HNL) is the principal aviation gateway to the state of Hawaii. Kalaeloa Airport is primarily a commuter facility used by unscheduled air taxis, general aviation and transient and locally based military aircraft.
Honolulu has been ranked as having the nation's worst traffic congestion, beating former record holder Los Angeles. Drivers waste on average over 58 hours per year on congested roadways. The following freeways, part of the Interstate Highway System serve Honolulu:
Other major highways that link Honolulu CCD with other parts of the Island of Oahu are:
Like most major American cities, the Honolulu metropolitan area experiences heavy traffic congestion during rush hours, especially to and from the western suburbs of Kapolei, Ewa Beach, Aiea, Pearl City, Waipahu, and Mililani.
There is a Hawaii Electric Vehicle Demonstration Project (HEVDP).
In November 2010, voters approved a charter amendment to create a public transit authority to oversee the planning, construction, operation and future extensions to Honolulu's future rail system. The Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation (HART) currently includes a 10-member board of directors; three members appointed by the mayor, three members selected by the Honolulu City Council, and the city and state transportation directors.
The opening of the Honolulu Rail Transit is delayed until approximately 2020, as HART canceled the initial bids for the first nine stations and intends to rebid the work as three packages of three stations each, and allow more time for construction in the hope that increased competition on smaller contracts will drive down costs; initial bids ranged from $294.5 million to $320.8 million, far surpassing HART's budget of $184 million.
Established by former Mayor Frank F. Fasi as the replacement for the Honolulu Rapid Transit Company (HRT), Honolulu's TheBus system was honored in 1994–1995 and 2000–2001 by the American Public Transportation Association as "America's Best Transit System". TheBus operates 107 routes serving Honolulu and most major cities and towns on Oahu. TheBus comprises a fleet of 531 buses, and is run by the non-profit corporation Oahu Transit Services in conjunction with the city Department of Transportation Services. , Honolulu was ranked 4th for highest per-capita use of mass transit in the United States.
"Paratransit Options:"
The island also features TheHandi-Van. available for riders who require para transit operations. To be eligible for these parantransit service, individuals must meet the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). TheHandi-Van has a fare of $2.00, available Mondays - Sundays from 4:00 am – 1:00 am. There is a 24 hours per day service but only within 3/4 of a mile of TheBus route 2 and route 40. TheHandi-Van comprises a fleet of 160 buses. Additionally the parantransit branch also run's Human Services Transportation Coordination (HSTCP), which mainly provides transportation for people with disabilities, older adults, and people with limited incomes, assisted by the Committee for Accessible Transportation (CAT). Both organizations work together to provide transportation for elderly and persons with disabilities.
Currently, there is no urban rail transit system in Honolulu, although electric street railways were operated in Honolulu by the now-defunct Honolulu Rapid Transit Company prior to World War II. Predecessors to the Honolulu Rapid Transit Company were the Honolulu Rapid Transit and Land Company (began 1903) and Hawaiian Tramways (began 1888).
The City and County of Honolulu is currently constructing the rail transit line that will connect Honolulu with cities and suburban areas near Pearl Harbor and in the Leeward and West Oahu regions. The Honolulu High-Capacity Transit Corridor Project is aimed at alleviating traffic congestion for West Oahu commuters while being integral in the westward expansion of the metropolitan area. The project, however, has been criticized by opponents of rail for its cost, delays, and potential environmental impacts, but the line is expected to have large ridership.
Since June 28, 2017, Bikeshare Hawaii administers the bicycle sharing program in O'ahu while Secure Bike Share operates the "Biki" system. Most "Biki" stations are located between Chinatown/Downtown and Diamond Head, however an expansion in late 2018 added more stations towards the University of Hawai'i Manoa Campus, Kapi'olani Community College, Makiki, and Kalihi area. The GoBiki.org website has a "Biki" stations map.
According to the 2016 American Community Survey (five-year average), 56 percent of Urban Honolulu residents commuted to work by driving alone, 13.8 percent carpooled, 11.7 used public transportation, and 8.7 percent walked. About 5.7 commuted by bike, taxi, motorcycle or other forms of transportation, while 4.1 percent worked at home.
The city of Honolulu has a high percentage of households without a motor vehicle. In 2015, 16.6 percent of Honolulu households lacked a car, which increased slightly to 17.2 percent in 2016 – in comparison, the United States national average was 8.7 percent in 2016. Honolulu averaged 1.4 cars per household in 2016, compared to a national average of 1.8.
Honolulu's sister cities are:
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=13887
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Percolozoa
The Percolozoa are a group of colourless, non-photosynthetic Excavata, including many that can transform between amoeboid, flagellate, and cyst stages.
Most Percolozoa are found as bacterivores in soil, fresh water and occasionally in the ocean. The only member of this group that is infectious to humans is "Naegleria fowleri", the causative agent of the often fatal disease amoebic meningitis. The group is closely related to the Euglenozoa, and share with them the unusual characteristic of having mitochondria with discoid cristae. The presence of a ventral feeding groove in the flagellate stage, as well as other features, suggests that they are part of the Excavata group.
The amoeboid stage is roughly cylindrical, typically around 20-40 μm in length. They are traditionally considered lobose amoebae, but are not related to the others, and unlike them, do not form true lobose pseudopods. Instead, they advance by eruptive waves, where hemispherical bulges appear from the front margin of the cell, which is clear. The flagellate stage is slightly smaller, with two or four anterior flagella anterior to the feeding groove.
Usually, the amoeboid form is taken when food is plentiful, and the flagellate form is used for rapid locomotion. However, not all members are able to assume both forms. The genera "Percolomonas", "Lyromonas", and "Psalteriomonas" are known only as flagellates, while "Vahlkampfia", "Pseudovahlkampfia", and most acrasids do not have flagellate stages. As mentioned above, under unfavourable conditions, the acrasids aggregate to form sporangia. These are superficially similar to the sporangia of the dictyostelids, but the amoebae only aggregate as individuals or in small groups and do not die to form the stalk.
These are collectively referred to as schizopyrenids, amoeboflagellates, or vahlkampfids. They also include the acrasids, a group of social amoebae that aggregate to form sporangia. The entire group is usually called the Heterolobosea, but this may be restricted to members with amoeboid stages.
One Heterolobosea classification system is:
"Pleurostomum flabellatum" has recently been added to Heterolobosea.
Based on the cladogram from Tolweb and updated with new data from Pánek & Čepička 2012 and Pánek, Ptackova & Čepička 2014.
Phylum Percolozoa Cavalier-Smith 1991
The Heterolobosea were first defined by Page and Blanton in 1985 as a class of amoebae, and so only included those forms with amoeboid stages. Cavalier-Smith created the phylum Percolozoa for the extended group, together with the enigmatic flagellate "Stephanopogon".
Cavalier-Smith maintained the Heterolobosea as a class for amoeboid forms. He has defined Percolozoa as "Heterolobosea plus Percolatea classis nov."
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=13889
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History of India
According to consensus in modern genetics, anatomically modern humans first arrived on the Indian subcontinent from Africa between 73,000 and 55,000 years ago. However, the earliest known human remains in South Asia date to 30,000 years ago. Settled life, which involves the transition from foraging to farming and pastoralism, began in South Asia around 7,000 BCE. At the site of Mehrgarh, Balochistan, Pakistan, presence can be documented of the domestication of wheat and barley, rapidly followed by that of goats, sheep, and cattle. By 4,500 BCE, settled life had spread more widely, and began to gradually evolve into the Indus Valley Civilization, an early civilization of the Old world, which was contemporaneous with Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. This civilisation flourished between 2,500 BCE and 1900 BCE in what today is Pakistan and north-western India and was noted for its urban planning, baked brick houses, elaborate drainage, and water supply.
In the early second millennium BCE, persistent drought caused the population of the Indus Valley to scatter from large urban centres to villages. Around the same time, Indo-Aryan tribes moved into the Punjab from regions further northwest in several waves of migration. The resulting Vedic period was marked by the composition of the Vedas, large collections of hymns of these tribes whose postulated religious culture, through synthesis with the preexisting religious cultures of the subcontinent, gave rise to Hinduism. The caste system, which created a hierarchy of priests, warriors, and free peasants, but excluded indigenous peoples by labeling their occupations impure, arose later during this period. Towards the end of this period, around 600 BCE, after the pastoral and nomadic Indo-Aryans spread from the Punjab into the Gangetic plain, large swaths of which they deforested to pave way for agriculture, a second urbanisation took place. The small Indo-Aryan chieftaincies, or janapadas, were consolidated into larger states, or mahajanapadas. The urbanisation was accompanied by the rise of new ascetic movements in Greater Magadha, including Jainism and Buddhism, which opposed the growing influence of Brahmanism and the primacy of rituals, presided by Brahmin priests, that had come to be associated with Vedic religion, and gave rise to new religious concepts.
Most of the Indian subcontinent was conquered by the Maurya Empire, during the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE. From the 3rd century BCE onwards, Prakrit and Pali literature in the north and the Tamil Sangam literature in southern India started to flourish. In the 3rd century BCE, Wootz steel originated in south India and was exported to foreign countries. During the Classical period, various parts of India were ruled by numerous dynasties for the next 1,500 years, among which the Gupta Empire stands out. This period, witnessing a Hindu religious and intellectual resurgence, is known as the classical or Golden Age of India. During this period, many aspects of Indian civilisation, administration, culture, and religion (Hinduism and Buddhism) spread to much of Asia, while kingdoms in southern India began to have maritime business links with the Middle East and the Mediterranean. Indian cultural influence spread over many parts of Southeast Asia, which led to the establishment of Indianised kingdoms in Southeast Asia (Greater India).
The most significant event between the 7th and 11th centuries was the Tripartite struggle centred on Kannauj that lasted for more than two centuries between the Pala Empire, Rashtrakuta Empire, and Gurjara-Pratihara Empire. Southern India saw the rise of multiple imperial powers from the middle of the fifth century, most notably the Chalukya, Chola, Pallava, Chera, Pandyan, and Western Chalukya Empires. The Chola dynasty conquered southern India and successfully invaded parts of Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and Bengal in the 11th century. In the early medieval period, Indian mathematics, including Hindu numerals, influenced the development of mathematics and astronomy in the Arab world.
Islamic conquests made limited inroads into modern Afghanistan and Sindh as early as the 8th century, followed by the invasions of Mahmud Ghazni. The Delhi Sultanate was founded in 1206 CE by Central Asian Turks who ruled a major part of the northern Indian subcontinent in the early 14th century, but declined in the late 14th century,
and saw the advent of the Deccan Sultanates. The wealthy Bengal Sultanate also emerged as a world major global power, lasting over three centuries. This period saw the emergence of several powerful Hindu states, notably Vijayanagara, Gajapati, and Ahom, as well as Rajput states, such as Mewar. The 15th century saw the advent of Sikhism. The early modern period began in the 16th century, when the Mughal Empire conquered most of the Indian subcontinent, becoming the biggest global economy and manufacturing power, with a nominal GDP that valued a quarter of world GDP, superior to the combination of Europe's GDP. The Mughals suffered a gradual decline in the early 18th century, which provided opportunities for the Marathas, Sikhs, Mysoreans, and Nawabs of Bengal to exercise control over large regions of the Indian subcontinent.
From the mid-18th century to the mid-19th century, large regions of India were gradually annexed by the East India Company, a chartered company, acting as a sovereign power on behalf of the British government. Dissatisfaction with the Company rule in India led to the Indian Rebellion of 1857, which rocked parts of north and central India, and led to the dissolution of the company. India was afterward ruled directly by the British Crown, in the British Raj. After World War I, a nationwide struggle for independence was launched by the Indian National Congress, led by Mahatma Gandhi, and noted for nonviolence. Later, the All-India Muslim League would advocate for a separate Muslim-majority nation-state. The British Indian Empire was partitioned in August 1947 into the Dominion of India and Dominion of Pakistan, each gaining its independence.
Hominin expansion from Africa is estimated to have reached the Indian subcontinent approximately two million years ago, and possibly as early as 2.2 million years before the present. This dating is based on the known presence of "Homo erectus" in Indonesia by 1.8 million years before the present and in East Asia by 1.36 million years before present, as well as the discovery of stone tools made by proto-humans in the Soan River valley, at Riwat, and in the Pabbi Hills, in present-day Pakistan. Although some older discoveries have been claimed, the suggested dates, based on the dating of fluvial sediments, have not been independently verified.
The oldest hominin fossil remains in the Indian subcontinent are those of "Homo erectus" or "Homo heidelbergensis", from the Narmada Valley in central India, and are dated to approximately half a million years ago. Older fossil finds have been claimed, but are considered unreliable. Reviews of archaeological evidence have suggested that occupation of the Indian subcontinent by hominins was sporadic until approximately 700,000 years ago, and was geographically widespread by approximately 250,000 years before the present, from which point onward, archaeological evidence of proto-human presence is widely mentioned.
According to a historical demographer of South Asia, Tim Dyson: "Modern human beings—Homo sapiens—originated in Africa. Then, intermittently, sometime between 60,000 and 80,000 years ago, tiny groups of them began to enter the north-west of the Indian subcontinent. It seems likely that initially, they came by way of the coast. ... it is virtually certain that there were Homo sapiens in the subcontinent 55,000 years ago, even though the earliest fossils that have been found of them date to only about 30,000 years before the present."
According to Michael D. Petraglia and Bridget Allchin:
"Y-Chromosome and Mt-DNA data support the colonization of South Asia by modern humans originating in Africa. ... Coalescence dates for most non-European populations average to between 73–55 ka."
And according to an environmental historian of South Asia, Michael Fisher: "Scholars estimate that the first successful expansion of the Homo sapiens range beyond Africa and across the Arabian Peninsula occurred from as early as 80,000 years ago to as late as 40,000 years ago, although there may have been prior unsuccessful emigrations. Some of their descendants extended the human range ever further in each generation, spreading into each habitable land they encountered. One human channel was along the warm and productive coastal lands of the Persian Gulf and northern Indian Ocean. Eventually, various bands entered India between 75,000 years ago and 35,000 years ago."
Archaeological evidence has been interpreted to suggest the presence of anatomically modern humans in the Indian subcontinent 78,000–74,000 years ago, although this interpretation is disputed. The occupation of South Asia by modern humans, over a long time, initially in varying forms of isolation as hunter-gatherers, has turned it into a highly diverse one, second only to Africa in human genetic diversity.
According to Tim Dyson: "Genetic research has contributed to knowledge of the prehistory of the subcontinent’s people in other respects. In particular, the level of genetic diversity in the region is extremely high. Indeed, only Africa’s population is genetically more diverse. Related to this, there is strong evidence of ‘founder’ events in the subcontinent. By this is meant circumstances where a subgroup—such as a tribe—derives from a tiny number of ‘original’ individuals. Further, compared to most world regions, the subcontinent’s people are relatively distinct in having practised comparatively high levels of endogamy."
Settled life emerged on the subcontinent in the western margins of the Indus river alluvium approximately 9,000 years ago, evolving gradually into the Indus valley civilisation of the third millennium BCE. According to Tim Dyson: "By 7,000 years ago agriculture was firmly established in Baluchistan. And, over the next 2,000 years, the practice of farming slowly spread eastwards into the Indus valley." And according to Michael Fisher: "The earliest discovered instance ... of well-established, settled agricultural society is at Mehrgarh in the hills between the Bolan Pass and the Indus plain (today in Pakistan) (see Map 3.1). From as early as 7000 BCE, communities there started investing increased labor in preparing the land and selecting, planting, tending, and harvesting particular grain-producing plants. They also domesticated animals, including sheep, goats, pigs, and oxen (both humped zebu ["Bos indicus"] and unhumped ["Bos taurus"]). Castrating oxen, for instance, turned them from mainly meat sources into domesticated draft-animals as well."
The Bronze Age in the Indian subcontinent began around 3300 BCE. Along with Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, the Indus valley region was one of three early cradles of civilisation of the Old World. Of the three, the Indus Valley Civilisation was the most expansive, and at its peak, may have had a population of over five million.
The civilisation was primarily centred in modern-day Pakistan, in the Indus river basin, and secondarily in the Ghaggar-Hakra river basin in eastern Pakistan and northwestern India. The Mature Indus civilisation flourished from about 2600 to 1900 BCE, marking the beginning of urban civilisation on the Indian subcontinent. The civilisation included cities such as Harappa, Ganeriwala, and Mohenjo-daro in modern-day Pakistan, and Dholavira, Kalibangan, Rakhigarhi, and Lothal in modern-day India.
Inhabitants of the ancient Indus river valley, the Harappans, developed new techniques in metallurgy and handicraft (carneol products, seal carving), and produced copper, bronze, lead, and tin. The civilisation is noted for its cities built of brick, roadside drainage system, and multi-storeyed houses and is thought to have had some kind of municipal organisation.
The Vedic period is the period when the Vedas were composed, the liturgical hymns from some of the Indo-Aryan. The Vedic culture was located in part of north-west India, while other parts of India had a distinct cultural identity during this period. The Vedic culture is described in the texts of Vedas, still sacred to Hindus, which were orally composed in Vedic Sanskrit. The Vedas are some of the oldest extant texts in India. The Vedic period, lasting from about 1500 to 500 BCE, contributed the foundations of several cultural aspects of the Indian subcontinent. In terms of culture, many regions of the Indian subcontinent transitioned from the Chalcolithic to the Iron Age in this period.
Historians have analysed the Vedas to posit a Vedic culture in the Punjab region and the upper Gangetic Plain. Most historians also consider this period to have encompassed several waves of Indo-Aryan migration into the Indian subcontinent from the north-west. The peepal tree and cow were sanctified by the time of the Atharva Veda. Many of the concepts of Indian philosophy espoused later, like dharma, trace their roots to Vedic antecedents.
Early Vedic society is described in the Rigveda, the oldest Vedic text, believed to have been compiled during 2nd millennium BCE, in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent. At this time, Aryan society consisted of largely tribal and pastoral groups, distinct from the Harappan urbanisation which had been abandoned. The early Indo-Aryan presence probably corresponds, in part, to the Ochre Coloured Pottery culture in archaeological contexts.
At the end of the Rigvedic period, the Aryan society began to expand from the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent, into the western Ganges plain. It became increasingly agricultural and was socially organised around the hierarchy of the four "varnas", or social classes. This social structure was characterised both by syncretising with the native cultures of northern India, but also eventually by the excluding of some indigenous peoples by labeling their occupations impure. During this period, many of the previous small tribal units and chiefdoms began to coalesce into Janapadas (monarchical, state-level polities).
The Iron Age in the Indian subcontinent from about 1200 BCE to the 6th century BCE is defined by the rise of Janapadas, which are realms, republics and kingdoms—notably the Iron Age Kingdoms of Kuru, Panchala, Kosala, Videha.
The Kuru kingdom was the first state-level society of the Vedic period, corresponding to the beginning of the Iron Age in northwestern India, around 1200–800 BCE, as well as with the composition of the Atharvaveda (the first Indian text to mention iron, as , literally "black metal"). The Kuru state organised the Vedic hymns into collections, and developed the orthodox srauta ritual to uphold the social order. Two key figures of the Kuru state were king Parikshit and his successor Janamejaya, transforming this realm into the dominant political, social, and cultural power of northern Iron Age India. When the Kuru kingdom declined, the centre of Vedic culture shifted to their eastern neighbours, the Panchala kingdom. The archaeological Painted Grey Ware culture, which flourished in the Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh regions of northern India from about 1100 to 600 BCE, is believed to correspond to the Kuru and Panchala kingdoms.
During the Late Vedic Period, the kingdom of Videha emerged as a new centre of Vedic culture, situated even farther to the East (in what is today Nepal and Bihar state in India); reaching its prominence under the king Janaka, whose court provided patronage for Brahmin sages and philosophers such as Yajnavalkya, Aruni, and Gargi Vachaknavi. The later part of this period corresponds with a consolidation of increasingly large states and kingdoms, called "mahajanapadas", all across Northern India.
During the time between 800 and 200 BCE the "Śramaṇa" movement formed, from which originated Jainism and Buddhism. In the same period, the first Upanishads were written. After 500 BCE, the so-called "Second urbanisation" started, with new urban settlements arising at the Ganges plain, especially the Central Ganges plain. The foundations for the Second Urbanisation were laid prior to 600 BCE, in the Painted Grey Ware culture of the Ghaggar-Hakra and Upper Ganges Plain; although most PGW sites were small farming villages, "several dozen" PGW sites eventually emerged as relatively large settlements that can be characterized as towns, the largest of which were fortified by ditches or moats and embankments made of piled earth with wooden palisades, albeit smaller and simpler than the elaborately fortified large cities which grew after 600 BCE in the Northern Black Polished Ware culture.
The Central Ganges Plain, where Magadha gained prominence, forming the base of the Mauryan Empire, was a distinct cultural area, with new states arising after 500 BCE during the so-called "Second urbanisation". It was influenced by the Vedic culture, but differed markedly from the Kuru-Panchala region. It "was the area of the earliest known cultivation of rice in South Asia and by 1800 BCE was the location of an advanced Neolithic population associated with the sites of Chirand and Chechar". In this region, the Śramaṇic movements flourished, and Jainism and Buddhism originated.
Around 800 BCE to 400 BCE witnessed the composition of the earliest Upanishads. Upanishads form the theoretical basis of classical Hinduism and are known as Vedanta (conclusion of the Vedas).
Increasing urbanisation of India in 7th and 6th centuries BCE led to the rise of new ascetic or Śramaṇa movements which challenged the orthodoxy of rituals. Mahavira (c. 549–477 BCE), proponent of Jainism, and Gautama Buddha (c. 563–483 BCE), founder of Buddhism were the most prominent icons of this movement. Śramaṇa gave rise to the concept of the cycle of birth and death, the concept of samsara, and the concept of liberation. Buddha found a Middle Way that ameliorated the extreme asceticism found in the "Śramaṇa" religions.
Around the same time, Mahavira (the 24th "Tirthankara" in Jainism) propagated a theology that was to later become Jainism. However, Jain orthodoxy believes the teachings of the "Tirthankaras" predates all known time and scholars believe Parshvanatha (c. 872 – c. 772 BCE), accorded status as the 23rd "Tirthankara", was a historical figure. The Vedas are believed to have documented a few "Tirthankaras" and an ascetic order similar to the "Śramaṇa" movement.
The Sanskrit epics "Ramayana" and "Mahabharata" were composed during this period. The "Mahabharata" remains, today, the longest single poem in the world. Historians formerly postulated an "epic age" as the milieu of these two epic poems, but now recognise that the texts (which are both familiar with each other) went through multiple stages of development over centuries. For instance, the "Mahabharata" may have been based on a small-scale conflict (possibly about 1000 BCE) which was eventually "transformed into a gigantic epic war by bards and poets". There is no conclusive proof from archaeology as to whether the specific events of the Mahabharata have any historical basis. The existing texts of these epics are believed to belong to the post-Vedic age, between c. 400 BCE and 400 CE.
According to the Puranic chronology and recent research conducted by scientists and astronomers, the events of these epics are stated to have happened before 3000 BCE.
The period from c. 600 BCE to c. 300 BCE witnessed the rise of the Mahajanapadas, sixteen powerful and vast kingdoms and oligarchic republics. These Mahajanapadas evolved and flourished in a belt stretching from Gandhara in the northwest to Bengal in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent and included parts of the trans-Vindhyan region. Ancient Buddhist texts, like the "Anguttara Nikaya", make frequent reference to these sixteen great kingdoms and republics—Anga, Assaka, Avanti, Chedi, Gandhara, Kashi, Kamboja, Kosala, Kuru, Magadha, Malla, Matsya (or Machcha), Panchala, Surasena, Vriji, and Vatsa. This period saw the second major rise of urbanism in India after the Indus Valley Civilisation.
Early "republics" or Gaṇa sangha, such as Shakyas, Koliyas, Mallas, and Licchavis had republican governments. Gaṇa sanghas, such as Mallas, centered in the city of Kusinagara, and the Vajjian Confederacy (Vajji), centered in the city of Vaishali, existed as early as the 6th century BCE and persisted in some areas until the 4th century CE. The most famous clan amongst the ruling confederate clans of the Vajji Mahajanapada were the Licchavis.
This period corresponds in an archaeological context to the Northern Black Polished Ware culture. Especially focused in the Central Ganges plain but also spreading across vast areas of the northern and central Indian subcontinent, this culture is characterized by the emergence of large cities with massive fortifications, significant population growth, increased social stratification, wide-ranging trade networks, construction of public architecture and water channels, specialized craft industries (e.g., ivory and carnelian carving), a system of weights, punch-marked coins, and the introduction of writing in the form of Brahmi and Kharosthi scripts. The language of the gentry at that time was Sanskrit, while the languages of the general population of northern India are referred to as Prakrits.
Many of the sixteen kingdoms had coalesced into four major ones by 500/400 BCE, by the time of Gautama Buddha. These four were Vatsa, Avanti, Kosala, and Magadha. The life of Gautama Buddha was mainly associated with these four kingdoms.
Magadha formed one of the sixteen Mahā-Janapadas (Sanskrit: "Great Realms") or kingdoms in ancient India. The core of the kingdom was the area of Bihar south of the Ganges; its first capital was Rajagriha (modern Rajgir) then Pataliputra (modern Patna). Magadha expanded to include most of Bihar and Bengal with the conquest of Licchavi and Anga respectively, followed by much of eastern Uttar Pradesh and Orissa. The ancient kingdom of Magadha is heavily mentioned in Jain and Buddhist texts. It is also mentioned in the Ramayana, Mahabharata and Puranas. The earliest reference to the Magadha people occurs in the Atharva-Veda where they are found listed along with the Angas, Gandharis, and Mujavats. Magadha played an important role in the development of Jainism and Buddhism. The Magadha kingdom included republican communities such as the community of Rajakumara. Villages had their own assemblies under their local chiefs called Gramakas. Their administrations were divided into executive, judicial, and military functions.
Early sources, from the Buddhist Pāli Canon, the Jain Agamas and the Hindu Puranas, mention Magadha being ruled by the Haryanka dynasty for some 200 years, c. 600–413 BCE. King Bimbisara of the Haryanka dynasty led an active and expansive policy, conquering Anga in what is now eastern Bihar and West Bengal. King Bimbisara was overthrown and killed by his son, Prince Ajatashatru, who continued the expansionist policy of Magadha. During this period, Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, lived much of his life in Magadha kingdom. He attained enlightenment in Bodh Gaya, gave his first sermon in Sarnath and the first Buddhist council was held in Rajgriha. The Haryanka dynasty was overthrown by the Shishunaga dynasty. The last Shishunaga ruler, Kalasoka, was assassinated by Mahapadma Nanda in 345 BCE, the first of the so-called Nine Nandas, which were Mahapadma and his eight sons.
The Nanda Empire, at its greatest extent, extended from Bengal in the east, to the Punjab region in the west and as far south as the Vindhya Range. The Nanda dynasty was famed for their great wealth. The Nanda dynasty built on the foundations laid by their Haryanka and Shishunaga predecessors to create the first great empire of north India. To achieve this objective they built a vast army, consisting of 200,000 infantry, 20,000 cavalry, 2,000 war chariots and 3,000 war elephants (at the lowest estimates). According to the Greek historian Plutarch, the size of the Nanda army was even larger, numbering 200,000 infantry, 80,000 cavalry, 8,000 war chariots, and 6,000 war elephants. However, the Nanda Empire did not have the opportunity to see their army face Alexander the Great, who invaded north-western India at the time of Dhana Nanda, since Alexander was forced to confine his campaign to the plains of Punjab and Sindh, for his forces mutinied at the river Beas and refused to go any further upon encountering Nanda and Gangaridai forces.
The Maurya Empire (322–185 BCE) unified most of the Indian subcontinent into one state, and was the largest empire ever to exist on the Indian subcontinent. At its greatest extent, the Mauryan Empire stretched to the north up to the natural boundaries of the Himalayas and to the east into what is now Assam. To the west, it reached beyond modern Pakistan, to the Hindu Kush mountains in what is now Afghanistan. The empire was established by Chandragupta Maurya assisted by Chanakya (Kautilya) in Magadha (in modern Bihar) when he overthrew the Nanda dynasty.
Chandragupta rapidly expanded his power westwards across central and western India, and by 317 BCE the empire had fully occupied Northwestern India. The Mauryan Empire then defeated Seleucus I, a diadochus and founder of the Seleucid Empire, during the Seleucid–Mauryan war, thus gained additional territory west of the Indus River. Chandragupta's son Bindusara succeeded to the throne around 297 BCE. By the time he died in c. 272 BCE, a large part of the Indian subcontinent was under Mauryan suzerainty. However, the region of Kalinga (around modern day Odisha) remained outside Mauryan control, perhaps interfering with their trade with the south.
Bindusara was succeeded by Ashoka, whose reign lasted for around 37 years until his death in about 232 BCE. His campaign against the Kalingans in about 260 BCE, though successful, led to immense loss of life and misery. This filled Ashoka with remorse and led him to shun violence, and subsequently to embrace Buddhism. The empire began to decline after his death and the last Mauryan ruler, Brihadratha, was assassinated by Pushyamitra Shunga to establish the Shunga Empire.
Under Chandragupta Maurya and his successors, internal and external trade, agriculture, and economic activities all thrived and expanded across India thanks to the creation of a single efficient system of finance, administration, and security. The Mauryans built the Grand Trunk Road, one of Asia's oldest and longest major roads connecting the Indian subcontinent with Central Asia. After the Kalinga War, the Empire experienced nearly half a century of peace and security under Ashoka. Mauryan India also enjoyed an era of social harmony, religious transformation, and expansion of the sciences and of knowledge. Chandragupta Maurya's embrace of Jainism increased social and religious renewal and reform across his society, while Ashoka's embrace of Buddhism has been said to have been the foundation of the reign of social and political peace and non-violence across all of India. Ashoka sponsored the spreading of Buddhist missionaries into Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, West Asia, North Africa, and Mediterranean Europe.
The "Arthashastra" and the Edicts of Ashoka are the primary written records of the Mauryan times. Archaeologically, this period falls into the era of Northern Black Polished Ware. The Mauryan Empire was based on a modern and efficient economy and society. However, the sale of merchandise was closely regulated by the government. Although there was no banking in the Mauryan society, usury was customary. A significant amount of written records on slavery are found, suggesting a prevalence thereof. During this period, a high quality steel called Wootz steel was developed in south India and was later exported to China and Arabia.
During the Sangam period Tamil literature flourished from the 3rd century BCE to the 4th century CE. During this period, three Tamil dynasties, collectively known as the Three Crowned Kings of Tamilakam: Chera dynasty, Chola dynasty, and the Pandyan dynasty ruled parts of southern India.
The Sangam literature deals with the history, politics, wars, and culture of the Tamil people of this period. The scholars of the Sangam period rose from among the common people who sought the patronage of the Tamil Kings, but who mainly wrote about the common people and their concerns. Unlike Sanskrit writers who were mostly Brahmins, Sangam writers came from diverse classes and social backgrounds and were mostly non-Brahmins. They belonged to different faiths and professions such as farmers, artisans, merchants, monks, and priests, including also royalty and women.
Around c. 300 BCE – c. 200 CE, Pathupattu, an anthology of ten mid-length books collection, which is considered part of Sangam Literature, were composed; the composition of eight anthologies of poetic works Ettuthogai as well as the composition of eighteen minor poetic works Patiṉeṇkīḻkaṇakku; while Tolkāppiyam, the earliest grammarian work in the Tamil language was developed. Also, during Sangam period, two of the Five Great Epics of Tamil Literature were composed. Ilango Adigal composed "Silappatikaram", which is a non-religious work, that revolves around Kannagi, who having lost her husband to a miscarriage of justice at the court of the Pandyan dynasty, wreaks her revenge on his kingdom, and "Manimekalai", composed by Sīthalai Sāttanār, is a sequel to "Silappatikaram", and tells the story of the daughter of Kovalan and Madhavi, who became a Buddhist Bikkuni.
The time between the Maurya Empire in the 3rd century BCE and the end of the Gupta Empire in the 6th century CE is referred to as the "Classical" period of India. It can be divided in various sub-periods, depending on the chosen periodisation. Classical period begins after the decline of the Maurya Empire, and the corresponding rise of the Shunga dynasty and Satavahana dynasty. The Gupta Empire (4th–6th century) is regarded as the "Golden Age" of Hinduism, although a host of kingdoms ruled over India in these centuries. Also, the Sangam literature flourished from the 3rd century BCE to the 3rd century CE in southern India. During this period, India's economy is estimated to have been the largest in the world, having between one-third and one-quarter of the world's wealth, from 1 CE to 1000 CE.
The Shungas originated from Magadha, and controlled areas of the central and eastern Indian subcontinent from around 187 to 78 BCE. The dynasty was established by Pushyamitra Shunga, who overthrew the last Maurya emperor. Its capital was Pataliputra, but later emperors, such as Bhagabhadra, also held court at Vidisha, modern Besnagar in Eastern Malwa.
Pushyamitra Shunga ruled for 36 years and was succeeded by his son Agnimitra. There were ten Shunga rulers. However, after the death of Agnimitra, the empire rapidly disintegrated; inscriptions and coins indicate that much of northern and central India consisted of small kingdoms and city-states that were independent of any Shunga hegemony. The empire is noted for its numerous wars with both foreign and indigenous powers. They fought battles with the Mahameghavahana dynasty of Kalinga, Satavahana dynasty of Deccan, the Indo-Greeks, and possibly the Panchalas and Mitras of Mathura.
Art, education, philosophy, and other forms of learning flowered during this period including small terracotta images, larger stone sculptures, and architectural monuments such as the Stupa at Bharhut, and the renowned Great Stupa at Sanchi. The Shunga rulers helped to establish the tradition of royal sponsorship of learning and art. The script used by the empire was a variant of Brahmi and was used to write the Sanskrit language. The Shunga Empire played an imperative role in patronising Indian culture at a time when some of the most important developments in Hindu thought were taking place. This helped the empire flourish and gain power.
The Śātavāhanas were based from Amaravati in Andhra Pradesh as well as Junnar (Pune) and Prathisthan (Paithan) in Maharashtra. The territory of the empire covered large parts of India from the 1st century BCE onward. The Sātavāhanas started out as feudatories to the Mauryan dynasty, but declared independence with its decline.
The Sātavāhanas are known for their patronage of Hinduism and Buddhism, which resulted in Buddhist monuments from Ellora (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) to Amaravati. They were one of the first Indian states to issue coins struck with their rulers embossed. They formed a cultural bridge and played a vital role in trade as well as the transfer of ideas and culture to and from the Indo-Gangetic Plain to the southern tip of India.
They had to compete with the Shunga Empire and then the Kanva dynasty of Magadha to establish their rule. Later, they played a crucial role to protect large part of India against foreign invaders like the Sakas, Yavanas and Pahlavas. In particular, their struggles with the Western Kshatrapas went on for a long time. The notable rulers of the Satavahana Dynasty Gautamiputra Satakarni and Sri Yajna Sātakarni were able to defeat the foreign invaders like the Western Kshatrapas and to stop their expansion. In the 3rd century CE the empire was split into smaller states.
The Kushan Empire expanded out of what is now Afghanistan into the northwest of the Indian subcontinent under the leadership of their first emperor, Kujula Kadphises, about the middle of the 1st century CE. The Kushans were possibly of Tocharian speaking tribe; one of five branches of the Yuezhi confederation. By the time of his grandson, Kanishka the Great, the empire spread to encompass much of Afghanistan, and then the northern parts of the Indian subcontinent at least as far as Saketa and Sarnath near Varanasi (Banaras).
Emperor Kanishka was a great patron of Buddhism; however, as Kushans expanded southward, the deities of their later coinage came to reflect its new Hindu majority. They played an important role in the establishment of Buddhism in India and its spread to Central Asia and China.
Historian Vincent Smith said about Kanishka:
The empire linked the Indian Ocean maritime trade with the commerce of the Silk Road through the Indus valley, encouraging long-distance trade, particularly between China and Rome. The Kushans brought new trends to the budding and blossoming Gandhara art and Mathura art, which reached its peak during Kushan rule.
H.G. Rowlinson commented:
By the 3rd century, their empire in India was disintegrating and their last known great emperor was Vasudeva I.
The Gupta period was noted for cultural creativity, especially in literature, architecture, sculpture, and painting. The Gupta period produced scholars such as Kalidasa, Aryabhata, Varahamihira, Vishnu Sharma, and Vatsyayana who made great advancements in many academic fields. The Gupta period marked a watershed of Indian culture: the Guptas performed Vedic sacrifices to legitimise their rule, but they also patronised Buddhism, which continued to provide an alternative to Brahmanical orthodoxy. The military exploits of the first three rulers – Chandragupta I, Samudragupta, and Chandragupta II – brought much of India under their leadership. Science and political administration reached new heights during the Gupta era. Strong trade ties also made the region an important cultural centre and established it as a base that would influence nearby kingdoms and regions in Burma, Sri Lanka, Maritime Southeast Asia, and Indochina.
The latter Guptas successfully resisted the northwestern kingdoms until the arrival of the Alchon Huns, who established themselves in Afghanistan by the first half of the 5th century CE, with their capital at Bamiyan. However, much of the Deccan and southern India were largely unaffected by these events in the north.
The Vākāṭaka Empire originated from the Deccan in the mid-third century CE. Their state is believed to have extended from the southern edges of Malwa and Gujarat in the north to the Tungabhadra River in the south as well as from the Arabian Sea in the western to the edges of Chhattisgarh in the east. They were the most important successors of the Satavahanas in the Deccan, contemporaneous with the Guptas in northern India and succeeded by the Vishnukundina dynasty.
The Vakatakas are noted for having been patrons of the arts, architecture and literature. They led public works and their monuments are a visible legacy. The rock-cut Buddhist viharas and chaityas of Ajanta Caves (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) were built under the patronage of Vakataka emperor, Harishena.
Samudragupta's 4th-century Allahabad pillar inscription mentions Kamarupa (Western Assam) and Davaka (Central Assam) as frontier kingdoms of the Gupta Empire. Davaka was later absorbed by Kamarupa, which grew into a large kingdom that spanned from Karatoya river to near present Sadiya and covered the entire Brahmaputra valley, North Bengal, parts of Bangladesh and, at times Purnea and parts of West Bengal.
Ruled by three dynasties Varmanas (c. 350–650 CE), Mlechchha dynasty (c. 655–900 CE) and Kamarupa-Palas (c. 900–1100 CE), from their capitals in present-day Guwahati (Pragjyotishpura), Tezpur (Haruppeswara) and North Gauhati (Durjaya) respectively. All three dynasties claimed their descent from Narakasura, an immigrant from Aryavarta. In the reign of the Varman king, Bhaskar Varman (c. 600–650 CE), the Chinese traveller Xuanzang visited the region and recorded his travels. Later, after weakening and disintegration (after the Kamarupa-Palas), the Kamarupa tradition was somewhat extended until c. 1255 CE by the Lunar I (c. 1120–1185 CE) and Lunar II (c. 1155–1255 CE) dynasties. The Kamarupa kingdom came to an end in the middle of the 13th century when the Khen dynasty under Sandhya of Kamarupanagara (North Guwahati), moved his capital to Kamatapur (North Bengal) after the invasion of Muslim Turks, and established the Kamata kingdom.
The Pallavas, during the 4th to 9th centuries were, alongside the Guptas of the North, great patronisers of Sanskrit development in the South of the Indian subcontinent. The Pallava reign saw the first Sanskrit inscriptions in a script called Grantha. Early Pallavas had different connexions to Southeast Asian countries. The Pallavas used Dravidian architecture to build some very important Hindu temples and academies in Mamallapuram, Kanchipuram and other places; their rule saw the rise of great poets. The practice of dedicating temples to different deities came into vogue followed by fine artistic temple architecture and sculpture style of Vastu Shastra.
Pallavas reached the height of power during the reign of Mahendravarman I (571–630 CE) and Narasimhavarman I (630–668 CE) and dominated the Telugu and northern parts of the Tamil region for about six hundred years until the end of the 9th century.
Kadambas originated from Karnataka, was founded by Mayurasharma in 345 CE which at later times showed the potential of developing into imperial proportions, an indication to which is provided by the titles and epithets assumed by its rulers. King Mayurasharma defeated the armies of Pallavas of Kanchi possibly with help of some native tribes. The Kadamba fame reached its peak during the rule of Kakusthavarma, a notable ruler with whom even the kings of Gupta Dynasty of northern India cultivated marital alliances. The Kadambas were contemporaries of the Western Ganga Dynasty and together they formed the earliest native kingdoms to rule the land with absolute autonomy. The dynasty later continued to rule as a feudatory of larger Kannada empires, the Chalukya and the Rashtrakuta empires, for over five hundred years during which time they branched into minor dynasties known as the Kadambas of Goa, Kadambas of Halasi and Kadambas of Hangal.
Harsha ruled northern India from 606 to 647 CE. He was the son of Prabhakarvardhana and the younger brother of Rajyavardhana, who were members of the Vardhana dynasty and ruled Thanesar, in present-day Haryana.
After the downfall of the prior Gupta Empire in the middle of the 6th century, North India reverted to smaller republics and monarchical states. The power vacuum resulted in the rise of the Vardhanas of Thanesar, who began uniting the republics and monarchies from the Punjab to central India. After the death of Harsha's father and brother, representatives of the empire crowned Harsha emperor at an assembly in April 606 CE, giving him the title of Maharaja when he was merely 16 years old. At the height of his power, his Empire covered much of North and Northwestern India, extended East until Kamarupa, and South until Narmada River; and eventually made Kannauj (in present Uttar Pradesh state) his capital, and ruled until 647 CE.
The peace and prosperity that prevailed made his court a centre of cosmopolitanism, attracting scholars, artists and religious visitors from far and wide. During this time, Harsha converted to Buddhism from Surya worship. The Chinese traveller Xuanzang visited the court of Harsha and wrote a very favourable account of him, praising his justice and generosity. His biography "Harshacharita" ("Deeds of Harsha") written by Sanskrit poet Banabhatta, describes his association with Thanesar, besides mentioning the defence wall, a moat and the palace with a two-storied "Dhavalagriha" (White Mansion).
Early medieval India began after the end of the Gupta Empire in the 6th century CE. This period also covers the "Late Classical Age" of Hinduism, which began after the end of the Gupta Empire, and the collapse of the Empire of Harsha in the 7th century CE; the beginning of Imperial Kannauj, leading to the Tripartite struggle; and ended in the 13th century with the rise of the Delhi Sultanate in Northern India and the end of the Later Cholas with the death of Rajendra Chola III in 1279 in Southern India; however some aspects of the Classical period continued until the fall of the Vijayanagara Empire in the south around the 17th century.
From the fifth century to the thirteenth, Śrauta sacrifices declined, and initiatory traditions of Buddhism, Jainism or more commonly Shaivism, Vaishnavism and Shaktism expanded in royal courts. This period produced some of India's finest art, considered the epitome of classical development, and the development of the main spiritual and philosophical systems which continued to be in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.
In the 7th century CE, Kumārila Bhaṭṭa formulated his school of Mimamsa philosophy and defended the position on Vedic rituals against Buddhist attacks. Scholars note Bhaṭṭa's contribution to the decline of Buddhism in India. In the 8th century, Adi Shankara travelled across the Indian subcontinent to propagate and spread the doctrine of Advaita Vedanta, which he consolidated; and is credited with unifying the main characteristics of the current thoughts in Hinduism. He was a critic of both Buddhism and Minamsa school of Hinduism; and founded mathas (monasteries), in the four corners of the Indian subcontinent for the spread and development of Advaita Vedanta. While, Muhammad bin Qasim's invasion of Sindh (modern Pakistan) in 711 CE witnessed further decline of Buddhism. The Chach Nama records many instances of conversion of stupas to mosques such as at Nerun.
From the 8th to the 10th century, three dynasties contested for control of northern India: the Gurjara Pratiharas of Malwa, the Palas of Bengal, and the Rashtrakutas of the Deccan. The Sena dynasty would later assume control of the Pala Empire; the Gurjara Pratiharas fragmented into various states, notably the Paramaras of Malwa, the Chandelas of Bundelkhand, the Kalachuris of Mahakoshal, the Tomaras of Haryana, and the Chauhans of Rajputana, these states were some of the earliest Rajput kingdoms; while the Rashtrakutas were annexed by the Western Chalukyas. During this period, the Chaulukya dynasty emerged; the Chaulukyas constructed the Dilwara Temples, Modhera Sun Temple, Rani ki vav and their capital Anhilwara (modern Patan, Gujarat) was one of the largest cities in the Indian subcontinent, with the population estimated at 100,000 in 1000 CE.
The Chola Empire emerged as a major power during the reign of Raja Raja Chola I and Rajendra Chola I who successfully invaded parts of Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka in the 11th century. Lalitaditya Muktapida (r. 724–760 CE) was an emperor of the Kashmiri Karkoṭa dynasty, which exercised influence in northwestern India from 625 CE until 1003, and was followed by Lohara dynasty. Kalhana in his Rajatarangini credits king Lalitaditya with leading an aggressive military campaign in Northern India and Central Asia.
The Hindu Shahi dynasty ruled portions of eastern Afghanistan, northern Pakistan, and Kashmir from the mid-7th century to the early 11th century. While in Odisha, the Eastern Ganga Empire rose to power; noted for the advancement of Hindu architecture, most notable being Jagannath Temple and Konark Sun Temple, as well as being patrons of art and literature.
The Chalukya Empire ruled large parts of southern and central India between the 6th and the 12th centuries. During this period, they ruled as three related yet individual dynasties. The earliest dynasty, known as the "Badami Chalukyas", ruled from Vatapi (modern Badami) from the middle of the 6th century. The Badami Chalukyas began to assert their independence at the decline of the Kadamba kingdom of Banavasi and rapidly rose to prominence during the reign of Pulakeshin II. The rule of the Chalukyas marks an important milestone in the history of South India and a golden age in the history of Karnataka. The political atmosphere in South India shifted from smaller kingdoms to large empires with the ascendancy of Badami Chalukyas. A Southern India-based kingdom took control and consolidated the entire region between the Kaveri and the Narmada rivers. The rise of this empire saw the birth of efficient administration, overseas trade and commerce and the development of new style of architecture called "Chalukyan architecture". The Chalukya dynasty ruled parts of southern and central India from Badami in Karnataka between 550 and 750, and then again from Kalyani between 970 and 1190.
Founded by Dantidurga around 753, the Rashtrakuta Empire ruled from its capital at Manyakheta for almost two centuries. At its peak, the Rashtrakutas ruled from the Ganges River and Yamuna River doab in the north to Cape Comorin in the south, a fruitful time of political expansion, architectural achievements and famous literary contributions.
The early rulers of this dynasty were Hindu, but the later rulers were strongly influenced by Jainism. Govinda III and Amoghavarsha were the most famous of the long line of able administrators produced by the dynasty. Amoghavarsha, who ruled for 64 years, was also an author and wrote Kavirajamarga, the earliest known Kannada work on poetics. Architecture reached a milestone in the Dravidian style, the finest example of which is seen in the Kailasanath Temple at Ellora. Other important contributions are the Kashivishvanatha temple and the Jain Narayana temple at Pattadakal in Karnataka.
The Arab traveller Suleiman described the Rashtrakuta Empire as one of the four great Empires of the world. The Rashtrakuta period marked the beginning of the golden age of southern Indian mathematics. The great south Indian mathematician Mahāvīra lived in the Rashtrakuta Empire and his text had a huge impact on the medieval south Indian mathematicians who lived after him. The Rashtrakuta rulers also patronised men of letters, who wrote in a variety of languages from Sanskrit to the Apabhraṃśas.
The Gurjara-Pratiharas were instrumental in containing Arab armies moving east of the Indus River. Nagabhata I defeated the Arab army under Junaid and Tamin during the Caliphate campaigns in India. Under Nagabhata II, the Gurjara-Pratiharas became the most powerful dynasty in northern India. He was succeeded by his son Ramabhadra, who ruled briefly before being succeeded by his son, Mihira Bhoja. Under Bhoja and his successor Mahendrapala I, the Pratihara Empire reached its peak of prosperity and power. By the time of Mahendrapala, the extent of its territory rivalled that of the Gupta Empire stretching from the border of Sindh in the west to Bengal in the east and from the Himalayas in the north to areas past the Narmada in the south. The expansion triggered a tripartite power struggle with the Rashtrakuta and Pala empires for control of the Indian subcontinent. During this period, Imperial Pratihara took the title of "Maharajadhiraja of Āryāvarta" ("Great King of Kings of India").
By the 10th century, several feudatories of the empire took advantage of the temporary weakness of the Gurjara-Pratiharas to declare their independence, notably the Paramaras of Malwa, the Chandelas of Bundelkhand, the Kalachuris of Mahakoshal, the Tomaras of Haryana, and the Chauhans of Rajputana.
The Pala Empire was founded by Gopala I. It was ruled by a Buddhist dynasty from Bengal in the eastern region of the Indian subcontinent. The Palas reunified Bengal after the fall of Shashanka's Gauda Kingdom.
The Palas were followers of the Mahayana and Tantric schools of Buddhism, they also patronised Shaivism and Vaishnavism. The morpheme "Pala", meaning "protector", was used as an ending for the names of all the Pala monarchs. The empire reached its peak under Dharmapala and Devapala. Dharmapala is believed to have conquered Kanauj and extended his sway up to the farthest limits of India in the northwest.
The Pala Empire can be considered as the golden era of Bengal in many ways. Dharmapala founded the Vikramashila and revived Nalanda, considered one of the first great universities in recorded history. Nalanda reached its height under the patronage of the Pala Empire. The Palas also built many viharas. They maintained close cultural and commercial ties with countries of Southeast Asia and Tibet. Sea trade added greatly to the prosperity of the Pala Empire. The Arab merchant Suleiman notes the enormity of the Pala army in his memoirs.
Medieval Cholas rose to prominence during the middle of the 9th century CE and established the greatest empire South India had seen. They successfully united the South India under their rule and through their naval strength extended their influence in the Southeast Asian countries such as Srivijaya. Under Rajaraja Chola I and his successors Rajendra Chola I, Rajadhiraja Chola, Virarajendra Chola and Kulothunga Chola I the dynasty became a military, economic and cultural power in South Asia and South-East Asia. Rajendra Chola I's navies went even further, occupying the sea coasts from Burma to Vietnam, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the Lakshadweep (Laccadive) islands, Sumatra, and the Malay Peninsula in Southeast Asia and the Pegu islands. The power of the new empire was proclaimed to the eastern world by the expedition to the Ganges which Rajendra Chola I undertook and by the occupation of cities of the maritime empire of Srivijaya in Southeast Asia, as well as by the repeated embassies to China.
They dominated the political affairs of Sri Lanka for over two centuries through repeated invasions and occupation. They also had continuing trade contacts with the Arabs in the west and with the Chinese empire in the east. Rajaraja Chola I and his equally distinguished son Rajendra Chola I gave political unity to the whole of Southern India and established the Chola Empire as a respected sea power. Under the Cholas, the South India reached new heights of excellence in art, religion and literature. In all of these spheres, the Chola period marked the culmination of movements that had begun in an earlier age under the Pallavas. Monumental architecture in the form of majestic temples and sculpture in stone and bronze reached a finesse never before achieved in India.
The Western Chalukya Empire ruled most of the western Deccan, South India, between the 10th and 12th centuries. Vast areas between the Narmada River in the north and Kaveri River in the south came under Chalukya control. During this period the other major ruling families of the Deccan, the Hoysalas, the Seuna Yadavas of Devagiri, the Kakatiya dynasty and the Southern Kalachuris, were subordinates of the Western Chalukyas and gained their independence only when the power of the Chalukya waned during the latter half of the 12th century.
The Western Chalukyas developed an architectural style known today as a transitional style, an architectural link between the style of the early Chalukya dynasty and that of the later Hoysala empire. Most of its monuments are in the districts bordering the Tungabhadra River in central Karnataka. Well known examples are the Kasivisvesvara Temple at Lakkundi, the Mallikarjuna Temple at Kuruvatti, the Kallesvara Temple at Bagali, Siddhesvara Temple at Haveri, and the Mahadeva Temple at Itagi. This was an important period in the development of fine arts in Southern India, especially in literature as the Western Chalukya kings encouraged writers in the native language of Kannada, and Sanskrit like the philosopher and statesman Basava and the great mathematician Bhāskara II.
The late medieval period is marked by repeated invasions of the Muslim Central Asian nomadic clans, the rule of the Delhi sultanate, and by the growth of other dynasties and empires, built upon military technology of the Sultanate.
The Delhi Sultanate was a Muslim sultanate based in Delhi, ruled by several dynasties of Turkic, Turko-Indian and Pathan origins. It ruled large parts of the Indian subcontinent from the 13th century to the early 16th century. In the 12th and 13th centuries, Central Asian Turks invaded parts of northern India and established the Delhi Sultanate in the former Hindu holdings. The subsequent Slave dynasty of Delhi managed to conquer large areas of northern India, while the Khalji dynasty conquered most of central India while forcing the principal Hindu kingdoms of South India to become vassal states. However, they were ultimately unsuccessful in conquering and uniting the Indian subcontinent.
The Sultanate ushered in a period of Indian cultural renaissance. The resulting "Indo-Muslim" fusion of cultures left lasting syncretic monuments in architecture, music, literature, religion, and clothing. It is surmised that the language of Urdu was born during the Delhi Sultanate period as a result of the intermingling of the local speakers of Sanskritic Prakrits with immigrants speaking Persian, Turkic, and Arabic under the Muslim rulers. The Delhi Sultanate is the only Indo-Islamic empire to enthrone one of the few female rulers in India, Razia Sultana (1236–1240).
During the Delhi Sultanate, there was a synthesis between Indian civilization and Islamic civilization. The latter was a cosmopolitan civilization, with a multicultural and pluralistic society, and wide-ranging international networks, including social and economic networks, spanning large parts of Afro-Eurasia, leading to escalating circulation of goods, peoples, technologies and ideas. While initially disruptive due to the passing of power from native Indian elites to Turkic Muslim elites, the Delhi Sultanate was responsible for integrating the Indian subcontinent into a growing world system, drawing India into a wider international network, which had a significant impact on Indian culture and society. However, the Delhi Sultanate also caused large-scale destruction and desecration of temples in the Indian subcontinent.
The Mongol invasions of India were successfully repelled by the Delhi Sultanate. A major factor in their success was their Turkic Mamluk slave army, who were highly skilled in the same style of nomadic cavalry warfare as the Mongols, as a result of having similar nomadic Central Asian roots. It is possible that the Mongol Empire may have expanded into India were it not for the Delhi Sultanate's role in repelling them. By repeatedly repulsing the Mongol raiders, the sultanate saved India from the devastation visited on West and Central Asia, setting the scene for centuries of migration of fleeing soldiers, learned men, mystics, traders, artists, and artisans from that region into the subcontinent, thereby creating a syncretic Indo-Islamic culture in the north.
A Turco-Mongol conqueror in Central Asia, Timur (Tamerlane), attacked the reigning Sultan Nasir-u Din Mehmud of the Tughlaq Dynasty in the north Indian city of Delhi. The Sultan's army was defeated on 17 December 1398. Timur entered Delhi and the city was sacked, destroyed, and left in ruins after Timur's army had killed and plundered for three days and nights. He ordered the whole city to be sacked except for the sayyids, scholars, and the "other Muslims" (artists); 100,000 war prisoners were put to death in one day. The Sultanate suffered significantly from the sacking of Delhi revived briefly under the Lodi Dynasty, but it was a shadow of the former.
The Bhakti movement refers to the theistic devotional trend that emerged in medieval Hinduism and later revolutionised in Sikhism. It originated in the seventh-century south India (now parts of Tamil Nadu and Kerala), and spread northwards. It swept over east and north India from the 15th century onwards, reaching its zenith between the 15th and 17th century CE.
The Vijayanagara Empire was established in 1336 by Harihara I and his brother Bukka Raya I of Sangama Dynasty, which originated as a political heir of the Hoysala Empire, Kakatiya Empire, and the Pandyan Empire. The empire rose to prominence as a culmination of attempts by the south Indian powers to ward off Islamic invasions by the end of the 13th century. It lasted until 1646, although its power declined after a major military defeat in 1565 by the combined armies of the Deccan sultanates. The empire is named after its capital city of Vijayanagara, whose ruins surround present day Hampi, now a World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India.
In the first two decades after the founding of the empire, Harihara I gained control over most of the area south of the Tungabhadra river and earned the title of "Purvapaschima Samudradhishavara" ("master of the eastern and western seas"). By 1374 Bukka Raya I, successor to Harihara I, had defeated the chiefdom of Arcot, the Reddys of Kondavidu, and the Sultan of Madurai and had gained control over Goa in the west and the Tungabhadra-Krishna River doab in the north.
With the Vijayanagara Kingdom now imperial in stature, Harihara II, the second son of Bukka Raya I, further consolidated the kingdom beyond the Krishna River and brought the whole of South India under the Vijayanagara umbrella. The next ruler, Deva Raya I, emerged successful against the Gajapatis of Odisha and undertook important works of fortification and irrigation. Italian traveler Niccolo de Conti wrote of him as the most powerful ruler of India. Deva Raya II (called "Gajabetekara") succeeded to the throne in 1424 and was possibly the most capable of the Sangama dynasty rulers. He quelled rebelling feudal lords as well as the Zamorin of Calicut and Quilon in the south. He invaded the island of Sri Lanka and became overlord of the kings of Burma at Pegu and Tanasserim.
The Vijayanagara Emperors were tolerant of all religions and sects, as writings by foreign visitors show. The kings used titles such as "Gobrahamana Pratipalanacharya" ("literally", "protector of cows and Brahmins") and "Hindurayasuratrana" ("lit", "upholder of Hindu faith") that testified to their intention of protecting Hinduism and yet were at the same time staunchly Islamicate in their court ceremonials and dress. The empire's founders, Harihara I and Bukka Raya I, were devout Shaivas (worshippers of Shiva), but made grants to the Vaishnava order of Sringeri with Vidyaranya as their patron saint, and designated "Varaha" (the boar, an Avatar of Vishnu) as their emblem. Over one-fourth of the archaeological dig found an "Islamic Quarter" not far from the "Royal Quarter". Nobles from Central Asia's Timurid kingdoms also came to Vijayanagara. The later Saluva and Tuluva kings were Vaishnava by faith, but worshipped at the feet of Lord Virupaksha (Shiva) at Hampi as well as Lord Venkateshwara (Vishnu) at Tirupati. A Sanskrit work, "Jambavati Kalyanam" by King Krishnadevaraya, called Lord Virupaksha "Karnata Rajya Raksha Mani" ("protective jewel of Karnata Empire"). The kings patronised the saints of the dvaita order (philosophy of dualism) of Madhvacharya at Udupi.
The empire's legacy includes many monuments spread over South India, the best known of which is the group at Hampi. The previous temple building traditions in South India came together in the Vijayanagara Architecture style. The mingling of all faiths and vernaculars inspired architectural innovation of Hindu temple construction, first in the Deccan and later in the Dravidian idioms using the local granite. South Indian mathematics flourished under the protection of the Vijayanagara Empire in Kerala. The south Indian mathematician Madhava of Sangamagrama founded the famous Kerala School of Astronomy and Mathematics in the 14th century which produced a lot of great south Indian mathematicians like Parameshvara, Nilakantha Somayaji and Jyeṣṭhadeva in medieval south India. Efficient administration and vigorous overseas trade brought new technologies such as water management systems for irrigation. The empire's patronage enabled fine arts and literature to reach new heights in Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, and Sanskrit, while Carnatic music evolved into its current form.
Vijayanagara went into decline after the defeat in the Battle of Talikota (1565). After the death of Aliya Rama Raya in the Battle of Talikota, Tirumala Deva Raya started the Aravidu dynasty, moved and founded a new capital of Penukonda to replace the destroyed Hampi, and attempted to reconstitute the remains of Vijayanagara Empire. Tirumala abdicated in 1572, dividing the remains of his kingdom to his three sons, and pursued a religious life until his death in 1578. The Aravidu dynasty successors ruled the region but the empire collapsed in 1614, and the final remains ended in 1646, from continued wars with the Bijapur sultanate and others. During this period, more kingdoms in South India became independent and separate from Vijayanagara. These include the Mysore Kingdom, Keladi Nayaka, Nayaks of Madurai, Nayaks of Tanjore, Nayakas of Chitradurga and Nayak Kingdom of Gingee – all of which declared independence and went on to have a significant impact on the history of South India in the coming centuries.
For two and a half centuries from the mid 13th century, politics in Northern India was dominated by the Delhi Sultanate, and in Southern India by the Vijayanagar Empire. However, there were other regional powers present as well. After fall of Pala empire, the Chero dynasty ruled much of Eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand from 12th CE to 18th CE. The Reddy dynasty successfully defeated the Delhi Sultanate; and extended their rule from Cuttack in the north to Kanchi in the south, eventually being absorbed into the expanding Vijayanagara Empire.
In the north, the Rajput kingdoms remained the dominant force in Western and Central India. The Mewar dynasty under Maharana Hammir defeated and captured Muhammad Tughlaq with the Bargujars as his main allies. Tughlaq had to pay a huge ransom and relinquish all of Mewar's lands. After this event, the Delhi Sultanate did not attack Chittor for a few hundred years. The Rajputs re-established their independence, and Rajput states were established as far east as Bengal and north into the Punjab. The Tomaras established themselves at Gwalior, and Man Singh Tomar reconstructed the Gwalior Fort which still stands there. During this period, Mewar emerged as the leading Rajput state; and Rana Kumbha expanded his kingdom at the expense of the Sultanates of Malwa and Gujarat. The next great Rajput ruler, Rana Sanga of Mewar, became the principal player in Northern India. His objectives grew in scope – he planned to conquer the much sought after prize of the Muslim rulers of the time, Delhi. But, his defeat in the Battle of Khanwa, consolidated the new Mughal dynasty in India. The Mewar dynasty under Maharana Udai Singh II faced further defeat by Mughal emperor Akbar, with their capital Chittor being captured. Due to this event, Udai Singh II founded Udaipur, which became the new capital of the Mewar kingdom. His son, Maharana Pratap of Mewar, firmly resisted the Mughals. Akbar sent many missions against him. He survived to ultimately gain control of all of Mewar, excluding the Chittor Fort.
In the south, the Bahmani Sultanate, which was established either by a Brahman convert or patronised by a Brahman and from that source it was given the name "Bahmani", was the chief rival of the Vijayanagara, and frequently created difficulties for the Vijayanagara. In the early 16th century Krishnadevaraya of the Vijayanagar Empire defeated the last remnant of Bahmani Sultanate power. After which, the Bahmani Sultanate collapsed, resulting it being split into five small Deccan sultanates. In 1490, Ahmadnagar declared independence, followed by Bijapur and Berar in the same year; Golkonda became independent in 1518 and Bidar in 1528. Although generally rivals, they did ally against the Vijayanagara Empire in 1565, permanently weakening Vijayanagar in the Battle of Talikota.
In the East, the Gajapati Kingdom remained a strong regional power to reckon with, associated with a high point in the growth of regional culture and architecture. Under Kapilendradeva, Gajapatis became an empire stretching from the lower Ganga in the north to the Kaveri in the south. In Northeast India, the Ahom Kingdom was a major power for six centuries; led by Lachit Borphukan, the Ahoms decisively defeated the Mughal army at the Battle of Saraighat during the Ahom-Mughal conflicts. Further east in Northeastern India was the Kingdom of Manipur, which ruled from their seat of power at Kangla Fort and developed a sophisticated Hindu Gaudiya Vaishnavite culture.
The early modern period of Indian history is dated from 1526 CE to 1858 CE, corresponding to the rise and fall of the Mughal Empire, which inherited from the Timurid Renaissance. During this age India's economy expanded, relative peace was maintained and arts were patronized. This period witnessed the further development of Indo-Islamic architecture; the growth of Maratha and Sikhs were able to rule significant regions of India in the waning days of the Mughal empire, which formally came to an end when the British Raj was founded.
In 1526, Babur, a Timurid descendant of Timur and Genghis Khan from Fergana Valley (modern day Uzbekistan), swept across the Khyber Pass and established the Mughal Empire, which at its zenith covered much of South Asia. However, his son Humayun was defeated by the Afghan warrior Sher Shah Suri in the year 1540, and Humayun was forced to retreat to Kabul. After Sher Shah's death, his son Islam Shah Suri and his Hindu general Hemu Vikramaditya had established secular rule in North India from Delhi until 1556. After winning Battle of Delhi, Akbar's forces defeated Hemu in the Second Battle of Panipat on 6 November 1556.
The famous emperor Akbar the Great, who was the grandson of Babar, tried to establish a good relationship with the Hindus. Akbar declared "Amari" or non-killing of animals in the holy days of Jainism. He rolled back the "jizya" tax for non-Muslims. The Mughal emperors married local royalty, allied themselves with local "maharajas", and attempted to fuse their Turko-Persian culture with ancient Indian styles, creating a unique Indo-Persian culture and Indo-Saracenic architecture. Akbar married a Rajput princess, Mariam-uz-Zamani, and they had a son, Jahangir, who was part-Mughal and part-Rajput, as were future Mughal emperors. Jahangir more or less followed his father's policy. The Mughal dynasty ruled most of the Indian subcontinent by 1600. The reign of Shah Jahan was the golden age of Mughal architecture. He erected several large monuments, the most famous of which is the Taj Mahal at Agra, as well as the Moti Masjid, Agra, the Red Fort, the Jama Masjid, Delhi, and the Lahore Fort.
It was the second largest empire to have existed in the Indian subcontinent, and surpassed China to be become the world's largest economic power, controlling 24.4% of the world economy, and the world leader in manufacturing, producing 25% of global industrial output. The economic and demographic upsurge was stimulated by Mughal agrarian reforms that intensified agricultural production, a proto-industrializing economy that began moving towards industrial manufacturing, and a relatively high degree of urbanization for its time.
The Mughal Empire reached the zenith of its territorial expanse during the reign of Aurangzeb and also started its terminal decline in his reign due to Maratha military resurgence under Shivaji. Historian Sir. J.N. Sarkar wrote "All seemed to have been gained by Aurangzeb now, but in reality all was lost." He was less tolerant than his predecessors, reintroducing the "jizya" tax and destroying several historical temples, while at the same time building more Hindu temples than he destroyed, employing significantly more Hindus in his imperial bureaucracy than his predecessors, and opposing Sunni Muslim bigotry against Hindus and Shia Muslims. However, he is often blamed for the erosion of the tolerant syncretic tradition of his predecessors, as well as increasing brutality and centralisation, which may have played a large part in the dynasty's downfall after Aurangzeb, who unlike previous emperors, imposed relatively less pluralistic policies on the general population, which may have inflamed the majority Hindu population.
The empire went into decline thereafter. The Mughals suffered several blows due to invasions from Marathas, Jats and Afghans. In 1737, the Maratha general Bajirao of the Maratha Empire invaded and plundered Delhi. Under the general Amir Khan Umrao Al Udat, the Mughal Emperor sent 8,000 troops to drive away the 5,000 Maratha cavalry soldiers. Baji Rao, however, easily routed the novice Mughal general and the rest of the imperial Mughal army fled. In 1737, in the final defeat of Mughal Empire, the commander-in-chief of the Mughal Army, Nizam-ul-mulk, was routed at Bhopal by the Maratha army. This essentially brought an end to the Mughal Empire. While Bharatpur State under Jat ruler Suraj Mal, overran the Mughal garrison at Agra and plundered the city taking with them the two great silver doors of the entrance of the famous Taj Mahal; which were then melted down by Suraj Mal in 1763. In 1739, Nader Shah, emperor of Iran, defeated the Mughal army at the Battle of Karnal. After this victory, Nader captured and sacked Delhi, carrying away many treasures, including the Peacock Throne. Mughal rule was further weakened by constant native Indian resistance; Banda Singh Bahadur led the Sikh Khalsa against Mughal religious oppression; Hindu Rajas of Bengal, Pratapaditya and Raja Sitaram Ray revolted; and Maharaja Chhatrasal, of Bundela Rajputs, fought the Mughals and established the Panna State. The Mughal dynasty was reduced to puppet rulers by 1757. Sikh holocaust of 1762 took place under the Muslim provincial government based at Lahore to wipe out the Sikhs, with 30,000 Sikhs being killed, an offensive that had begun with the Mughals, with the Sikh holocaust of 1746, and lasted several decades under its Muslim successor states.
In the early 18th century the Maratha Empire extended suzerainty over the Indian subcontinent. Under the Peshwas, the Marathas consolidated and ruled over much of South Asia. The Marathas are credited to a large extent for ending Mughal rule in India.
The Maratha kingdom was founded and consolidated by Chatrapati Shivaji, a Maratha aristocrat of the Bhonsle clan. However, the credit for making the Marathas formidable power nationally goes to Peshwa Bajirao I. Historian K.K. Datta wrote that Bajirao I "may very well be regarded as the second founder of the Maratha Empire".
By the early 18th century, the Maratha Kingdom had transformed itself into the Maratha Empire under the rule of the "Peshwas" (prime ministers). In 1737, the Marathas defeated a Mughal army in their capital, in the Battle of Delhi. The Marathas continued their military campaigns against the Mughals, Nizam, Nawab of Bengal and the Durrani Empire to further extend their boundaries. By 1760, the domain of the Marathas stretched across most of the Indian subcontinent. The Marathas even discussed abolishing the Mughal throne and placing Vishwasrao Peshwa on the Mughal imperial throne in Delhi.
The empire at its peak stretched from Tamil Nadu in the south, to Peshawar (modern-day Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan ) in the north, and Bengal in the east. The Northwestern expansion of the Marathas was stopped after the Third Battle of Panipat (1761). However, the Maratha authority in the north was re-established within a decade under Peshwa Madhavrao I.
Under Madhavrao I, the strongest knights were granted semi-autonomy, creating a confederacy of Maratha states under the Gaekwads of Baroda, the Holkars of Indore and Malwa, the Scindias of Gwalior and Ujjain, the Bhonsales of Nagpur and the Puars of Dhar and Dewas. In 1775, the East India Company intervened in a Peshwa family succession struggle in Pune, which led to the First Anglo-Maratha War, resulting in a Maratha victory. The Marathas remained a major power in India until their defeat in the Second and Third Anglo-Maratha Wars (1805–1818), which resulted in the East India Company controlling most of India.
The Sikh Empire, ruled by members of the Sikh religion, was a political entity that governed the Northwestern regions of the Indian subcontinent. The empire, based around the Punjab region, existed from 1799 to 1849. It was forged, on the foundations of the Khalsa, under the leadership of Maharaja Ranjit Singh (1780–1839) from an array of autonomous Punjabi Misls of the Sikh Confederacy.
Maharaja Ranjit Singh consolidated many parts of northern India into an empire. He primarily used his Sikh Khalsa Army that he trained in European military techniques and equipped with modern military technologies. Ranjit Singh proved himself to be a master strategist and selected well-qualified generals for his army. He continuously defeated the Afghan armies and successfully ended the Afghan-Sikh Wars. In stages, he added central Punjab, the provinces of Multan and Kashmir, and the Peshawar Valley to his empire.
At its peak, in the 19th century, the empire extended from the Khyber Pass in the west, to Kashmir in the north, to Sindh in the south, running along Sutlej river to Himachal in the east. After the death of Ranjit Singh, the empire weakened, leading to conflict with the British East India Company. The hard-fought first Anglo-Sikh war and second Anglo-Sikh war marked the downfall of the Sikh Empire, making it among the last areas of the Indian subcontinent to be conquered by the British.
The Kingdom of Mysore in southern India expanded to its greatest extent under Hyder Ali and his son Tipu Sultan in the later half of the 18th century. Under their rule, Mysore fought series of wars against the Marathas and British or their combined forces. The Maratha–Mysore War ended in April 1787, following the finalizing of "treaty of Gajendragad", in which, Tipu Sultan was obligated to pay tribute to the Marathas. Concurrently, the Anglo-Mysore Wars took place, where the Mysoreans used the Mysorean rockets. The Fourth Anglo-Mysore War (1798–1799) saw the death of Tipu. Mysore's alliance with the French was seen as a threat to the British East India Company, and Mysore was attacked from all four sides. The Nizam of Hyderabad and the Marathas launched an invasion from the north. The British won a decisive victory at the Siege of Seringapatam (1799).
Hyderabad was founded by the Qutb Shahi dynasty of Golconda in 1591. Following a brief Mughal rule, Asif Jah, a Mughal official, seized control of Hyderabad and declared himself Nizam-al-Mulk of Hyderabad in 1724. The Nizams lost considerable territory and paid tribute to the Maratha Empire after being routed in multiple battles, such as the Battle of Palkhed. However, the Nizams maintained their sovereignty from 1724 until 1948 through paying tributes to the Marathas, and later, being vassels of the British. Hyderabad State became princely state in British India 1798.
The Nawabs of Bengal had become the de facto rulers of Bengal following the decline of Mughal Empire. However, their rule was interrupted by Marathas who carried out six expeditions in Bengal from 1741 to 1748, as a result of which Bengal became a tributary state of Marathas. On 23 June 1757, Siraj ud-Daulah, the last independent Nawab of Bengal was betrayed in the Battle of Plassey by Mir Jafar. He lost to the British, who took over the charge of Bengal in 1757, installed Mir Jafar on the "Masnad" (throne) and established itself to a political power in Bengal. In 1765 the system of Dual Government was established, in which the Nawabs ruled on behalf of the British and were mere puppets to the British. In 1772 the system was abolished and Bengal was brought under the direct control of the British. In 1793, when the "Nizamat" (governorship) of the Nawab was also taken away from them, they remained as the mere pensioners of the British East India Company.
In the 18th century, the whole of Rajputana was virtually subdued by the Marathas. The Second Anglo-Maratha War distracted the Marathas from 1807 to 1809, but afterward Maratha domination of Rajputana resumed. In 1817, the British went to war with the Pindaris, raiders who were based in Maratha territory, which quickly became the Third Anglo-Maratha War, and the British government offered its protection to the Rajput rulers from the Pindaris and the Marathas. By the end of 1818 similar treaties had been executed between the other Rajput states and Britain. The Maratha Sindhia ruler of Gwalior gave up the district of Ajmer-Merwara to the British, and Maratha influence in Rajasthan came to an end. Most of the Rajput princes remained loyal to Britain in the Revolt of 1857, and few political changes were made in Rajputana until Indian independence in 1947. The Rajputana Agency contained more than 20 princely states, most notable being Udaipur State, Jaipur State, Bikaner State and Jodhpur State.
After the fall of the Maratha Empire, many Maratha dynasties and states became vassals in a subsidiary alliance with the British, to form the largest bloc of princely states in the British Raj, in terms of territory and population. With the decline of the Sikh Empire, after the First Anglo-Sikh War in 1846, under the terms of the Treaty of Amritsar, the British government sold Kashmir to Maharaja Gulab Singh and the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, the second-largest princely state in British India, was created by the Dogra dynasty. While in Eastern and Northeastern India, the Hindu and Buddhist states of Cooch Behar Kingdom, Twipra Kingdom and Kingdom of Sikkim were annexed by the British and made vassal princely state.
After the fall of the Vijayanagara Empire, Polygar states emerged in Southern India; and managed to weather invasions and flourished until the Polygar Wars, where they were defeated by the British East India Company forces. Around the 18th century, the Kingdom of Nepal was formed by Rajput rulers.
In 1498, a Portuguese fleet under Vasco da Gama successfully discovered a new sea route from Europe to India, which paved the way for direct Indo-European commerce. The Portuguese soon set up trading posts in Goa, Daman, Diu and Bombay. After their conquest in Goa, the Portuguese instituted the Goa Inquisition, where new Indian converts and non-Christians were punished for suspected heresy against Christianity and were condemned to be burnt. Goa became the main Portuguese base until it was annexed by India in 1961.
The next to arrive were the Dutch, with their main base in Ceylon. They established ports in Malabar. However, their expansion into India was halted, after their defeat in the Battle of Colachel by the Kingdom of Travancore, during the Travancore-Dutch War. The Dutch never recovered from the defeat and no longer posed a large colonial threat to India.
The internal conflicts among Indian kingdoms gave opportunities to the European traders to gradually establish political influence and appropriate lands. Following the Dutch, the British—who set up in the west coast port of Surat in 1619—and the French both established trading outposts in India. Although these continental European powers controlled various coastal regions of southern and eastern India during the ensuing century, they eventually lost all their territories in India to the British, with the exception of the French outposts of Pondichéry and Chandernagore, and the Portuguese colonies of Goa, Daman and Diu.
The English East India Company was founded in 1600, as "The Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies". It gained a foothold in India with the establishment of a factory in Masulipatnam on the Eastern coast of India in 1611 and the grant of the rights to establish a factory in Surat in 1612 by the Mughal emperor Jahangir. In 1640, after receiving similar permission from the Vijayanagara ruler farther south, a second factory was established in Madras on the southeastern coast. Bombay island, not far from Surat, a former Portuguese outpost gifted to England as dowry in the marriage of Catherine of Braganza to Charles II, was leased by the company in 1668. Two decades later, the company established a presence on the eastern coast as well; far up that coast, in the Ganges River delta, a factory was set up in Calcutta. Since, during this time other "companies"—established by the Portuguese, Dutch, French, and Danish—were similarly expanding in the region, the English Company's unremarkable beginnings on coastal India offered no clues to what would become a lengthy presence on the Indian subcontinent.
The company's victory under Robert Clive in the 1757 Battle of Plassey and another victory in the 1764 Battle of Buxar (in Bihar), consolidated the company's power, and forced emperor Shah Alam II to appoint it the "diwan", or revenue collector, of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa. The company thus became the "de facto" ruler of large areas of the lower Gangetic plain by 1773. It also proceeded by degrees to expand its dominions around Bombay and Madras. The Anglo-Mysore Wars (1766–99) and the Anglo-Maratha Wars (1772–1818) left it in control of large areas of India south of the Sutlej River. With the defeat of the Marathas, no native power represented a threat for the company any longer.
The expansion of the company's power chiefly took two forms. The first of these was the outright annexation of Indian states and subsequent direct governance of the underlying regions, which collectively came to comprise British India. The annexed regions included the North-Western Provinces (comprising Rohilkhand, Gorakhpur, and the Doab) (1801), Delhi (1803), Assam (Ahom Kingdom 1828), and Sindh (1843). Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir, were annexed after the Anglo-Sikh Wars in 1849–56 (Period of tenure of Marquess of Dalhousie Governor General); however, Kashmir was immediately sold under the Treaty of Amritsar (1850) to the Dogra Dynasty of Jammu, and thereby became a princely state. In 1854 Berar was annexed, and the state of Oudh two years later.
The second form of asserting power involved treaties in which Indian rulers acknowledged the company's hegemony in return for limited internal autonomy. Since the company operated under financial constraints, it had to set up "political" underpinnings for its rule. The most important such support came from the "subsidiary alliances" with Indian princes during the first 75 years of Company rule. In the early 19th century, the territories of these princes accounted for two-thirds of India. When an Indian ruler, who was able to secure his territory, wanted to enter such an alliance, the company welcomed it as an economical method of indirect rule, which did not involve the economic costs of direct administration or the political costs of gaining the support of alien subjects.
In return, the company undertook the "defense of these subordinate allies and treated them with traditional respect and marks of honor." Subsidiary alliances created the princely states, of the Hindu maharajas and the Muslim nawabs. Prominent among the princely states were: Cochin (1791), Jaipur (1794), Travancore (1795), Hyderabad (1798), Mysore (1799), Cis-Sutlej Hill States (1815), Central India Agency (1819), Cutch and Gujarat Gaikwad territories (1819), Rajputana (1818), and Bahawalpur (1833).
The Indian indenture system was an ongoing system of indenture, a form of debt bondage, by which 3.5 million Indians were transported to various colonies of European powers to provide labor for the (mainly sugar) plantations. It started from the end of slavery in 1833 and continued until 1920. This resulted in the development of large Indian diaspora, which spread from the Indian Ocean (i.e. Réunion and Mauritius) to Pacific Ocean (i.e. Fiji), as well as the growth of Indo-Caribbean and Indo-African population.
The Indian rebellion of 1857 was a large-scale rebellion by soldiers employed by the British East India Company in northern and central India against the company's rule. The spark that led to the mutiny was the issue of new gunpowder cartridges for the Enfield rifle, which was insensitive to local religious prohibition; key mutineer being Mangal Pandey. In addition, the underlying grievances over British taxation, the ethnic gulf between the British officers and their Indian troops, and land annexations played a significant role in the rebellion. Within weeks after Pandey's mutiny, dozens of units of the Indian army joined peasant armies in widespread rebellion. The rebel soldiers were later joined by Indian nobility, many of whom had lost titles and domains under the Doctrine of Lapse, and felt that the company had interfered with a traditional system of inheritance. Rebel leaders such as Nana Sahib and the Rani of Jhansi belonged to this group.
After the outbreak of the mutiny in Meerut, the rebels very quickly reached Delhi. The rebels had also captured large tracts of the North-Western Provinces and Awadh (Oudh). Most notably in Awadh, the rebellion took on the attributes of a patriotic revolt against British presence. However, the British East India Company mobilised rapidly, with the assistance of friendly Princely states. But, it took the British remainder of 1857 and the better part of 1858 to suppress the rebellion. Due to the rebels being poorly equipped and no outside support or funding, they were brutally subdued by the British.
In the aftermath, all power was transferred from the British East India Company to the British Crown, which began to administer most of India as a number of provinces. The Crown controlled the company's lands directly and had considerable indirect influence over the rest of India, which consisted of the Princely states ruled by local royal families. There were officially 565 princely states in 1947, but only 21 had actual state governments, and only three were large (Mysore, Hyderabad, and Kashmir). They were absorbed into the independent nation in 1947–48.
After 1857, the colonial government strengthened and expanded its infrastructure via the court system, legal procedures, and statutes. The Indian Penal Code came into being. In education, Thomas Babington Macaulay had made schooling a priority for the Raj in his famous minute of February 1835 and succeeded in implementing the use of English as the medium of instruction. By 1890 some 60,000 Indians had matriculated. The Indian economy grew at about 1% per year from 1880 to 1920, and the population also grew at 1%. However, from 1910s Indian private industry began to grow significantly. India built a modern railway system in the late 19th century which was the fourth largest in the world. The British Raj invested heavily in infrastructure, including canals and irrigation systems in addition to railways, telegraphy, roads and ports. However, historians have been bitterly divided on issues of economic history, with the Nationalist school arguing that India was poorer at the end of British rule than at the beginning and that impoverishment occurred because of the British.
In 1905, Lord Curzon split the large province of Bengal into a largely Hindu western half and "Eastern Bengal and Assam", a largely Muslim eastern half. The British goal was said to be for efficient administration but the people of Bengal were outraged at the apparent "divide and rule" strategy. It also marked the beginning of the organised anti-colonial movement. When the Liberal party in Britain came to power in 1906, he was removed. Bengal was reunified in 1911. The new Viceroy Gilbert Minto and the new Secretary of State for India John Morley consulted with Congress leaders on political reforms. The Morley-Minto reforms of 1909 provided for Indian membership of the provincial executive councils as well as the Viceroy's executive council. The Imperial Legislative Council was enlarged from 25 to 60 members and separate communal representation for Muslims was established in a dramatic step towards representative and responsible government. Several socio-religious organisations came into being at that time. Muslims set up the All India Muslim League in 1906. It was not a mass party but was designed to protect the interests of the aristocratic Muslims. It was internally divided by conflicting loyalties to Islam, the British, and India, and by distrust of Hindus. The Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha and Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) sought to represent Hindu interests though the latter always claimed it to be a "cultural" organisation. Sikhs founded the Shiromani Akali Dal in 1920. However, the largest and oldest political party Indian National Congress, founded in 1885, attempted to keep a distance from the socio-religious movements and identity politics.
The Bengali Renaissance refers to a social reform movement during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the Bengal region of the Indian subcontinent during the period of British rule dominated by Bengali Hindus. Historian Nitish Sengupta describes the renaissance as having started with reformer and humanitarian Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1775–1833), and ended with Asia's first Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941). This flowering of religious and social reformers, scholars, and writers is described by historian David Kopf as "one of the most creative periods in Indian history."
During this period, Bengal witnessed an intellectual awakening that is in some way similar to the Renaissance. This movement questioned existing orthodoxies, particularly with respect to women, marriage, the dowry system, the caste system, and religion. One of the earliest social movements that emerged during this time was the Young Bengal movement, which espoused rationalism and atheism as the common denominators of civil conduct among upper caste educated Hindus. It played an important role in reawakening Indian minds and intellect across the Indian subcontinent.
During Company rule in India and the British Raj, famines in India were some of the worst ever recorded. These famines, often resulting from crop failures due to El Niño which were exacerbated by the destructive policies of the colonial government, included the Great Famine of 1876–78 in which 6.1 million to 10.3 million people died, the Great Bengal famine of 1770 where up to 10 million people died, the Indian famine of 1899–1900 in which 1.25 to 10 million people died, and the Bengal famine of 1943 where up to 3.8 million people died. The Third Plague Pandemic in the mid-19th century killed 10 million people in India. Between 15 and 29 million Indians died during the British rule. Despite persistent diseases and famines, the population of the Indian subcontinent, which stood at up to 200 million in 1750, had reached 389 million by 1941.
During World War I, over 800,000 volunteered for the army, and more than 400,000 volunteered for non-combat roles, compared with the pre-war annual recruitment of about 15,000 men. The Army saw action on the Western Front within a month of the start of the war at the First Battle of Ypres. After a year of front-line duty, sickness and casualties had reduced the Indian Corps to the point where it had to be withdrawn. Nearly 700,000 Indians fought the Turks in the Mesopotamian campaign. Indian formations were also sent to East Africa, Egypt, and Gallipoli.
Indian Army and Imperial Service Troops fought during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign's defence of the Suez Canal in 1915, at Romani in 1916 and to Jerusalem in 1917. India units occupied the Jordan Valley and after the Spring Offensive they became the major force in the Egyptian Expeditionary Force during the Battle of Megiddo and in the Desert Mounted Corps' advance to Damascus and on to Aleppo. Other divisions remained in India guarding the North-West Frontier and fulfilling internal security obligations.
One million Indian troops served abroad during the war. In total, 74,187 died, and another 67,000 were wounded. The roughly 90,000 soldiers who lost their lives fighting in World War I and the Afghan Wars are commemorated by the India Gate.
British India officially declared war on Nazi Germany in September 1939. The British Raj, as part of the Allied Nations, sent over two and a half million volunteer soldiers to fight under British command against the Axis powers. Additionally, several Indian Princely States provided large donations to support the Allied campaign during the War. India also provided the base for American operations in support of China in the China Burma India Theatre.
Indians fought with distinction throughout the world, including in the European theatre against Germany, in North Africa against Germany and Italy, against the Italians in East Africa, in the Middle East against the Vichy French, in the South Asian region defending India against the Japanese and fighting the Japanese in Burma. Indians also aided in liberating British colonies such as Singapore and Hong Kong after the Japanese surrender in August 1945. Over 87,000 soldiers from the subcontinent died in World War II.
The Indian National Congress, denounced Nazi Germany but would not fight it or anyone else until India was independent. Congress launched the Quit India Movement in August 1942, refusing to co-operate in any way with the government until independence was granted. The government was ready for this move. It immediately arrested over 60,000 national and local Congress leaders. The Muslim League rejected the Quit India movement and worked closely with the Raj authorities.
Subhas Chandra Bose (also called "Netaji") broke with Congress and tried to form a military alliance with Germany or Japan to gain independence. The Germans assisted Bose in the formation of the Indian Legion; however, it was Japan that helped him revamp the Indian National Army (INA), after the First Indian National Army under Mohan Singh was dissolved. The INA fought under Japanese direction, mostly in Burma. Bose also headed the Provisional Government of Free India (or Azad Hind), a government-in-exile based in Singapore. The government of Azad Hind had its own currency, court, and civil code; and in the eyes of some Indians its existence gave a greater legitimacy to the independence struggle against the British.
By 1942, neighbouring Burma was invaded by Japan, which by then had already captured the Indian territory of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Japan gave nominal control of the islands to the Provisional Government of Free India on 21 October 1943, and in the following March, the Indian National Army with the help of Japan crossed into India and advanced as far as Kohima in Nagaland. This advance on the mainland of the Indian subcontinent reached its farthest point on Indian territory, retreating from the Battle of Kohima in June and from that of Imphal on 3 July 1944.
The region of Bengal in British India suffered a devastating famine during 1940–43. An estimated 2.1–3 million died from the famine, frequently characterised as "man-made", asserting that wartime colonial policies and Winston Churchill's animosity and racism toward Indians exacerbated the crisis.
The numbers of British in India were small, yet they were able to rule 52% of the Indian subcontinent directly and exercise considerable leverage over the princely states that accounted for 48% of the area.
One of the most important events of the 19th century was the rise of Indian nationalism, leading Indians to seek first "self-rule" and later "complete independence". However, historians are divided over the causes of its rise. Probable reasons include a "clash of interests of the Indian people with British interests", "racial discriminations", and "the revelation of India's past".
The first step toward Indian self-rule was the appointment of councillors to advise the British viceroy in 1861 and the first Indian was appointed in 1909. Provincial Councils with Indian members were also set up. The councillors' participation was subsequently widened into legislative councils. The British built a large British Indian Army, with the senior officers all British and many of the troops from small minority groups such as Gurkhas from Nepal and Sikhs. The civil service was increasingly filled with natives at the lower levels, with the British holding the more senior positions.
Bal Gangadhar Tilak, an Indian nationalist leader, declared Swaraj as the destiny of the nation. His popular sentence "Swaraj is my birthright, and I shall have it" became the source of inspiration for Indians. Tilak was backed by rising public leaders like Bipin Chandra Pal and Lala Lajpat Rai, who held the same point of view, notably they advocated the Swadeshi movement involving the boycott of all imported items and the use of Indian-made goods; the triumvirate were popularly known as Lal Bal Pal. Under them, India's three big provinces – Maharashtra, Bengal and Punjab shaped the demand of the people and India's nationalism. In 1907, the Congress was split into two factions: The radicals, led by Tilak, advocated civil agitation and direct revolution to overthrow the British Empire and the abandonment of all things British. The moderates, led by leaders like Dadabhai Naoroji and Gopal Krishna Gokhale, on the other hand, wanted reform within the framework of British rule.
The partition of Bengal in 1905 further increased the revolutionary movement for Indian independence. The disenfranchisement lead some to take violent action.
The British themselves adopted a "carrot and stick" approach in recognition of India's support during the First World War and in response to renewed nationalist demands. The means of achieving the proposed measure were later enshrined in the Government of India Act 1919, which introduced the principle of a dual mode of administration, or diarchy, in which elected Indian legislators and appointed British officials shared power. In 1919, Colonel Reginald Dyer ordered his troops to fire their weapons on peaceful protestors, including unarmed women and children, resulting in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre; which led to the Non-cooperation Movement of 1920–22. The massacre was a decisive episode towards the end of British rule in India.
From 1920 leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi began highly popular mass movements to campaign against the British Raj using largely peaceful methods. The Gandhi-led independence movement opposed the British rule using non-violent methods like non-co-operation, civil disobedience and economic resistance. However, revolutionary activities against the British rule took place throughout the Indian subcontinent and some others adopted a militant approach like the Hindustan Republican Association, founded by Chandrasekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev Thapar and others, that sought to overthrow British rule by armed struggle. The Government of India Act 1935 was a major success in this regard.
The All India Azad Muslim Conference gathered in Delhi in April 1940 to voice its support for an independent and united India. Its members included several Islamic organisations in India, as well as 1400 nationalist Muslim delegates. The pro-separatist All-India Muslim League worked to try to silence those nationalist Muslims who stood against the partition of India, often using "intimidation and coercion". The murder of the All India Azad Muslim Conference leader Allah Bakhsh Soomro also made it easier for the pro-separatist All-India Muslim League to demand the creation of a Pakistan.
In January 1946, several mutinies broke out in the armed services, starting with that of RAF servicemen frustrated with their slow repatriation to Britain. The mutinies came to a head with mutiny of the Royal Indian Navy in Bombay in February 1946, followed by others in Calcutta, Madras, and Karachi. The mutinies were rapidly suppressed. Also in early 1946, new elections were called and Congress candidates won in eight of the eleven provinces.
Late in 1946, the Labour government decided to end British rule of India, and in early 1947 Britain announced its intention of transferring power no later than June 1948 and participating in the formation of an interim government.
Along with the desire for independence, tensions between Hindus and Muslims had also been developing over the years. The Muslims had always been a minority within the Indian subcontinent, and the prospect of an exclusively Hindu government made them wary of independence; they were as inclined to mistrust Hindu rule as they were to resist the foreign Raj, although Gandhi called for unity between the two groups in an astonishing display of leadership.
Muslim League leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah proclaimed 16 August 1946 as Direct Action Day, with the stated goal of highlighting, peacefully, the demand for a Muslim homeland in British India, which resulted in the outbreak of the cycle of violence that would be later called the "Great Calcutta Killing of August 1946". The communal violence spread to Bihar (where Muslims were attacked by Hindus), to Noakhali in Bengal (where Hindus were targeted by Muslims), in Garhmukteshwar in the United Provinces (where Muslims were attacked by Hindus), and on to Rawalpindi in March 1947 in which Hindus were attacked or driven out by Muslims.
In August 1947, the British Indian Empire was partitioned into the Union of India and Dominion of Pakistan. In particular, the partition of Punjab and Bengal led to rioting between Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs in these provinces and spread to other nearby regions, leaving some 500,000 dead. The police and army units were largely ineffective. The British officers were gone, and the units were beginning to tolerate if not actually indulge in violence against their religious enemies. Also, this period saw one of the largest mass migrations anywhere in modern history, with a total of 12 million Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims moving between the newly created nations of India and Pakistan (which gained independence on 15 and 14 August 1947 respectively). In 1971, Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan and East Bengal, seceded from Pakistan.
In recent decades there have been four main schools of historiography in how historians study India: Cambridge, Nationalist, Marxist, and subaltern. The once common "Orientalist" approach, with its image of a sensuous, inscrutable, and wholly spiritual India, has died out in serious scholarship.
The "Cambridge School", led by Anil Seal, Gordon Johnson, Richard Gordon, and David A. Washbrook, downplays ideology. However, this school of historiography is criticised for western bias or Eurocentrism.
The Nationalist school has focused on Congress, Gandhi, Nehru and high level politics. It highlighted the Mutiny of 1857 as a war of liberation, and Gandhi's 'Quit India' begun in 1942, as defining historical events. This school of historiography has received criticism for Elitism.
The Marxists have focused on studies of economic development, landownership, and class conflict in precolonial India and of deindustrialisation during the colonial period. The Marxists portrayed Gandhi's movement as a device of the bourgeois elite to harness popular, potentially revolutionary forces for its own ends. Again, the Marxists are accused of being "too much" ideologically influenced.
The "subaltern school", was begun in the 1980s by Ranajit Guha and Gyan Prakash. It focuses attention away from the elites and politicians to "history from below", looking at the peasants using folklore, poetry, riddles, proverbs, songs, oral history and methods inspired by anthropology. It focuses on the colonial era before 1947 and typically emphasises caste and downplays class, to the annoyance of the Marxist school.
More recently, Hindu nationalists have created a version of history to support their demands for "Hindutva" ("Hinduness") in Indian society. This school of thought is still in the process of development. In March 2012, Diana L. Eck, professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies at Harvard University, authored in her book "India: A Sacred Geography", that idea of India dates to a much earlier time than the British or the Mughals and it wasn't just a cluster of regional identities and it wasn't ethnic or racial.
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Highlander (franchise)
Highlander is a film and television series that began with a 1986 fantasy film starring Christopher Lambert, who played Connor MacLeod, the Highlander. Born in Glenfinnan, in the Scottish Highlands in the 16th century, MacLeod is one of a number of Immortals. There have been five "Highlander" films, two live-action television series, an animated television series, an animated film, a flash animation series, ten original novels, nineteen comic book issues, and various licensed merchandise.
The first of the series of films, "Highlander", directed by Russell Mulcahy, was released on March 7, 1986, with the tagline "There Can Be Only One". The film features a number of flashback scenes establishing Connor MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod's early history, and builds up to his final destiny among the last of the mysterious Immortals. Through a mentor and fellow Immortal—Juan Sánchez Villa-Lobos Ramírez—he learns of the existence of other Immortals, who appear spontaneously throughout history. An Immortal can die only after being beheaded, and Immortals battle one another in ritual single combat to the death, until the "Gathering," when the few remaining Immortals will fight until only one remains to take "The Prize." The Gathering occurs in modern-day (1985) New York City, when the Highlander, who has fallen in love again despite trying to distance himself from humanity, defeats The Kurgan, who he has encountered repeatedly over the previous centuries, and who had slain Ramírez and many others. The movie was titled "Shadow Clan" in the earliest drafts. Upon its release, the film was not a financial success and was poorly reviewed by critics. However, it gained a strong cult following, was a hit internationally, and is regarded by many as the best movie in the series.
The original orchestral score was composed by Michael Kamen, but the soundtrack included several songs by Queen, like "Princes of the Universe", which were also used in the "Highlander" television series title sequence.
In the United States, the film took in $2,453,021 in its opening weekend and ended up grossing $5,735,847. However, the film had more success internationally, taking in $12,885,193.
"", also directed by Russell Mulcahy, was released on November 1, 1991. The film mainly takes place in 2024, with flashbacks to events in 1999, and also a very distant past on the planet Zeist. MacLeod designs an energy shield to protect the Earth after its ozone layer began to disintegrate, but the Shield's heavy red clouds and blocking of natural sunlight have plunged mankind into despair. The Shield has also fallen under the control of the Shield Corporation, which taxes heavily for its services in the pursuit of profit. Meanwhile, MacLeod has physically aged into a frail old man—his mortality part of winning the Prize – and expects that he will eventually die of natural causes. After he kills one of the Immortals from Zeist sent to kill him, he becomes young and Immortal again, much to his dismay. He then joins with Louise Marcus (Virginia Madsen), who had led a group of terrorists who try to dismantle the Shield.
This film offers an alternative origin for the Immortals, who are depicted as aliens exiled to Earth from Zeist. In direct contradiction to the original film, Ramírez and MacLeod were friends before their exile from Zeist. In the original, they first met in Scotland in 1541, with no mention of Zeist. This film was made almost entirely in Argentina; after the country's economy crashed, the film's investors took direct control of the film, removing Mulcahy and his creative influence almost entirely from the film. When it was released in 1991, it was poorly reviewed by critics worldwide, and is now considered to be one of the worst movies ever made.
Russell Mulcahy was disappointed with the movie as originally released, and later made his own "Renegade Version" director's cut with a proper sequencing of various scenes, and the filmmakers' explanation for why the movie turned out as it originally did. One of Mulcahy's most dynamic alterations was the relabeling of the Zeist footage as a flashback to an ancient, technologically advanced civilization on Earth, much more in line with the later continuity of the first film and . In 2004, a "Special Edition" was released, featuring several distinct alterations, including new computer-generated visual effects throughout the film. The reconstructed film's reception was far better than the original, although the general reception was somewhat mixed.
"" (alternatively titled "Highlander: The Final Dimension") was released on November 25, 1994. It is a direct sequel to the original film, ignoring the events of Highlander II. MacLeod battles a warrior who missed the original Gathering, because he was buried deep in a Japanese cave that is holy ground, isolating him from the final contest of the first film. Kane (played by Mario Van Peebles) is a master of the "power of illusion", which allows him to create false imagery to deceive his enemies. Connor, who has lived with his adopted son John for years with the belief that he is the final Immortal, must return to New York and finish the job he started back in 1985. Along the way, he finds a new love, Dr. Alex Johnson (Deborah Unger). The movie was a box office bomb. Critics claim that it was little more than a carbon copy of the first film.
"", released on September 1, 2000 merged characters from both the original film and from the . The story follows Duncan MacLeod as he confronts Jacob Kell, an evil Immortal who has assembled a group of fellow warriors, as well as an impressive body-count. Kell, who holds a centuries-old grudge against the elder Connor MacLeod, has slain Connor's dearest loved ones, and he does not follow the traditions of single combat. Connor has spent a decade trying to escape the Game in a hidden Watcher fortress known as the Sanctuary, but he and Duncan are forced to confront this new threat that neither one of them alone can succeed against. As the two MacLeods will not break the single-combat tradition, Connor convinces Duncan to decapitate him, thus gaining the power that he needs to defeat Kell.
Critical reaction to "Highlander: Endgame" was negative. It holds a 12% "rotten" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 52 reviews, higher than "Highlander II" and "Highlander III", both of which hold ratings of 5% or lower, and a score of 21 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on 16 reviews.
The film was also a box office bomb, managing to garner $15m of its $25m budget. The film opened at No. 3, grossing $5,067,331 in the opening weekend. It went on to gross $12,811,858 domestically and gather $3,031,750 from foreign markets for a worldwide total of $15,843,608. However, it was a commercial hit when it was released on DVD. This prompted the producers to release the director's cut version of the film, whose reception was far better than the theatrical in that new and edited footage was added, along with better special effects and audio tracks.
"" is the fifth installment of the "Highlander" film series, which premiered on the Sci Fi Channel on September 15, 2007. The film follows Duncan MacLeod and a group of fellow Immortals seeking the source of immortality.
On May 20, 2008, "The Hollywood Reporter" announced that Summit Entertainment was planning a remake of the original 1986 film. The script would be penned by Art Marcum and Matt Holloway. Peter Davis would produce the new film. Later it was announced that Justin Lin and several other entries in the "Fast and Furious" films, had signed on to direct the remake, and "Live for Film" announced that the film would be titled "Highlander: The Reckoning".
In March 2010, producer Neal H. Moritz stated in an interview that "We're staying true to the mythologies as a whole of the "Highlander" series. Now there are certain things between all the different "Highlanders" that conflict with each other, but we're trying to stay true to the core of what we believe "Highlander" is, and it's a movie that's going to be made for the fans of "Highlander", but also for people who are new to the franchise."
On February 9, 2011, it was announced that "Twilight" series writer Melissa Rosenberg was "in negotiations to come on board the "Highlander" reboot to work on that script."
In an interview with MTV in May 2011, Justin Lin commented on the film, saying "I feel like right now, "Highlander" is in pretty good shape, but I still have to see all the other things come together for us to go make it." In August, Lin dropped out of the film due to commitments to other projects.
Director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo later signed on to direct the remake, replacing Lin. Vinnie Jones and Ray Stevenson were rumored to be considered for the role of The Kurgan. In June 2012, Ryan Reynolds was confirmed to play Connor MacLeod. However, in December 2012, Fresnadillo left the project due to creative differences and on June 17, 2013, Reynolds also dropped out of the film.
On June 28, 2013, it was announced that "" writer and executive producer David Abramowitz would polish the film's script. On October 28, 2013, Summit hired Cedric Nicolas-Troyan to direct. In November 2014, the studio wanted actor Tom Cruise in the role of Ramírez, but Cruise was busy shooting "" and was reportedly not considering future projects at that time. James Jaysen Bryhan has since been rumored to play Ramirez.
On February 11, 2015, wrestler turned actor Dave Bautista was cast as The Kurgan. Nicolas-Troyan has stated that he is still involved with the reboot. In November 2016, Chad Stahelski was confirmed to direct, and Ryan J. Condal is writing the script.
In 2007, an anime film, "" was released, featuring the immortal Colin MacLeod in the year 2187.
In 1992, a television spin-off was developed, entitled "". It was shown in syndication from October 3, 1992 to May 16, 1998. The series was an offshoot of the 1986 feature film but with one major difference: Immortals still exist post-1985.
Adrian Paul starred as Duncan MacLeod, another immortal from the same clan. Christopher Lambert reprised his role as Connor Macleod for the first episode, lending continuity to the show, and although Connor would not appear in the series again he would be mentioned several times. The series also starred Alexandra Vandernoot, Stan Kirsch, Amanda Wyss, Jim Byrnes, Philip Akin, Michel Modo, Lisa Howard, Elizabeth Gracen and Peter Wingfield. Over its six-year run, the series had guest stars including Joan Jett, Vanity, Roger Daltrey, Richard Moll, Traci Lords, Sheena Easton, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, Nia Peeples, Rae Dawn Chong, Eric McCormack, Sandra Bernhard, Claudia Christian and Ron Perlman.
The show was co-produced in syndication by international partners including Gaumont, RTL Plus (Germany), Rysher Distribution (United States), Reteitalia Productions (Italy), Amuse Video (Japan) and TF1 (France). The series had high ratings internationally. However, the ratings fell during the show's sixth season, which ended its six-year run in 1998.
In 2008, "Reunion", a reunion special was filmed starring Peter Wingfield, Elizabeth Gracen, and Jim Byrnes reprising their roles. The 17-minute special was a low-budget project 10 years after the series (or between the fourth and fifth movies). Filming took place at producer Peter Davis's beach home with the actors volunteering in their roles. The plot involved the characters discussing Methos' plans to get married and settle down with a mortal woman and her son.
A 1994 animated series, "", was set in the far future, and featured the character of Quentin MacLeod, voiced by Miklos Perlus.
The television series had its own spin-off after using its sixth year as a casting call. "" starred Elizabeth Gracen, reprising her role as the popular character Amanda Darieux. It lasted one season due to low ratings and the change in the marketing of syndicated shows.
A number of "" were released, including a novelization of the first film by Garry Kilworth and a line of books based on the television series by various authors. Non-fiction "Highlander" books include "The Best of Highlander: The Book" by Maureen Russell and "Fearful Symmetry: The Essential Guide to All Things Highlander"—a guide to the Highlander films and television series, with explorations of the movies and series, interviews with many of the key players in front and behind the camera.
The "Highlander" comic book series from Dynamite Entertainment, featuring the creative team of Brandon Jerwa, Michael Avon Oeming ("Red Sonja") and artist Lee Moder, are also set around the universe of the television series.
Big Finish Productions had the licence to produce Highlander audio dramas. The format (like many of their other ranges) is one actor reading the script with another playing one other important part. The first four audios star Adrian Paul as Duncan MacLeod and were released monthly from June 2009. The stories are set after "". The second four audios are each based around one of the Four Horsemen. Kronos (Highlander), played and read by Valentine Pelka, Silas, played and read by Richard Ridings, Caspian, played and read by Marcus Testory, and Methos, played and read by Peter Wingfield.
"Highlander: The Original Scores", an album featuring music from the first three films, was released in 1995.
"Highlander", a video game tie-in to the first film, was released for home computers in 1986. It was poorly received.
1995 saw the release of "", a video game based on "", for the Atari Jaguar CD.
A "Highlander" massively multiplayer online role-playing game video game was originally announced by Kalisto Entertainment, but following the developer's closure, rights to the "Highlander" video game franchise went to SCi Entertainment in 2004. However, the development was cancelled as the new developer did not release a "Highlander" video game. The only known remains of the development are trailers showing the game title as "Highlander The Gathering".
"" and a PC version of "Highlander: The Last of the MacLeods" were likewise cancelled.
"" is a collectible card game produced by La Montagnard Inc., intended to replicate the sword fight between two Immortals.
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Houston Astros
The Houston Astros are an American professional baseball team based in Houston, Texas. The Astros compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division, having moved to the division in 2013 after spending their first 51 seasons in the National League (NL).
The Astros were established as the Houston Colt .45s and entered the National League as an expansion team in along with the New York Mets. The current name, reflecting Houston's role as the host of the Johnson Space Center, was adopted three years later, when they moved into the Astrodome, the first domed sports stadium and the so-called "eighth wonder of the world." The Astros moved to a new stadium called Minute Maid Park in 2000.
The Astros played in the NL West division from 1969 to 1993, then the NL Central division from 1994 to 2012, before being moved to the AL West as part of a minor realignment in 2013.
The Astros posted their first winning record in 1972 and made the playoffs for the first time in 1980. The team made its first World Series appearance in 2005 as an NL team, only to be swept by the Chicago White Sox. The team embraced sabermetrics and new technologies in the 2010s, transforming from a tanking 100-loss team into a powerhouse. The Astros won the 2017 World Series, their first championship, against the Los Angeles Dodgers in seven games in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. They returned to the World Series in 2019, losing to the Washington Nationals in seven games.
On January 13, 2020, Astros manager A. J. Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow were suspended by MLB for one year after an investigation confirmed sign stealing by the Astros during their 2017 World Series campaign; both men were fired by the team shortly thereafter.
From 1888 until 1961, Houston's professional baseball club was the minor league Houston Buffaloes. Although expansion from the National League eventually brought an MLB team to Texas in 1962, Houston officials had been making efforts to do so for years prior. There were four men chiefly responsible for bringing Major League Baseball to Houston: George Kirksey and Craig Cullinan, who had led a futile attempt to purchase the St. Louis Cardinals in 1952; R.E. "Bob" Smith, a prominent oilman and real estate magnate in Houston who was brought in for his financial resources; and Judge Roy Hofheinz, a former Mayor of Houston and Harris County Judge who was recruited for his salesmanship and political style. They formed the Houston Sports Association as their vehicle for attaining a big league franchise for the city of Houston.
Given MLB's refusal to consider expansion, Kirksey, Cullinan, Smith, and Hofheinz joined forces with would-be owners from other cities and announced the formation of a new league to compete with the established National and American Leagues. They called the new league the Continental League. Wanting to protect potential new markets, both existing leagues chose to expand from eight teams to ten. However, plans eventually fell through for the Houston franchise after the Houston Buffaloes owner, Marty Marion, could not come to an agreement with the HSA to sell the team. To make matters worse, the Continental League as a whole folded in August 1960.
However, on October 17, 1960, the National League granted an expansion franchise to the Houston Sports Association in which their team could begin play in the 1962 season. According to the Major League Baseball Constitution, the Houston Sports Association was required to obtain territorial rights from the Houston Buffaloes in order to play in the Houston area, and again negotiations began to purchase the team. Eventually, the Houston Sports Association succeeded in purchasing the Houston Buffaloes, at this point majority-owned by William Hopkins, on January 17, 1961. The Buffs played one last minor league season as the top farm team of the Chicago Cubs in 1961 before being succeeded by the city's NL club.
The new Houston team was named the Colt .45s after a "Name The Team" contest was won by William Irving Neder. The Colt .45 was well known as "the gun that won the west."
The colors selected were navy and orange. The first team was formed mostly through an expansion draft after the 1961 season. The Colt .45s and their expansion cousins, the New York Mets, took turns choosing players left unprotected by the other National League franchises.
Many of those associated with the Houston Buffaloes organization were allowed by the ownership to continue in the major league. Manager Harry Craft, who had joined Houston in 1961, remained in the same position for the team until the end of the 1964 season. General manager Spec Richardson also continued with the organization as business manager, but was later promoted again to the same position with the Astros from 1967 until 1975. Although most players for the major league franchise were obtained through the 1961 Major League Baseball expansion draft, Buffs players J.C. Hartman, Pidge Browne, Jim Campbell, Ron Davis, Dave Giusti, and Dave Roberts were chosen to continue as major league ball players.
Similarly, the radio broadcasting team remained with the new Houston major league franchise. Loel Passe worked alongside Gene Elston as a color commentator until he retired from broadcasting in 1976. Elston continued with the Astros until 1986.
The Colt .45s began their existence playing at Colt Stadium, a temporary venue built just north of the construction site of the indoor stadium.
The Colt .45s started their inaugural season on April 10, 1962, against the Chicago Cubs with Harry Craft as the Colt .45s' manager. Bob Aspromonte scored the first run for the Colt .45s on an Al Spangler triple in the first inning. They started the season with a three-game sweep of the Cubs but eventually finished eighth among the National League's ten teams. The team's best pitcher, Richard "Turk" Farrell, lost 20 games despite an ERA of 3.02. A starter for the Colt .45s, Farrell was primarily a relief pitcher prior to playing for Houston. He was selected to both All-Star Games in 1962.
The 1963 season saw more young talent mixed with seasoned veterans. Jimmy Wynn, Rusty Staub, and Joe Morgan all made their major league debuts in the 1963 season. However, Houston's position in the standings did not improve, as the Colt .45s finished in ninth place with a 66–96 record. The team was still building, trying to find that perfect mix to compete. The 1964 campaign began on a sad note, as relief pitcher Jim Umbricht died of cancer at the age of 33 on April 8, just before Opening Day. Umbricht was the only Colt .45s pitcher to post a winning record in Houston's first two seasons. He was so well liked by players and fans that the team retired his jersey number, 32, in 1965.
Just on the horizon, the structure of the new domed stadium was more prevalent and it would soon change the way that baseball was watched in Houston and around the league. On December 1, 1964, the team announced the name change from Colt .45s to "Astros."
With Judge Roy Hofheinz now the sole owner of the franchise and the new venue complete, the renamed Astros moved into their new domed stadium, the "Astro"dome, in 1965. The name honored Houston's position as the center of the nation's space program; NASA's new Manned Spacecraft Center had recently opened southeast of the city. The Astrodome, coined the "Eighth Wonder of the World", did little to improve the home team's results on the field. While several "indoor" firsts were accomplished, the team still finished ninth in the standings. The attendance was high not because of the team's accomplishments, but because people came from miles around to see the Astrodome.
Just as the excitement was settling down over the Astrodome, the 1966 season found something new to put the domed stadium in the spotlight once again – the field. Grass would not grow in the new park, since the roof panels had been painted to reduce the glare that was causing players on both the Astros and the visiting teams to miss routine pop flies. A new artificial turf was created called "AstroTurf" and Houston would be involved in yet another change in the way the game was played.
With new manager Grady Hatton, the Astros started the 1966 season strong. By May they were in second place in the National League and looked like a team that could contend. Joe Morgan was named as a starter on the All-Star Team. The success did not last as they lost Jimmy Wynn for the season after he crashed into an outfield fence in Philadelphia and Morgan had broken his knee cap. The 1967 season saw first baseman Eddie Mathews join the Astros. The slugger hit his 500th home run while in Houston. He would be traded late in the season and Doug Rader would be promoted to the big leagues. Rookie Don Wilson pitched a no-hitter on June 18. Wynn also provided some enthusiasm in 1967. The 5 ft 9 in Wynn was becoming known not only for how often he hit home runs, but also for how far he hit them. Wynn set club records with 37 home runs, and 107 RBIs. It was also in 1967 that Wynn hit his famous home run onto Interstate 75 in Cincinnati. As the season came to a close, the Astros found themselves again in ninth place and with a winning percentage below .500. The team looked good on paper, but could not make it work on the field.
April 15, 1968 saw a pitching duel for the ages. The Astros' Don Wilson and the Mets' Tom Seaver faced each other in a battle that lasted six hours. Seaver went ten innings, allowing no walks and just two hits. Wilson went nine innings, allowing five hits and three walks. After the starters exited, eleven relievers (seven for the Mets and four for the Astros) tried to end the game. The game finally ended in the 24th inning when Aspromonte hit a shot toward Mets shortstop Al Weis. Weis had been perfect all night at short, but he was not quick enough to make the play. The ball zipped into left field, allowing Norm Miller to score.
With baseball expansion and trades, the Astros had dramatically changed in 1969. Aspromonte was sent to the Braves and Staub was traded to the expansion Montreal Expos, in exchange for outfielder Jesús Alou and first baseman Donn Clendenon. However, Clendenon refused to report to Houston, electing to retire and take job with a pen manufacturing company. The Astros asked Commissioner Bowie Kuhn to void the trade, but he refused. Instead, he awarded Jack Billingham and a left-handed relief pitcher to the Astros to complete the trade. Cuellar was traded to the Baltimore Orioles for Curt Blefary. Other new players included catcher Johnny Edwards, infielder Denis Menke and pitcher Denny Lemaster. Wilson continued to pitch brilliantly and on May 1 threw the second no-hitter of his career. In that game, he struck out 18 batters, tying what was then the all-time single-game mark. He was just 24 years of age and was second to only Sandy Koufax for career no-hit wins. Wilson's no-hitter lit the Astros' fire after a miserable month of April, and six days later the team tied a major league record by turning seven double plays in a game. By May's end, the Astros had put together a ten-game winning streak. The Houston infield tandem of Menke and Joe Morgan continued to improve, providing power at the plate and great defense. Morgan had 15 homers and stole 49 bases while Menke led the Astros with 90 RBIs. The Menke/Morgan punch was beginning to come alive, and the team was responding to Walker's management style. The Astros dominated the season series against their expansion twins, the New York Mets. In one game at New York, Denis Menke and Jimmy Wynn hit grand slams in the same inning, against a Mets team that would go on to win the World Series that same year. The Astros finished the 1969 season with a record of 81 wins, 81 losses, marking their first season of .500 ball.
In 1970, the Astros were expected to be a serious threat in the National League West. In June, 19-year-old César Cedeño was called up and immediately showed signs of being a superstar. The Dominican outfielder batted .310 after being called up. Not to be outdone, Menke batted .304 and Jesús Alou batted .306. The Astros' batting average was up by 19 points compared to the season before. The team looked good, but the Astros' ERA was up. Larry Dierker and Wilson had winning records, but the pitching staff as a whole had an off season. Houston finished in fourth place in 1970.
The fashion trends of the 1970s had started taking root in baseball. Long hair and loud colors were starting to appear on team uniforms, including the Astros'. In 1971 the Astros made some changes to their uniform: they kept the same style they had in previous seasons, but inverted the colors. What was navy was now orange and what was orange was now a lighter shade of blue. The players' last names were added to the back of the jerseys. In 1972, the uniform fabric was also changed to what was at the time revolutionizing the industry – polyester. Belts were replaced by elastic waistbands, and jerseys zipped up instead of having buttons. The uniforms became popular with fans, but would last only until 1975, when the Astros would shock baseball and the fashion world.
The uniforms were about the only thing that did change in 1971. The acquisition of Roger Metzger from the Chicago Cubs in the off-season moved Menke to first base and Bob Watson to the outfield. The Astros got off to a slow start and the pitching and hitting averages were down. Larry Dierker was selected to the All-Star game in 1971, but due to an arm injury he could not make it. César Cedeño led the club with 81 RBIs and the league with 40 doubles, but batted just .264 and had 102 strikeouts in his second season with the Astros. Pitcher J. R. Richard made his debut in September of the 1971 season against the Giants.
In November 1971 the Astros and Cincinnati Reds made one of the biggest blockbuster trades in the history of the sport, and helped create The Big Red Machine of the 1970s, with the Reds getting the better end of the deal. Houston sent second baseman Joe Morgan, infielder Denis Menke, pitcher Jack Billingham, outfielder César Gerónimo and prospect Ed Armbrister to Cincinnati for first baseman Lee May, second baseman Tommy Helms and infielder Jimmy Stewart. The trade left Astros fans and the baseball world scratching their heads as to why General Manager Spec Richardson would give up so much for so little. The Reds, on the other hand, would shore up many problems. They had an off year in 1971, but were the National League Pennant winner in 1972.
The Astros' acquisition of Lee May added more power to the lineup in 1972. May, Wynn, Rader and Cedeño all had 20 or more home runs and Watson hit 16. Cedeño also led the Astros with a .320 batting average, 55 stolen bases and made spectacular plays on the field. Cedeño made his first All-Star game in 1972 and became the first Astros player in team history to hit for the cycle in August versus the Reds. The Astros finished the strike-shortened season at 84–69, their first winning season.
Astros fans had hoped for more of the same in 1973, but it was not to be. The Astros run production was down, even though the same five sluggers the year before were still punching the ball out of the park. Lee May led the Astros with 28 home runs and Cesar Cedeño batted .320 with 25 home runs. Bob Watson hit the .312 mark and drove in 94 runs. Doug Rader and Jimmy Wynn both had 20 or more home runs. However, injuries to their pitching staff limited the Astros to an 82–80 fourth-place finish. The Astros again finished in fourth place the next year under new manager Preston Gómez.
With the $38 million deficit of the Astrodome, control of the Astrodomain (including the Astros) was passed from Roy Hofheinz to GE Credit and Ford Motor Credit. The creditors were just interested in preserving asset value of the team, so any money spent had to be found or saved somewhere else. Tal Smith returned to the Astros from the New York Yankees to find a team that needed a lot of work and did not have a lot of money. However, there would be some bright spots that would prove to be good investments in the near future.
The year started on a sad note. Pitcher Don Wilson was found dead in the passenger seat of his car on January 5, 1975; the cause of death was asphyxiation by carbon monoxide. Wilson was 29 years old. Wilson's number 40 was retired on April 13, 1975.
The 1975 season saw the introduction of the Astros' new uniforms. Many teams were going away from the traditional uniform and the Astros were no exception. From the chest down, the uniform was a solid block of yellow, orange, and red stripes. There was also a large dark blue star over the midsection. The same multi-colored stripes ran down the pant legs. Players numbers not only appeared on the back of the jersey, but also on the pant leg. The bright stripes were meant to appear as a fiery trail like a rocket sweeping across the heavens. The uniforms were panned by critics, but the public liked them and versions started appearing at the high school and little league level. The uniform was so different from what other teams wore that the Astros wore it both at home and on the road until 1980.
Besides the bright new uniforms there were some other changes. Lee May was traded to Baltimore for much talked about rookie second baseman Rob Andrews and utility player Enos Cabell. In Baltimore, Cabell was stuck behind third baseman Brooks Robinson, but he took advantage of his opportunity in Houston and became their everyday third baseman. Cabell would go on to become a big part of the team's success in later years. With May gone, Bob Watson was able to move to first base and was a bright spot in the line up, batting .324 with 85 RBI.
The two biggest moves the Astros made in the offseason were the acquisitions of Joe Niekro and José Cruz. The Astros bought Niekro from the Braves for almost nothing. Niekro had bounced around the big leagues with minimal success. His older brother Phil Niekro had started teaching Joe how to throw his knuckleball and Joe was just starting to use it when he came to the Astros. Niekro won six games, saved four games and had an ERA of 3.07. José Cruz was also a steal, in retrospect, from the Cardinals. Cruz became a fixture in the Astros' outfield for several years and would eventually have his number 25 retired.
Despite high expectations, 1975 was among the Astros' worst in franchise history. Their record of 64–97 was far worse than even the expansion Colt .45's and would remain the worst record in franchise history until 2011. It was the worst record in baseball and manager Preston Gómez was fired late in the season and replaced by Bill Virdon. The Astros played .500 ball under Virdon in the last 34 games of the season. With Virdon as the manager the Astros improved greatly in 1976 finishing in third place with an 80–82 record. A healthy César Cedeño was a key reason for the Astros' success in 1976. Bob Watson continued to show consistency and led the club with a .313 average and 102 RBI. José Cruz became Houston's everyday left fielder and hit .303 with 28 stolen bases. 1976 saw the end of Larry Dierker's playing career as an Astro, but before it was all over he would throw a no-hitter and win the 1,000th game in the Astrodome. The Astros finished in third place again in 1977 with a record of 81–81.
One of the big problems the Astros had in the late 1970s was that they were unable to compete in the free agent market. Ford Motor Credit Company was still in control of the team and was looking to sell the Astros, but would not spend money on better players. Most of the talent was either farm grown or bought cheaply.
The 1979 season would prove to be a big turnaround in Astros history. During the offseason, the Astros attempted to fix some of their problem areas. They traded Floyd Bannister to Seattle for shortstop Craig Reynolds and acquired catcher Alan Ashby from Toronto for pitcher Mark Lemongello. Reynolds and Ashby were both solid in their positions and gave Houston some much needed consistency. The season started with a boost from pitcher Ken Forsch, who threw a no-hitter the Braves the second game of the season. In May 1979, New Jersey shipping tycoon John McMullen had agreed to buy the Astros. Now with an investor in charge, the Astros would be more likely to compete in the free agent market.
The Astros were playing great baseball throughout the season. José Cruz and Enos Cabell both stole 30 bases. Joe Niekro had a great year with 21 wins and 3.00 ERA. J. R. Richard won 18 games and set a new personal strikeout record at 313. Joe Sambito came into his own with 22 saves as the Astros closer. Things were going as they should for a team that could win the west. The Astros and Reds battled the final month of the season. The Reds pulled ahead of the Astros by a game and a half. Later that month they split a pair and the Reds kept the lead. That would be how it would end. The Astros finished with their best record to that point at 89–73 and 1½ games behind the NL winner Reds.
With Dr. McMullen as sole owner of the Astros, the team would now benefit in ways a corporation could not give them. The rumors of the Astros moving out of Houston started to crumble and the Astros were now able to compete in the free-agent market. McMullen showed the city of Houston that he too wanted a winning team, signing nearby Alvin, Texas native Nolan Ryan to the first million-dollar-a-year deal. Ryan had four career no-hitters already and had struck out 383 in one season.
Joe Morgan returned in 1980. The 1980 pitching staff was one of the best Houston ever had, with the fastball of Ryan, the knuckleball of Joe Niekro and the terrifying 6 ft 8 in frame of J. R. Richard. Teams felt lucky to face Ken Forsch, who was a double-digit winner in the previous two seasons. Richard became the first Astros pitcher to start an All-Star game. After a medical examination three days later, Richard was told to rest his arm and he collapsed during a July 30 workout. He had suffered a stroke after a blood clot in the arm apparently moved to his neck and cut off blood flow to the brain. Surgery was done to save his life, but the Astros had lost their ace pitcher after a 10–4 start with a stingy 1.89 ERA. Richard attempted a comeback, but would never again pitch a big league game.
After the loss of Richard and some offensive struggles, the Astros slipped to third place in the division behind the Dodgers and the Reds. They bounced back to first with a ten-game winning streak, but the Dodgers had regained a two-game lead when they arrived in Houston on September 9. The Astros won the first two games of that series and the two teams were tied for the division lead. The Astros held a three-game lead over the Dodgers with three games left in the season against the Dodgers. The Dodgers swept the series games, forcing a one-game playoff the next day. The Astros would however win the one-game playoff 7–1, and advance to their first post-season.
The team would face the Philadelphia Phillies in the 1980 National League Championship Series. The Phillies sent out Steve Carlton in game one of the NLCS after a six-hour flight the night before. The Phillies would win the opener after the Astros got out to a 1–0 third-inning lead. Ken Forsch pitched particularly strong fourth and fifth innings, but Greg Luzinski hit a sixth-inning two-run bomb to the 300 level seats of Veterans Stadium. The Phillies added an insurance run on the way to a 3–1 win. Houston bounced back to win games two and three. Game four went into extra innings, with the Phillies taking the lead and the win in the tenth inning. Pete Rose started a rally with a one-out single, then Luzinski doubled off the left field wall and Rose bowled over catcher Bruce Bochy to score the go-ahead run. The Phillies got an insurance run on the way to tying the series.
Rookie Phillies pitcher Marty Bystrom was sent out by Philadelphia manager Dallas Green to face veteran Nolan Ryan in Game Five. The rookie gave up a run in the first inning, then held the Astros at bay until the sixth inning. An Astros lead was lost when Bob Boone hit a two-out single in the second, but the Astros tied the game in the sixth with an Alan Ashby single scoring Denny Walling. Houston took a 5–2 lead in the seventh, however the Phillies came back with five runs in the inning. The Astros came back against Tug McGraw with four singles and two two-out runs. Now in extra innings, Garry Maddox doubled in Del Unser with one out to give the Phillies an 8–7 lead. The Astros failed to score in the bottom of the tenth.
A 1981 player strike ran between June 12 and August 10. Ultimately, the strike would help the Astros get into the playoffs. Nolan Ryan and Bob Knepper picked up steam in the second half of the season. Ryan threw his fifth no-hitter on September 26 and finished the season with a 1.69 ERA. Knepper finished with an ERA of 2.18. In the wake of the strike, Major League Baseball took the winners of each "half" season and set up a best-of-five divisional playoff. The Reds won more games than any other team in the National League, but they won neither half of the strike-divided season. The Astros finished 61–49 overall, which would have been third in the division behind the Reds and the Dodgers. Advancing to the playoffs as winners of the second half, Houston beat Los Angeles in their first two playoff games at home, but the Dodgers took the next three in Los Angeles to advance to the NLCS.
By 1982, only four players and three starting pitchers remained from the 1980 squad. The Astros were out of pennant contention by August and began rebuilding for the near future. Bill Virdon was fired as manager and replaced by original Colt .45 Bob Lillis. Don Sutton asked to be traded and was sent to the Milwaukee Brewers for cash and the team gained three new prospects, including Kevin Bass. Minor league player Bill Doran was called up in September. Bass also got a look in the outfield. The Astros finished fourth in the west, but new talent was starting to appear.
Before the 1983 season, the Astros traded Danny Heep to the Mets for pitcher Mike Scott, a 28-year-old who had struggled with New York. Art Howe sat out the 1983 season with an injury, forcing Phil Garner to third and Ray Knight to first. Doran took over at second, becoming the everyday second baseman for the next seven seasons. The Astros finished third in the National League West. The 1984 season started off badly when shortstop Dickie Thon was hit in the head by a pitch and was lost for the season. In September, the Astros called up rookie Glenn Davis after he posted impressive numbers in AAA. The Astros finished in second place. In 1985, Mike Scott learned a new pitch, the split-finger fastball. Scott, who was coming off of a 5–11 season, had found his new pitch and would become one of Houston's most celebrated hurlers. In June, Davis made the starting lineup at first base, adding power to the team. In September, Joe Niekro was traded to the Yankees for two minor league pitchers and lefty Jim Deshaies. The Astros finished in fourth place in 1985.
After finishing fourth in 1985, the Astros fired general manager Al Rosen and manager Bob Lillis. The former was supplanted by Dick Wagner, the man whose Reds defeated the Astros to win the 1979 NL West title. The latter was replaced by Hal Lanier who, like his manager mentor in St. Louis, Whitey Herzog, had a hard-nosed approach to managing and espoused a playing style that focused on pitching, defense, and speed rather than home runs to win games. This style of baseball, known as Whiteyball, took advantage of stadiums with deep fences and artificial turf, both of which were characteristics of the Astrodome. Lanier's style of baseball took Houston by storm. Before Lanier took over, fans were accustomed to Houston's occasional slow starts, but with Lanier leading the way, Houston got off to a hot start, winning 13 of their first 19 contests.
Prior to the start of the season the Astros acquired outfielder Billy Hatcher from the Cubs for Jerry Mumphrey. Lainer also made a change in the pitching staff, going with a three-man rotation to start the season. This allowed Lanier to keep his three starters (Nolan Ryan, Bob Knepper, and Mike Scott) sharp and to slowly work in rookie hurler Jim Deshaies. Bill Doran and Glenn Davis held down the right side of the field but Lainer rotated the left side. Denny Walling and Craig Reynolds faced the right-handed pitchers while Phil Garner and Dickie Thon batted against left-handers. Lainer knew the Astros had talent and he put it to work.
The Astrodome was host to the 1986 All-Star Game in which Astros Mike Scott, Kevin Bass, Glenn Davis, and Dave Smith represented the host field. The Astros kept pace with the NL West after the All-Star break. They went on a streak of five straight come-from-behind wins. Houston swept a key 3-game series over the San Francisco Giants in late September to clinch the division title. Mike Scott took the mound in the final game of the series and pitched a no-hitter – the only time in MLB history that any division was clinched via a no-hitter. Scott would finish the season with an 18–10 record and a Cy Young Award.
The 1986 National League Championship Series against the New York Mets was noted for its drama and is considered to be one of the greatest postseason series. In Game 3, the Astros were ahead at Shea Stadium, 5–4, in the bottom of the 9th when closer Dave Smith gave up a two-run home run to Lenny Dykstra, giving the Mets a dramatic 6–5 win.
However, the signature game of the series was Game 6. Needing a win to get to Mike Scott (who had been dominant in the series) in Game 7, the Astros jumped off to a 3–0 lead in the first inning but neither team would score again until the 9th inning. In the 9th, starting pitcher Bob Knepper would give up two runs, and once again the Astros would look to Dave Smith to close it out. However, Smith would walk Gary Carter and Darryl Strawberry, giving up a sacrifice fly to Ray Knight, tying the game. Despite having the go-ahead runs on base, Smith was able to escape the inning without any further damage.
There was no scoring until the 14th inning when the Mets would take the lead on a Wally Backman single and an error by left fielder Billy Hatcher. The Astros would get the run back in the bottom of the 14th when Hatcher (in a classic goat-to-hero-conversion-moment) hit one of the most dramatic home runs in NLCS history, off the left field foul pole. In the 16th inning, Darryl Strawberry doubled to lead off the inning and Ray Knight drove him home in the next at-bat. The Mets would score a total of three runs in the inning to take what appeared an insurmountable 7–4 lead. With their season on the line, the Astros would nonetheless rally for two runs to come to within 7–6. Kevin Bass came up with the tying and winning runs on base; however Jesse Orosco would strike him out, ending the game. At the time the 16-inning game held the record for the longest in MLB postseason history. The Mets won the series, 4–2.
After the 1986 season, the team had difficulty finding success again. Several changes occurred. The "rainbow" uniforms were phased out, the team electing to keep a five-stripe "rainbow" design on the sleeves. From 1987 to 1993, the Astros wore the same uniform for both home and away games; the only team in Major League Baseball to do so during that period. Its favorites Nolan Ryan and José Cruz moved on and the team entered a rebuilding phase. Craig Biggio debuted in June 1988, joining new prospects Ken Caminiti and Gerald Young. Biggio would become the everyday catcher by 1990. A trade acquiring Jeff Bagwell in exchange for Larry Andersen would become one of the biggest deals in Astros history. Glenn Davis was traded to Baltimore for Curt Schilling, Pete Harnisch and Steve Finley in 1990.
The early 1990s were marked by the Astros' growing discontent with their home, the Astrodome. After the Astrodome was renovated for the primary benefit of the NFL's Houston Oilers (who shared the Astrodome with the Astros since the 1960s), the Astros began to grow increasingly disenchanted with the facility. Faced with declining attendance at the Astrodome and the inability of management to obtain a new stadium, in the off-season Astros management announced its intention to sell the team and move the franchise to the Washington, D.C. area. However, the move was not approved by other National League owners, thus compelling the Astros to remain in Houston. Shortly thereafter, McMullen (who also owned the NHL's New Jersey Devils) sold the team to Texas businessman Drayton McLane in 1993, who committed to keeping the team in Houston.
Shortly after McLane's arrival, which coincided with the maturation of Bagwell and Biggio, the Astros began to show signs of consistent success. After finishing second in their division in 1994 (in a strike year), 1995, and 1996, the Astros won consecutive division titles in 1997, 1998, and 1999. In the 1998 season, the Astros set a team record with 102 victories. However, each of these titles was followed by a first-round playoff elimination, in 1998 by the San Diego Padres and in 1997 and 1999 against the Atlanta Braves. The manager of these title teams was Larry Dierker, who had previously been a broadcaster and pitcher for the Astros. During this period, Bagwell, Biggio, Derek Bell, and Sean Berry earned the collective nickname "The Killer Bs". In later seasons, the name came to include other Astros, especially Lance Berkman.
Coinciding with the change in ownership, the team switched uniforms and team colors after the season in order to go for a new, more serious image. The team's trademark rainbow uniforms were retired, and the team's colors changed to midnight blue and metallic gold. The "Astros" font on the team logo was changed to a more aggressive one, and the team's traditional star logo was changed to a stylized, "flying" star with an open left end. It marked the first time since the team's inception that orange was not part of the team's colors. Despite general agreement that the rainbow uniforms identified with the team had become tired (and looked too much like a minor league team according to the new owners), the new uniforms and caps were never especially popular with many Astros fans.
Off the field, in 1994, the Astros hired one of the first African American general managers, former franchise player Bob Watson. Watson would leave the Astros after the 1995 season to become general manager of the New York Yankees and helped to lead the Yankees to a World Championship in 1996. He would be replaced by Gerry Hunsicker, who until 2004 would continue to oversee the building of the Astros into one of the better and most consistent organizations in the Major Leagues.
However, in 1996, the Astros again nearly left Houston. By the mid-1990s, McLane (like McMullen before him) wanted his team out of the Astrodome and was asking the city to build the Astros a new stadium. When things did not progress quickly toward that end, he put the team up for sale. He had nearly finalized a deal to sell the team to businessman William Collins, who planned to move them to Northern Virginia. However, Collins was having difficulty finding a site for a stadium himself, so Major League owners stepped in and forced McLane to give Houston another chance to grant his stadium wish. Houston voters, having already lost the Houston Oilers in a similar situation, responded positively via a stadium referendum and the Astros stayed put.
The 2000 season saw a move to a new stadium. Originally to be named "The Ballpark at Union Station" due to being located on the site of Union Station, it was renamed "Enron Field" by the season opening after the naming rights were sold to energy corporation Enron. The stadium was to feature a retractable roof, a particularly useful feature with unpredictable Houston weather. The ballpark also featured more intimate surroundings than the Astrodome. In 2002, naming rights were purchased by Houston-based Minute Maid, after Enron went bankrupt. The park was built on the grounds of the old Union Station. A locomotive moves across the outfield and whistles after home runs, paying homage to a Houston history which had 11 railroad company lines running through the city by 1860. The ballpark previously contained quirks such as "Tal's Hill", which was a hill in deep center field on which a flagpole stood, all in fair territory. Tal's Hill was replaced in the 2016–2017 offseason. The wall was moved in to , which the team hoped would generate more home runs. A similar feature was located in Crosley Field. Over the years, many highlight reel catches have been made by center fielders running up the hill to make catches. With the change in location also came a change in attire. Gone were the blue and gold uniforms of the 1990s in favor a more "retro" look with pinstripes, a traditional baseball font, and the colors of brick red, sand and black. These colors were chosen because ownership originally wanted to rename the team the Houston Diesels. The "shooting star" logo was modified but still retained its definitive look.
After two fairly successful seasons without a playoff appearance, the Astros were early favorites to win the 2004 NL pennant. They added star pitcher Andy Pettitte to a roster that already included standouts like Lance Berkman and Jeff Kent as well as veterans Bagwell and Biggio. Roger Clemens, who had retired after the season with the New York Yankees, agreed to join former teammate Pettitte on the Astros for 2004. The one-year deal included unique conditions, such as the option for Clemens to stay home in Houston on select road trips when he wasn't scheduled to pitch. Despite the early predictions for success, the Astros had a mediocre 44–44 record at the All-Star break. A lack of run production and a poor record in close games were major issues. After being booed at the 2004 All-Star Game held in Houston, manager Jimy Williams was fired and replaced by Phil Garner, a star on the division-winning 1986 Astros. The Astros enjoyed a 46–26 record in the second half of the season under Garner and earned the NL wild card spot. The Astros defeated the Braves 3–2 in the Division Series, but would lose the National League Championship Series to the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games. Clemens earned a record seventh Cy Young Award in 2004. Additionally, the mid-season addition of Carlos Beltrán in a trade with the Kansas City Royals helped the Astros tremendously in their playoff run. Despite midseason trade rumors, Beltrán would prove instrumental to the team's hopes, hitting eight home runs in the postseason. Though he had asserted a desire to remain with the Astros, Beltrán signed a long-term contract with the New York Mets on January 9, 2005.
In 2005, the Astros started poorly and found themselves with a 15–30 record in late May. The "Houston Chronicle" had written them off with a tombstone emblazoned with "RIP 2005 Astros". However, from that low point until the end of July, Houston went 42–17 and found themselves in the lead for an NL wild card spot. July saw the best single-month record in the club's history at 22-7. Offensive production had increased greatly after a slow start in the first two months. The Astros had also developed an excellent pitching staff, anchored by Roy Oswalt (20–12, 2.94), Andy Pettitte (17–9, 2.39), and Roger Clemens (13–8 with a league-low ERA of only 1.87). The contributions of the other starters—Brandon Backe (10–8, 4.76) and rookie starters Ezequiel Astacio (3–6, 5.67) and Wandy Rodríguez (10–10, 5.53)—were less remarkable, but enough to push the Astros into position for a playoff run. The Astros won a wild card berth on the final day of the regular season, becoming the first team since the world champion 1914 Boston Braves to qualify for the postseason after being 15 games under .500.
The Astros won the National League Division Series against the Atlanta Braves, 3–1, with a game four that set postseason records for most innings (18), most players used by a single team (23), and longest game time (5 hours and 50 minutes). Trailing by a score of 6–1, Lance Berkman hit an eighth-inning grand slam to narrow the score to 6–5. In the bottom of the ninth, catcher Brad Ausmus hit a game-tying home run that allowed the game to continue in extra innings. In the bottom of the tenth inning, Luke Scott hit a blast to left field that had home run distance, but was inches foul. This game remained scoreless for the next eight innings. In the top of the 15th inning, Roger Clemens made only his second career relief appearance, pitching three shutout innings, notably striking out Julio Franco, at the time the oldest player in the MLB at 47 years old; Clemens was himself 43. In the bottom of the eighteenth inning, Clemens came to bat again, indicating that he would be pitching in the nineteenth inning, if it came to that. Clemens struck out, but the next batter, Chris Burke, hit a home run to left field for the Astros win, 7–6. Oddly enough, a fan in the "Crawford Boxes" in left field had previously caught Berkman's grand slam and this same fan caught Burke's home run. The National League Championship Series featured a rematch of the 2004 NLCS. The Astros lost the first game in St. Louis, but would win the next three games, with Roy Oswalt getting the win. Though the Astros were poised to close out the series in Game Five in Houston, Brad Lidge gave up a monstrous two-out three-run home run to Albert Pujols, forcing the series to a sixth game in St. Louis, where the Astros clinched a World Series appearance. Roy Oswalt was named NLCS MVP, having gone 2–0 with a 1.29 ERA in the series. Current honorary NL President William Y. Giles presented the league champion Astros with the Warren C. Giles Trophy. Warren Giles, William's father and President of the National League from to , had awarded an MLB franchise to the city of Houston in 1960.
The Astros faced the Chicago White Sox in the World Series. Chicago had been considered the slight favorite but would win all four games, the first two at U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago and the final two in Houston. Game 3 marked the first World Series game held in the state of Texas, and was the longest game in World Series history, lasting 5 hours and 41 minutes.
This World Series was marked by a controversy involving the Minute Maid Park roof. MLB & Commissioner Bud Selig insisted that the Astros must play with the roof open, which mitigated the intensity and enthusiasm of the cheering Astros fans.
In the 2006 offseason, the team signed Preston Wilson and moved Berkman to first base, ending the long tenure of Jeff Bagwell. The Astros renewed the contract with Clemens and traded two minor league prospects to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays for left-handed hitter Aubrey Huff. By August, Preston Wilson complained about his playing time after the return of Luke Scott from AAA Round Rock. The Astros released Wilson and he was signed by St. Louis. A dramatic season end included wins in 10 of their last 12 games, but the Astros missed a playoff appearance when they lost the final game of the season to the Atlanta Braves.
On October 31, the Astros declined a contract option on Jeff Bagwell for 2007, ending his 15-year Astros career and leading to his retirement. Roger Clemens and Andrew Pettitte filed for free agency. On December 12, the Astros traded Willy Taveras, Taylor Buchholz, and Jason Hirsh to the Colorado Rockies for Rockies pitchers Jason Jennings and Miguel Asencio. A trade with the White Sox, involving the same three Astros in exchange for Jon Garland, had been nixed a few days earlier when Buchholz reportedly failed a physical. In the end, Taveras continued to develop and Hirsh had a strong 2007 rookie campaign, while Jennings was often injured and generally ineffective.
On April 28, 2007, the Astros purchased the contract of top minor league prospect Hunter Pence. He debuted that night, getting a hit and scoring a run. By May 2007, the Astros had suffered one of their worst recent losing streaks (10 games). On June 28, second baseman Craig Biggio became the 27th MLB player to accrue 3,000 career hits. Biggio needed three hits to reach 3,000 and on that night he had five hits. That night, Carlos Lee hit a towering walk-off grand slam in the 11th inning. Lee later quipped to the newsmedia that "he had hit a walk-off grand slam and he got second billing", considering Biggio's achievement. On July 24, Biggio announced that he would retire at the end of the season. He hit a grand slam in that night's game which broke a 3–3 tie and led to an Astros win. In Biggio's last at bat, he grounded out to Chipper Jones of the Atlanta Braves.
On September 20, Ed Wade was named General Manager. In his first move, he traded Jason Lane to the Padres on September 24. On September 30, Craig Biggio retired after twenty years with the team. In November, the Astros traded RHP Brad Lidge and SS Eric Bruntlett to the Philadelphia Phillies for OF Michael Bourn, RHP Geoff Geary, and minor leaguer Mike Costanzo. Utility player Mark Loretta accepted Houston's salary arbitration and Kazuo Matsui finalized a $16.5 million, three-year contract with the team. In December, the Astros traded OF Luke Scott, RHP Matt Albers, RHP Dennis Sarfate, LHP Troy Patton, and minor-league 3B Mike Costanzo, to the Baltimore Orioles for SS Miguel Tejada. On December 14, they sent infielder Chris Burke, RHP Juan Gutiérrez, and RHP Chad Qualls to the Arizona Diamondbacks for RHP José Valverde. On December 27, the Astros came to terms on a deal with All-Star, Gold Glove winner Darin Erstad.
In January and February 2008, the Astros signed Brandon Backe, Ty Wigginton, Dave Borkowski and Shawn Chacón to one-year deals. The starting rotation would feature Roy Oswalt and Brandon Backe as numbers one and two. Wandy Rodríguez, Chacón and Chris Sampson rounded out the bottom three slots in the rotation. Woody Williams had retired after a 0–4 spring training and Jason Jennings was now with Texas. On the other side of the roster, the Astros would start without Kazuo Matsui, who was on a minor league rehab assignment after a spring training injury.
The Astros regressed in 2008 and 2009, finishing with records of 86–75 and 74–88, respectively. Manager Cecil Cooper was fired after the 2009 season. At the lowest point of the regression, children admissions were free.
The 2010 season was the first season as Astros manager for Brad Mills, who was previously the bench coach of the Boston Red Sox. The Astros struggled throughout a season that was marked by trade-deadline deals that sent longtime Astros to other teams. On July 29, the Astros' ace starting pitcher, Roy Oswalt, was dealt to the Philadelphia Phillies for J. A. Happ and two minor league players. On July 31, outfielder Lance Berkman was traded to the New York Yankees for minor leaguers Jimmy Paredes and Mark Melancon. The Astros finished with a record of 76–86.
On July 30, 2011, the Astros traded OF Hunter Pence, the team's 2010 leader in home runs, to the Philadelphia Phillies. On July 31, they traded OF Michael Bourn to the Atlanta Braves. On September 17, the Astros clinched their first 100-loss season in franchise history, On September 28, the Astros ended the season with an 8–0 home loss to the St. Louis Cardinals. Cardinals pitcher Chris Carpenter pitched a complete game, two-hit shutout in the game, enabling the Cardinals to win the National League Wild Card, where they went on to beat the Texas Rangers in the World Series, with Lance Berkman being a key player in their championship victory. The Astros finished with a record of 56–106, the worst single-season record in franchise history (a record which would be broken the following season).
In November 2010, Drayton McLane announced that the Astros were being put up for sale. McLane stated that because the Astros were one of the few franchises in Major League Baseball with only one family as the owners, he was planning his estate. McLane was 75 years old as of November 2011. In March 2011, local Houston businessman Jim Crane emerged as the front-runner to purchase the franchise. In the 1980s, Crane founded an air freight business which later merged with CEVA Logistics, and later founded Crane Capital Group. McLane and Crane had a previous handshake agreement for the franchise in 2008, but Crane abruptly changed his mind and broke off discussions. Crane also attempted to buy the Chicago Cubs in 2008 and the Texas Rangers during their 2010 bankruptcy auction. Crane came under scrutiny because of previous allegations of discriminatory hiring practices regarding women and minorities, among other issues. This delayed MLB's approval process. During the summer of 2011, a frustrated Crane hinted that the delays might threaten the deal. In October 2011, Crane met personally with MLB Commissioner Bud Selig, in a meeting that was described as "constructive".
On November 15, 2011, it was announced that Crane had agreed to move the franchise to the American League for the 2013 season. The move was part of an overall divisional realignment of MLB, with the National and American leagues each having 15 teams in three geographically balanced divisions. Crane was given a $70 million concession by MLB for agreeing to the switch; the move was a condition for the sale to the new ownership group. Two days later, the Astros were officially sold to Crane after the other owners unanimously voted in favor of the sale. It was also announced that 2012 would be the last season for the Astros in the NL. After over fifty years of the Astros being a part of the National League, this move was unpopular with many Astros fans.
In 2012, the Astros were eliminated from the playoffs before September 5. On September 27, the Astros named Bo Porter to be the manager for the 2013 season.
On October 3, the Astros ended over 50 years of NL play with a 5–4 loss to the Chicago Cubs and began to look ahead to join the American League. Winning only 20 road games during the entire season, the Astros finished with a 55–107 record, the worst record in all of Major League Baseball for the 2012 season, and surpassing the 2011 season for the worst record in Astros history.
On November 2, 2012, the Astros unveiled their new look in preparation for their move to the American League for the 2013 season. The uniform is navy and orange, going back to the original 1960s team colors, as well as debuting a new version of the classic navy hat with a white "H" over an orange star.
On November 6, 2012, the Astros hired former Cleveland Indians director of baseball operations David Stearns as the team's new assistant general manager. The Astros would also go on to hire former St. Louis Cardinals front office executive Jeff Luhnow as their general manager.
The Houston Astros played their first game as an American League team on March 31, 2013, where they were victorious over their in-state division competitor, the Texas Rangers, with a score of 8–2.
On May 17, Reid Ryan, son of Nolan Ryan was introduced as president of operations.
On September 29, the Astros completed their first year in the American League, losing 5–1 in a 14-inning game to the New York Yankees. The Astros finished the season with a 51–111 record (a franchise worst) with a season ending 15-game losing streak, again surpassing their worst record from the previous season. The team finished 45 games behind the division winner Oakland Athletics, further adding to their futility. This marked three consecutive years that the Astros had lost more than 100 games in a single season. They also became the first team to have the first overall pick in the draft three years in a row.
In February 2014, Nolan Ryan rejoined the Astros front office as assistant to owner Jim Crane, GM Jeff Luhnow and president of business operations Reid Ryan. From 2004 through 2008 he worked as a special assistant to the GM.
For the 2014 season the team went 70–92, finishing 28 games back of the division winner Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, and placing fourth in the AL West over the Texas Rangers.
A.J. Hinch was named manager on September 29, replacing Bo Porter, who was fired on September 1.
In 2015, Dallas Keuchel led the AL with 20 victories, going 15–0 at home, an MLB record. Key additions to the team included Scott Kazmir and SS Carlos Correa who hit 22 home runs, being called up in June 2015. 2B José Altuve picked up where he left off as the star of the Astros' offense. On July 30, the Astros picked up Mike Fiers and Carlos Gómez from the Milwaukee Brewers. Fiers threw the 11th no-hitter in Astros history on August 21 against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Houston got the final AL playoff spot and faced the Yankees in the Wild Card Game on October 6 at New York. They defeated the Yankees 3–0, but lost to the Kansas City Royals in the American League Division Series.
The Astros split the first two games of the ALDS best-of-five series in Kansas City. The Astros won the first game at Minute Maid to take a 2–1 lead in the ALDS. In game 4, after 7 innings, the Astros had a 6–2 lead. In the top half of the eighth inning, which took about 45 minutes to end, the Royals had taken a 7–6 lead with a series of consecutive base hits. The Astros suffered a 9–6 loss and the ALDS was tied at 2–2. Then the series went back to Kansas City, where the Royals clinched the series in the fifth game, 7–2.
The Astros entered the 2016 season as the favorites to win the AL West after a promising 2015 season. After a bad start to their season, with Houston going just 7–17 in April, the Astros bounced back and went on to have a winning record in their next four months, including an 18–8 record in June. But after going 12–15 in September, the Astros were eliminated from playoff contention. They finished in third place in the American League West Division with a final record of 84–78.
The season was marked by the Astros 4–15 record against their in-state division rival (and eventual division winner) Texas Rangers. The Astros finished the 2016 season 11 games behind the Rangers.
In 2014, "Sports Illustrated" predicted the Astros would win the 2017 World Series through their strategic rebuilding process. As of June 9, the Astros were 41–16, which gave them a 13.5-game lead over the rest of their division, and they had comfortable possession of the best record in the entire league. This was the best start in the Astros' 55-year history. As the games of June 23 concluded, the Astros had an 11.5-game lead over the rest of the division. The Astros entered the All-Star Break with an American League-best 60–29 record and a 16-game lead in the division, although the overall best record in MLB had just barely slipped to the Dodgers shortly before the All-Star Break by just one game.
With Hurricane Harvey causing massive flooding throughout Houston and southeast Texas, the Astros' three-game series against the Texas Rangers for August 29–31, was relocated to Tropicana Field (home of the Tampa Bay Rays), in St. Petersburg, Florida. As the area recovered from the hurricane, many residents rallied around the Astros, who adopted the mantra "Houston Strong" and wore a patch on their jerseys with the mantra for the remainder of the season.
At the August 31 waiver-trade deadline GM Jeff Luhnow acquired veteran starting pitcher and Cy Young Award winner Justin Verlander to bolster the starting rotation. Verlander won each of his 5 regular season starts with the Astros, yielding only 4 runs over this stretch. He carried his success into the playoffs, posting a record of 4–1 in his 6 starts, and throwing a complete game in Game 2 of the ALCS. Verlander was named the 2017 ALCS MVP.
The Astros clinched their first division title as a member of the American League West division, and first division title overall since 2001. They also became the first team in Major League history to win three different divisions: National League West in 1980 and 1986, National League Central from 1997 to 1999 and 2001, and American League West in 2017. On September 29, the Astros won their 100th game of the season, the second time the Astros finished a season with over 100 wins, the first being in 1998. They finished 101–61, with a 21-game lead in the division, and faced the Red Sox in the first round of the AL playoffs. The Astros defeated the Red Sox three games to one, and advanced to the American League Championship Series against the New York Yankees. The Astros won the ALCS four games to three, and advanced to the World Series to play against the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Astros defeated the Dodgers in the deciding seventh game of the World Series, winning the first championship in franchise history.
The victory was especially meaningful for the Houston area, which was rebuilding after Hurricane Harvey. The city of Houston celebrated the team's accomplishment with a parade on the afternoon of November 3, 2017. Houston police chief Art Acevedo estimated at least 750,000 people attended the parade.
On November 16, 2017, José Altuve was named the American League Most Valuable Player, capping off a historic season in which he accumulated 200 hits for the fourth consecutive season, led the majors with a .346 BA, and was the unquestioned clubhouse leader of the World Series champions.
On September 26, 2018, the Astros' second consecutive AL West division championship was clinched with a victory by the Seattle Mariners over the Oakland A's. For the third time in franchise history, and second consecutive season, the team won over 100 games; they finished the regular season 103-59 (a new franchise record) by sweeping a double-header against the Baltimore Orioles on September 29, 2018. The Astros swept the Cleveland Indians in the ALDS to advance to the ALCS to face the league-leading Boston Red Sox (who finished the season 108-54.) After a 7-2 victory in Game 1 of the ALCS, the Astros dropped the next four games, and Boston advanced to the World Series.
In the offseason, the Astros signed veteran outfielder Michael Brantley, and catcher Robinson Chirinos. At the trade deadline on July 31, 2019, Houston acquired another veteran starting pitcher and Cy Young award winner Zack Greinke to bolster the starting rotation. On September 22, the Astros clinched their third consecutive AL West division title. They finished the season with a record of 107-55, the best in franchise history, and the best record in MLB. They became the first team since the 2002-2004 New York Yankees to have 3 consecutive 100-win seasons. They also became the first team in MLB history to have three consecutive 100-loss seasons and three consecutive 100-win seasons in the same decade.
Entering the playoffs as the top seeded team in both leagues, they defeated the AL Wild Card winner Tampa Bay Rays in five games in the ALDS, advancing to the ALCS for the third year in a row to face the New York Yankees. In Game 6 at Minute Maid Park, Jose Altuve hit a walk-off home run to win the pennant and send the team to its third World Series appearance. However, they lost the 2019 World Series to the Washington Nationals in seven games, taking three games in Washington but losing all four of their games at home.
On November 12, 2019, Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich wrote an article in "The Athletic" detailing allegations that the Astros had used cameras to engage in potentially illicit sign stealing against opponents, relying on allegations from former Astros pitcher Mike Fiers as a public source and other allegations from unnamed sources. The Astros were alleged to have used scouts watching catchers' signs in real time behind the dugout at Minute Maid Park to crack the signs and banging a trash can loudly to indicate what kind of pitch was coming. The scandal rippled through the baseball world as internet sports personality Jomboy published videos that appeared to clearly show the scheme. Further allegations regarding other means of relaying signs, such as whistling, surfaced in subsequent weeks. MLB and Commissioner Rob Manfred announced a sweeping investigation into the allegations.
On January 13, 2020, MLB announced that its investigation found that the Astros did use cameras and video monitors to steal signs of opposing catchers and signal to hitters throughout the 2017 regular season and postseason, and at least part of the 2018 season. (The investigation found no evidence of sign stealing in their pennant-winning 2019 season.) The report said that Alex Cora, then the Astros bench coach, Carlos Beltrán, and other unnamed players were involved in developing the scheme. It said Hinch "neither devised the banging scheme nor participated in it," but did not stop it or tell Cora he disapproved of it.
Manfred announced that manager A.J. Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow were suspended for one year, the team would be fined $5 million (the maximum allowed under MLB rules), and the team would lose its top two draft picks in both the 2020 and 2021 MLB Drafts. About an hour after MLB's announcement, Astros owner Jim Crane announced he had terminated both Hinch and Luhnow, saying he was unaware of the scheme and "extraordinarily troubled and upset", and concluded, "We need to move forward with a clean slate. [We] will not have this happen again on my watch." In a statement, Luhnow denied knowledge of the scheme. Hinch issued a statement saying, "While the evidence consistently showed I didn’t endorse or participate in the sign stealing practices, I failed to stop them and I am deeply sorry."
The scandal had repercussions around baseball. Cora was implicated in the report but Manfred withheld a decision on his punishment until the completion of a separate investigation into electronic sign stealing in 2018, when Cora was manager of the Red Sox. However, the report led the Red Sox to dismiss Cora two days after it was published, and the Mets did the same with Beltran, who had been hired as manager shortly before the original "The Athletic" story, the same week.
On January 29, 2020, the Astros announced they hired Dusty Baker as their new manager to replace Hinch.
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Two awards are presented each year, one to a Houston Astro and one to a St. Louis Cardinal, each of whom exemplifies Kile's virtues of being "a good teammate, a great friend, a fine father and a humble man." The winner is selected by each local chapter of the Baseball Writers' Association of America.
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While not officially retired, the Astros have not reissued number 57 since 2002, when former Astros pitcher Darryl Kile died as an active player with the St. Louis Cardinals. In addition, the Astros have not issued the number 17 since Lance Berkman was traded in 2010. The number 42 is retired by Major League Baseball in honor of Jackie Robinson.
On January 26, 2019, the team announced plans for a team Hall of Fame along with an inaugural class of inductees (including all retired numbers and members of the 2012 Walk of Fame), complete with an orange jacket and renderings for each of the inductees. The Astros Hall of Fame (with sponsorship by Houston Methodist) will be in the former Home Run Alley area of the ballpark under the new name of Hall of Fame Alley, beginning in March, with plaques to be revealed on Hall of Fame weekend on August 2 and induction on August 3. A display was installed in the Union Station lobby on January 31 that included the jerseys and hats of the first class of inductees.
The Astros have held their spring training at FITTEAM Ballpark of the Palm Beaches in West Palm Beach, Florida since 2017. They share the stadium with the Washington Nationals.
From 1985 to 2016, the Astros held spring training at Osceola Heritage Park in Kissimmee, Florida.
The Houston Astros farm system consists of seven minor league affiliates.
Since 2013, the Astros' flagship radio station is KBME, Sportstalk 790 AM (a Fox Sports Radio affiliate). Previously, the team had a partnership with KTRH (740 AM) which went from 1999 to 2012 (both stations are owned by iHeartMedia). This change suddenly made it difficult for listeners outside of Houston itself to hear the Astros, as KTRH runs 50 kilowatts of power day and night, and KBME runs only five kilowatts. As a result, KTRH is audible across much of Central, East, and South Texas, whereas KBME can only be heard in Houston, especially after dark. Milo Hamilton, a veteran voice who was on the call for Hank Aaron's 715th career home run in 1974, retired at the end of the 2012 season, after broadcasting play-by-play for the Astros since 1985. Dave Raymond and Brett Dolan shared play-by play duty for road games, while Raymond additionally worked as Hamilton's color analyst (while Hamilton called home games only for the past few seasons before his retirement); they were not retained and instead brought in Robert Ford and Steve Sparks to begin broadcasting for the 2013 season.
Spanish language radio play-by-play is handled by Francisco Romero, and his play-by-play partner is Alex Treviño, a former backup catcher for the club.
During the 2012 season Astros games on television were announced by Bill Brown and Jim Deshaies. In the seven seasons before then, Astros games were broadcast on television by Fox Sports Houston, with select games shown on broadcast TV by KTXH. As part of a ten-year, $1 billion deal with Comcast that includes a majority stake jointly held by the Astros and the Houston Rockets, Houston Astros games moved to the new Comcast SportsNet Houston at the beginning of the 2013 season. On September 27, 2013 CSN Houston filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy and surprising the Astros who own the largest stake. After being brought out of bankruptcy by DirecTV Sports Networks and AT&T, the channel's name was changed to Root Sports Southwest then later AT&T SportsNet Southwest.
The current television team consists of Todd Kalas and Geoff Blum.
Orbit is the name given to MLB's Houston Astros mascot, a lime-green outer-space creature wearing an Astros jersey with antennae extending into baseballs. Orbit was the team's official mascot from the 1990 through the 1999 seasons, where a rabbit named Junction Jack was introduced as the team's mascot with the move from the Astrodome to then Enron Field in 2000. (Junction Jack had two "relatives", Junction Julie and Junction Jesse, who were not official mascots). Orbit returned after 13-year hiatus on November 2, 2012 at the unveiling of the Astros new look for their 2013 debut in the American League. The name Orbit pays homage to Houston's association with NASA and nickname Space City.
In April 1977, the Houston Astros introduced their very first mascot, Chester Charge. Created by Ed Henderson, Chester Charge was a Texas cavalry soldier on a horse. Chester appeared on the field at the beginning of each home game, during the seventh inning stretch and then ran around the bases at the conclusion of each win. At the blast of a bugle, the scoreboard would light up and the audience would yell, "Charge!"
General
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Hal Clement
Harry Clement Stubbs (May 30, 1922 – October 29, 2003), better known by the pen name Hal Clement, was an American science fiction writer and a leader of the hard science fiction subgenre. He also painted astronomically oriented artworks under the name George Richard.
In 1998 Clement was inducted by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame and named the 17th SFWA Grand Master by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (presented in 1999).
Harry Clement Stubbs was born in Somerville, Massachusetts on May 30, 1922.
He went to Harvard, graduating with a B.S. in astronomy in 1943. While there he wrote his first published story, "Proof", which appeared in the June 1942 issue of "Astounding Science Fiction", edited by John W. Campbell; three more appeared in later 1942 numbers. His further educational background includes an M.Ed. (Boston University 1946) and M.S. in chemistry (Simmons College 1963).
During World War II Clement was a pilot and copilot of a B-24 Liberator and flew 35 combat missions over Europe with the 68th Bomb Squadron, 44th Bomb Group, based in England with 8th Air Force. After the war, he served in the United States Air Force Reserve, and retired with the rank of colonel. He taught chemistry and astronomy for many years at Milton Academy in Milton, Massachusetts.
From 1949 to 1953, Clement's first three novels were two-, three-, and four-part "Astounding" serials under Campbell: "Needle" (Doubleday, 1950), "Iceworld" (Gnome Press, 1953), and "Mission of Gravity" (1954), his best-known novel, published by Doubleday's Science Fiction Book Club (established 1953). The latter novel features a land and sea expedition across the superjovian planet Mesklin to recover a stranded scientific probe. The natives of Mesklin are centipede-like intelligent beings about 50 centimeters long. Various episodes hinge on the fact that Mesklin's fast rotational speed causes it to be considerably deformed from the spherical, with effective surface gravity that varies from approximately 3 ""g""n at the equator to approximately 700 "g"n at the poles.
Clement's article "Whirligig World" describes his approach to writing a science fiction story:
Writing a science fiction story is fun, not work. ...the fun...lies in treating the whole thing as a game... [T]he rules must be quite simple. They are; for the reader of a science-fiction story, they consist of finding as many as possible of the author's statements or implications which conflict with the facts as science currently understands them. For the author, the rule is to make as few such slips as he possibly can... Certain exceptions are made [e.g., to allow travel faster than the speed of light], but fair play demands that all such matters be mentioned as early as possible in the story...
Clement was a frequent guest at science fiction conventions, especially in the eastern United States, where he usually presented talks and slide shows about writing and astronomy.
Clement died in Massachusetts at the Milton Hospital on October 29, 2003 at age 81. He died in his sleep, most likely due to complications of diabetes.
Clement has been honored several times for his cumulative contributions including 1998 Hall of Fame induction, when Clement and Frederik Pohl were the fifth and sixth living persons honored, and the 1999 SFWA Grand Master Award.
For the 1945 short story "Uncommon Sense" he received a 50-year Retro Hugo Award at the 1996 World Science Fiction Convention. "Mission of Gravity", first published as a serial during 1953, was named best foreign novel by the Spanish Science Fiction Association in 1994 and it was a finalist for a 50-year Retro Hugo Award in 2004.
The Hal Clement Award for Young Adults for Excellence in Children's Science Fiction Literature is presented in his memory at Worldcon each year.
Wayne Barlowe illustrated two of Clement's fictional species, the Abyormenites and the Mesklinites, in his "Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials".
Planets created by Clement typically feature unique astronomical or physical aspects. They include:
"In the early 1940s, in Astounding, there was a small department called Probability Zero! that ran short-short stories. Or items. Or lies. Things. These things were usually funny and always impossible - echoing the description of the title."
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Kilt
A kilt ( ) is a type of knee-length non-bifurcated skirt with pleats at the back, originating in the traditional dress of Gaelic men and boys in the Scottish Highlands. It is first recorded in the 16th century as the great kilt, a full-length garment whose upper half could be worn as a cloak. The small kilt or "modern" kilt emerged in the 18th century, and is essentially the bottom half of the great kilt. Since the 19th century, it has become associated with the wider culture of Scotland, and more broadly with Gaelic or Celtic heritage. It is most often made of woollen cloth in a tartan pattern.
Although the kilt is most often worn on formal occasions and at Highland games and other sports events, it has also been adapted as an item of informal male clothing, returning to its roots as an everyday garment. Particularly in North America, kilts are now made for casual wear in a variety of materials. Alternative fastenings may be used and pockets inserted to avoid the need for a sporran. Kilts have also been adopted as female wear for some sports.
The kilt first appeared as the great kilt, the ' or belted plaid, during the 16th century, and is Gaelic in origin. The ' or great kilt was a full-length garment whose upper half could be worn as a cloak draped over the shoulder, or brought up over the head. A version of the "" (philibeg), or small kilt (also known as the walking kilt), similar to the modern kilt was invented by an English Quaker from Lancashire named Thomas Rawlinson some time in the 1720s. He felt that the belted plaid was "cumbrous and unwieldy", and his solution was to separate the skirt and convert it into a distinct garment with pleats already sewn, which he himself began wearing. His associate, Iain MacDonnell, chief of the MacDonnells of Inverness, also began wearing it, and when clansmen employed in logging, charcoal manufacture and iron smelting saw their chief wearing the new apparel, they soon followed suit. From there its use spread "in the shortest space" amongst the Highlanders, and even amongst some of the Northern Lowlanders. It has been suggested there is evidence that the philibeg with unsewn pleats was worn from the 1690s.
The name "kilt" is applied to a range of garments:
According to the "Dictionary of the Scots Language" and "Oxford English Dictionary", the noun derives from a verb "to kilt", originally meaning "to gird up; to tuck up (the skirts) round the body", which is apparently of Scandinavian origin.
Organisations that sanction and grade the competitions in Highland dancing and piping all have rules governing acceptable attire for the competitors. These rules specify that kilts are to be worn (except that in the national dances, the female competitors will be wearing the Aboyne dress).
The Scottish kilt displays uniqueness of design, construction, and convention which differentiate it from other garments fitting the general description. It is a tailored garment that is wrapped around the wearer's body at the natural waist (between the lowest rib and the hip) starting from one side (usually the wearer's left), around the front and back and across the front again to the opposite side. The fastenings consist of straps and buckles on both ends, the strap on the inside end usually passing through a slit in the waistband to be buckled on the outside; alternatively it may remain inside the waistband and be buckled inside.
A kilt covers the body from the waist down to the centre of the knees. The overlapping layers in front are called "aprons" and are flat; the single layer of fabric around the sides and back is pleated. A kilt pin is fastened to the front apron on the free corner (but is not passed through the layer below, as its function is to add weight). Underwear may or may not be worn, as the wearer prefers, although tradition has it that a "true Scotsman" should wear nothing under his kilt. The Scottish Tartans Authority, however, warns that in some circumstances the practice could be "childish and unhygienic" and flying "in the face of decency".
In the World War I, the regiment would be inspected by a senior officer who would have a mirror to look under kilts. Anyone found wearing underpants would be sent back to take them off.
In 2015, the scottish barmen of Hootananny pub in Inverness abandon kilts because female customers don't stop lifting them. Ian Howie, the pub’s assistant manager, said: "You get large groups of drinking women circling around when you are collecting glasses and asking whether you are true Scotsman – and they find out for themselves. Mainly hen nights". The traditional Scottish garment was initially chosen to give the venue a more authentic feel. Now Tartan shorts will be worn instead.
The typical kilt as seen at modern Highland games events is made of twill woven worsted wool. The twill weave used for kilts is a "2–2 type", meaning that each weft thread passes over and under two warp threads at a time. The result is a distinctive diagonal-weave pattern in the fabric which is called the twill line. This kind of twill, when woven according to a given sett or written colour pattern "(see below)" is called tartan. In contrast kilts worn by Irish pipers are made from solid-colour cloth, with saffron or green being the most widely used colours.
Kilting fabric weights are given in ounces per yard and run from the very-heavy, regimental worsted of approximately down to a light worsted of about . The most common weights for kilts are and . The heavier weights are more appropriate for cooler weather, while the lighter weights would tend to be selected for warmer weather or for active use, such as Highland dancing. Some patterns are available in only a few weights.
A modern kilt for a typical adult uses about 6–8 yards of single-width (about 26–30 inches) or about 3–4 yards of double-width (about 54–60 inches) tartan fabric. Double-width fabric is woven so that the pattern exactly matches on the selvage. Kilts are usually made without a hem because a hem would make the garment too bulky and cause it to hang incorrectly. The exact amount of fabric needed depends upon several factors including the size of the sett, the number of pleats put into the garment, and the size of the person. For a full kilt, 8 yards of fabric would be used regardless of size and the number of pleats and depth of pleat would be adjusted according to their size. For a very large waist, it may be necessary to use 9 yards of cloth.
One of the most-distinctive features of the authentic Scots kilt is the tartan pattern, the "sett", it exhibits. The association of particular patterns with individual clans and families can be traced back perhaps one or two centuries. It was only in the 19th-century Victorian era that the system of named tartans known today began to be systematically recorded and formalised, mostly by weaving companies for mercantile purposes. Up until this point, Highland tartans held regional associations rather than being identified with any particular clan.
Today there are also tartans for districts, counties, societies and corporations. There are also setts for states and provinces; schools and universities; sporting activities; individuals; and commemorative and simple generic patterns that anybody can wear (see History of the kilt for the process by which these associations came about).
Setts are always arranged horizontally and vertically, never diagonally (except when adapted for women's skirts). They are specified by their thread counts, the sequence of colours and their units of width. As an example, the Wallace tartan has a thread count given as "K/4 R32 K32 Y/4" (K is black, R is red, and Y is yellow). This means that 4 units of black thread will be succeeded by 32 units of red, etc., in both the warp and the weft. Typically, the units are the actual number of threads, but as long as the proportions are maintained, the resulting pattern will be the same. This thread count also includes a pivot point indicated by the slash between the colour and thread number. The weaver is supposed to reverse the weaving sequence at the pivot point to create a mirror image of the pattern. This is called a symmetrical tartan. Some tartans, like Buchanan, are asymmetrical, which means they do not have a pivot point. The weaver weaves the sequence all the way through and then starts at the beginning again for the next sett.
Setts are further characterised by their size, the number of inches (or centimetres) in one full repeat. The size of a given sett depends on not only the number of threads in the repeat but also the weight of the fabric. This is because the heavier the fabric, the thicker the threads will be, and thus the same number of threads of a heavier-weight fabric will occupy more space. The colours given in the thread count are specified as in heraldry, although tartan patterns are not heraldic. The exact shade which is used is a matter of artistic freedom and will vary from one fabric mill to another as well as in dye lot to another within the same mill.
Tartans are commercially woven in four standard colour variations that describe the overall tone. "Ancient" or "Old" colours may be characterised by a slightly faded look intended to resemble the vegetable dyes that were once used, although in some cases "Old" simply identifies a tartan that was in use before the current one. Ancient greens and blues are lighter while reds appear orange. "Modern" colours are bright and show off modern aniline dyeing methods. The colours are bright red, dark hunter green, and usually navy blue. "Weathered" or "Reproduction" colours simulate the look of older cloth weathered by the elements. Greens turn to light brown, blues become grey, and reds are a deeper wine colour. The last colour variation is "Muted" which tends toward earth tones. The greens are olive, blues are slate blue, and red is an even deeper wine colour. This means that of the approximately 3500 registered tartans available in the Scottish Tartans Authority database as of 2004 there are four possible colour variations for each, resulting in around 14,000 recognised tartan choices.
Setts were registered until 2008, with the "International Tartan Index" ("ITI") of the charitable organisation Scottish Tartans Authority (STA), which maintained a collection of fabric samples characterised by name and thread count, for free, which had its register, combined with others to form the "Scottish Register of Tartans" ("SRT") of the statutory body the National Archives of Scotland (NAS), if the tartan meets SRT's criteria, for UK£70 as of 2010. Although many tartans are added every year, most of the registered patterns available today were created in the 19th century onward by commercial weavers who worked with a large variety of colours. The rise of Highland romanticism and the growing Anglicisation of Scottish culture by the Victorians at the time led to registering tartans with clan names. Before that, most of these patterns were more connected to geographical regions than to any clan. There is therefore nothing symbolic about the colours, and nothing about the patterns is a reflection of the status of the wearer.
Although ready-to-wear kilts can be obtained in standard sizes, a custom kilt is tailored to the individual proportions of the wearer. At least three measurements, the waist, hips, and length of the kilt, are usually required. Sometimes the rise (distance above the waist) or the fell (distance from waistline to the widest part of the hips) is also required.
A properly made kilt, when buckled on the tightest holes of the straps, is not so loose that the wearer can easily twist the kilt around their body, nor so tight that it causes "scalloping" of the fabric where it is buckled. Additionally, the length of the kilt when buckled at the waist reaches a point no lower than halfway across the kneecap and no higher than about an inch above it.
A kilt can be pleated with either box or knife pleats. A knife pleat is a simple fold, while the box pleat is bulkier, consisting of two knife pleats back-to-back. Knife pleats are the most common in modern civilian kilts. Regimental traditions vary. The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders use box pleats, while the Black Watch make their kilts of the same tartan with knife pleats. These traditions were also passed on to affiliated regiments in the Commonwealth, and were retained in successor battalions to these regiments in the amalgamated Royal Regiment of Scotland.
Pleats can be arranged relative to the pattern in two ways. In "pleating to the stripe", one of the vertical stripes in the tartan is selected and the fabric is then folded so that this stripe runs down the center of each pleat. The result is that along the pleated section of the kilt (the back and sides) the pattern appears different from the unpleated front, often emphasising the horizontal bands rather than creating a balance between horizontal and vertical. This is often called military pleating because it is the style adopted by many military regiments. It is also widely used by pipe bands.
In "pleating to the sett", the fabric is folded so that the pattern of the sett is maintained and is repeated all around the kilt. This is done by taking up one full sett in each pleat, or two full setts if they are small. This causes the pleated sections to have the same pattern as the unpleated front.
Any pleat is characterised by depth and width. The portion of the pleat that protrudes under the overlying pleat is the size or width. The pleat width is selected based on the size of the sett and the amount of fabric to be used in constructing the kilt, and will generally vary from about 1/2" to about 3/4".
The depth is the part of the pleat which is folded under the overlying pleat. It depends solely on the size of the tartan sett even when pleating to the stripe, since the sett determines the spacing of the stripes.
The number of pleats used in making kilts depends upon how much material is to be used in constructing the garment and upon the size of the sett.
The pleats across the fell are tapered slightly since the wearer's waist is usually narrower than the hips and the pleats are usually stitched down either by machine or by hand.
In Highland dancing, it is easy to see the effect of the stitching on the action of a kilt. The kilt hugs the dancer's body from the waist down to the hipline and, from there, in response to the dancer's movements, it breaks sharply out. The way the kilt moves in response to the dance steps is an important part of the dance. If the pleats were not stitched down in this portion of the kilt, the action, or movement, would be quite different.
The Scottish kilt is usually worn with kilt hose (woollen socks), turned down at the knee, often with garters and flashes, and a (Gaelic for "purse": a type of pouch), which hangs around the waist from a chain or leather strap. This may be plain or embossed leather, or decorated with sealskin, fur, or polished metal plating.
Other common accessories, depending on the formality of the context, include:
Today most Scottish people regard kilts as formal dress or national dress. Although there are still a few people who wear a kilt daily, it is generally owned or hired to be worn at weddings or other formal occasions and may be worn by anyone regardless of nationality or descent. For semi-formal wear, kilts are usually worn with a Prince Charlie or an Argyll jacket. (Commercial suppliers have now produced equivalent jackets with Irish and Welsh themed styling.) Formal is white tie and requires a Regulation Doublet or higher.
Kilts are also used for parades by groups such as the Boys' Brigade and Scouts, and in many places kilts are seen in force at Highland games and pipe band championships as well as being worn at Scottish country dances and ceilidhs.
Certain regiments/units of the British Army and armies of other Commonwealth nations (including Australia, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa) with a Scottish lineage or heritage still continue to wear kilts as part of dress or duty uniform, though they have not been used in combat since 1940 Uniforms in which kilts are worn include Ceremonial Dress, Service Dress, and Barracks Dress. Kilts are considered appropriate for ceremonial parades, office duties, less formal parades, walking out, mess dinners, and classroom instruction or band practice. Ceremonial kilts have also been developed for the US Marine Corps, and the pipe and drum bands of the US Military Academy, US Naval Academy and Norwich University – The Military College of Vermont.
It is not uncommon to see kilts worn at Irish pubs in the United States, and it is becoming somewhat less rare to see them in the workplace. Casual use of kilts dressed down with lace-up boots or moccasins, and with T-shirts or golf shirts, is becoming increasingly familiar at Highland Games. The kilt is associated with a sense of Scottish national pride and will often be seen being worn, along with a football top, when members of the Tartan Army are watching a football or rugby match. The small sgian-dubh knife is sometimes replaced by a wooden or plastic alternative or omitted altogether for security concerns: for example, it typically is not allowed to be worn or carried onto a commercial aircraft.
Though the origins of the Irish kilt continue to be a subject of debate, current evidence suggests that kilts originated in the Scottish Highlands and Isles and were worn by Irish nationalists from at least 1850s onwards and then cemented from the early 1900s as a symbol of Gaelic identity.
A garment that has often been mistaken for kilts in early depictions is the Irish "", a long tunic traditionally made from solid colour cloth, with black, saffron and green. Solid coloured kilts were first adopted for use by Irish nationalists and thereafter by Irish regiments serving in the British Army, but they could often be seen in late 19th and early 20th century photos in Ireland especially at political and musical gatherings, as the kilt was re-adopted as a symbol of Gaelic nationalism in Ireland during this period.
Within the world of Irish dancing, boys' kilts have been largely abandoned, especially since the worldwide popularity of Riverdance and the revival and interest in Irish dancing generally.
Although not a traditional component of national dress outside Scotland or Ireland, kilts have become recently popular in the other Celtic nations as a sign of Celtic identity. Kilts and tartans can therefore also be seen in Ireland, Wales, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, Brittany and Galicia. Although not considered a Celtic region, Northumbrian kilts in border tartan have also been adopted.
There are currently sixteen Breton tartans officially recorded in the Scottish tartan registries. The Breton tartans are: Brittany National (Breton National), Brittany Walking, Lead it Of, and a further nine county tartans (Kerne, Leon, Tregor, Gwened, Dol, St. Malo, Rennes, Nantes, St. Brieuc). Others have been recently created for smaller areas in Brittany (Ushent, Bro Vigoudenn and Menez Du "Black Mountain").
There are two Galician tartans recorded in the Scottish registries: Galicia and "Gallaecia – Galician National". There is historical evidence of the use of tartan and kilt in Galicia up to the 18th century.
Kilts are also traditionally worn by some people in Austria, especially in Carinthia and Upper Austria, due to their celtic heritage. It is also mentionable that the oldest european tartan was found in Hallstatt, Austria, dating to sometime between 1200 and 400BC.
Contemporary kilts (also known as modern kilts and, especially in the United States of America, utility kilts) have appeared in the clothing marketplace in Scotland, the US, and Canada in a range of fabrics, including leather, denim, corduroy, and cotton. They may be designed for formal or casual dress, for use in sports or outdoor recreation, or as white or blue collar workwear. Some are closely modelled on traditional Scottish kilts, but others are similar only in being knee-length skirt-like garments for men. They may have box pleats, symmetrical knife pleats and be fastened by studs or velcro instead of buckles. Many are designed to be worn without a sporran, and may have pockets or tool belts attached.
In Canada, kilts are widely common as part of female dress at schools with a uniform policy. As well, due to the rich Scottish heritage of the country, they may frequently be seen at weddings and formal events. In Nova Scotia, they may even be worn as common daily attire.
In 2008, a USPS letter carrier, Dean Peterson, made a formal proposal that the kilt be approved as an acceptable postal uniform—for reasons of comfort. The proposal was defeated at the convention of the 220,000-member National Association of Letter Carriers in 2008 by a large margin.
5.11 Tactical produced a Tactical Duty Kilt as a result of the corporate April Fools' joke. The contemporary hybrid kilts are made up of tartan-woven fabric material.
Female athletes, especially lacrosse players, often wear kilts during games. They will typically wear compression shorts or spandex underneath. Kilts are popular among many levels of lacrosse, from youth leagues to college leagues, although some teams are replacing kilts with the more streamlined athletic skirt.
Men's kilts are often seen in popular contemporary media. For example, in the Syfy series "Tin Man", side characters are shown wearing kilts as peasant working clothes. Trends in everyday fashion, especially in the Gothic subculture, have led to a popularisation of the kilt as an alternative to more conventional menswear. Some of these are made of PVC or cotton-polyester blends.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17214
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Knowledge Query and Manipulation Language
The Knowledge Query and Manipulation Language, or KQML, is a language
and protocol for communication among software agents and knowledge-based systems. It was
developed in the early 1990s as part of the DARPA knowledge Sharing Effort, which was aimed at developing techniques for building large-scale knowledge bases which are
shareable and reusable. While originally conceived of as an interface to knowledge based systems, it was soon repurposed as an Agent communication language.
Work on KQML was led by Tim Finin of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and Jay Weber of EITech and involved contributions from many researchers.
The KQML message format and protocol can be used to interact with an intelligent system, either by an application program, or by another intelligent system. KQML's "performatives" are operations that agents perform on each other's knowledge and goal stores. Higher-level interactions such as contract nets and negotiation are built using these. KQML's "communication facilitators" coordinate the interactions of other agents to support knowledge sharing.
Experimental prototype systems support concurrent engineering, intelligent design, intelligent planning, and scheduling.
KQML is superseded by FIPA-ACL.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17216
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Sara Jane Olson
Sara Jane Olson (born Kathleen Ann Soliah on January 16, 1947) was a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) in the 1970s. She grew up in Palmdale, California, the daughter of Norwegian-American parents, Elsie Soliah (née Engstrøm) and Palmdale High School English teacher and coach Martin Soliah.
She went into hiding in 1976 after having been indicted in a bombing case. She lived much of her life in Minnesota under the alias Sara Jane Olson, which is now her legal name. Arrested in 1999, she pleaded guilty in 2001 to two counts of possessing explosives with intent to murder, and in 2003 to second-degree murder, both stemming from her SLA activities in the 1970s. She received a sentence of 14 years in prison.
She was mistakenly released for five days in March 2008, due to an error made in calculating her parole, before being rearrested. She was released on parole on March 17, 2009.
Kathleen Soliah was born in Fargo, North Dakota, while her family were living in Barnesville, Minnesota. When she was eight, her conservative Lutheran family relocated to Southern California. After graduating from the University of California, Santa Barbara, Soliah moved to Berkeley, California, with her boyfriend, James Kilgore. There, she met Angela Atwood at an acting audition where they both won lead roles. They became inseparable during the play's run. Atwood tried to sponsor Soliah into the SLA. Regardless, Soliah and Kilgore, along with her brother Steve and sister Josephine, followed the SLA closely without joining.
When Atwood and other core members of the SLA were killed in 1974 during a standoff with police near Watts, Los Angeles, following their murder of Marcus Foster, Oakland school superintendent, the Soliahs organized memorial rallies, including a rally in Berkeley's Willard Park (called Ho Chi Minh park by activists) where Soliah spoke in support of her friend Atwood, while being covertly filmed by the FBI. At that rally, Soliah said that her fellow SLA members had been:
She asserted that Atwood "was a truly revolutionary woman ... among the first white women to fight so righteously for their beliefs and to die for what they believed in".
Now a fugitive, founding SLA member Emily Harris disguised herself and visited Soliah, who was on the job at a bookstore. Soliah later recalled, "I was glad she was alive. I expected them to be killed at any time." She felt sorry for the group and agreed to help the remaining group hide from the police and FBI. She assisted them by procuring supplies for their San Francisco hideout and birth certificates of dead infants that could be used for identification purposes.
On April 21, 1975, SLA members robbed the Crocker National Bank in Carmichael, California, in the process killing 42-year-old Myrna Opsahl, a mother of four depositing money for her church. Patty Hearst, who was switch getaway driver during the crime, provided the original information that led the police to implicate the SLA in the robbery and murder; she also stated that Soliah was one of the actual robbers. According to Hearst, Soliah also kicked a pregnant teller in the abdomen, leading to a miscarriage.
Several rounds of 9 mm ammunition spilled on the floor and found in Opsahl's body during the robbery bore manufacturing marks that matched that of ammunition loaded in a 9 mm Browning Hi-Power semi-automatic pistol found by police in Soliah's bedroom dresser drawer at the SLA safehouse on Precita Avenue in San Francisco. In 2002, new forensics technology allowed police to link these shells definitively to those found at Crocker Bank prior to charging the former members of SLA, including Soliah, with the crime. Prosecutor Michael Latin said that Soliah was tied to the crime through fingerprints, a palm print, and handwriting evidence. The palm print was found on a garage door from a garage in which the SLA kept a getaway car.
On August 21, 1975, a bomb that came within 1/16 of an inch of detonating was discovered where a Los Angeles Police Department patrol car had been parked in front of an International House of Pancakes restaurant earlier in the day. After the bomb was discovered, all Los Angeles police were ordered to search under their cars, and another bomb was found in front of a police department about a mile away. Soliah was accused of planting the bombs in an attempt to avenge the SLA members who had died a year earlier in the standoff with LA police.
The pipe bombs were rigged to detonate as the patrol cars drove away. One police officer present that day described the first bomb as one of "the most dangerous pipe bombs he had ever seen" and went on to say:
At Soliah's 2002 sentencing hearing on the bombing, police officer John Hall, who had been in the car on top of the bomb described a little girl who stood feet away with her family:
Soliah was indicted in 1976 for setting the police bombs along with five other SLA members, but vanished before the trial could commence. When Soliah was eventually brought to trial years later, the evidence against her was not considered by prosecutors to be a "slam dunk", although enough to convince a jury of her guilt. Two witnesses who had originally testified in her grand jury indictment had died by the time she was found and brought to trial: a plumber who had sold materials used in the bomb had picked Soliah out of a lineup as one of the buyers, and a bomb expert had stated the explosive could have been built in Soliah's apartment. Police could not identify any fingerprints on the devices other than those of the officers who had disarmed them; however, Soliah's fingerprint, handwriting and signature were identified on a letter sent to order a fuse that could only be used for bomb-making purposes, and components matching those used in the police car bombs were found in a locked closet at the Precita Avenue hideout that Soliah lived in with the other members of SLA.
In February 1976, a grand jury indicted Soliah in the bombing case. Soliah went underground and became a fugitive for 23 years.
She moved to Minnesota, having assumed the alias Sara Jane Olson; the surname chosen being one of the most common names in Minnesota due to the state's large Scandinavian-American population. In 1980 she married the physician Gerald Frederick "Fred" Peterson, with whom she would have three daughters. Olson and Peterson spent time in Zimbabwe, where Peterson worked for a British Medical missionary group, before settling in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where Olson resumed her acting career. She was active in Saint Paul on community issues. Her husband described the family as interested in progressive social causes.
On March 3, 1999, and again on May 15, 1999, Soliah was profiled on the "America's Most Wanted" television program. After a tip generated by the show, she was arrested on June 16, 1999. Soliah was then charged with conspiracy to commit murder, possession of explosives, explosion, and attempt to ignite an explosive with intent to murder.
Shortly after her arrest, Soliah legally changed her name to her alias, Sara Jane Olson. She also published a cookbook titled "Serving Time: America's Most Wanted Recipes".
On October 31, 2001, she accepted a plea bargain and pleaded guilty to two counts of possessing explosives with intent to murder. As part of a plea bargain, the other charges were dropped.
Immediately after entering the plea, however, Olson told reporters that she was innocent and that she had decided to take a plea bargain due to the climate after the September 11 attacks, in which she felt an accused bomber could not receive a fair trial from a jury. "It became clear to me that the incident would have a remarkable effect on the outcome of this trial ... the effect was probably going to be negative," she said. "That's really what governed this decision, not the truth or honesty, but what was probably in my best interests and the interests of my family."
Angered by Olson's announcement that she had lied in court, Superior Court Judge Larry Fidler ordered another hearing on November 6, at which he asked her several times if she was indeed guilty of the charges. Olson replied "I want to make it clear, Your Honor, that I did not make that bomb. I did not possess that bomb. I did not plant that bomb. But under the concept of aiding and abetting, I plead guilty."
On November 13, Olson filed a motion requesting to withdraw her guilty plea and acknowledged that she did not misunderstand the judge when he read the charges against her. Rather, she said:
On December 3, 2001, Fidler offered to let Olson testify under oath about her role in the case. She refused. He then wondered "I took those pleas twice ... were you lying to me then or are you lying to me now?"—and denied her request to withdraw her plea. Observers expected her to serve only three to five years, but on January 18, 2002, she was sentenced to two consecutive 10-years-to-life terms. Fidler warned that according to California law, the Board of Prison Terms could later change the sentence to a lesser term. Olson's lawyers asserted that due to discrepancies between 1970s laws and current California laws, their client would most likely serve only five years, which could turn into two years for good behavior. The Board of Prison Terms did later change the sentence.
At her sentencing hearing, Olson's teenage daughter Leila, her pastor, and her husband spoke in her defense, while Olson's mother claimed on the stand that Olson had never been a part of the SLA and spoke against prosecutors and police she asserted had harassed the family.
On January 16, 2002, first-degree murder charges for the killing of Myrna Opsahl were filed against Olson and four other SLA members: Emily Harris, Bill Harris, Michael Bortin (Olson's brother-in law who had married her sister Josephine), and James Kilgore, who remained a fugitive. Judge Fidler arraigned Olson on the murder charges immediately following her sentencing hearing on January 18. Olson pleaded not guilty to that charge at the time. On November 7, along with the other three defendants, she pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of second degree murder. She was sentenced on February 14, 2003, for the maximum term allowed under her plea bargain, which was a six-year term concurrent to the 14-year sentence she was already serving.
The state Board of Prison Terms had scrapped her original sentence in October 2002 in exchange for a longer 14-year sentence, saying Olson's crimes had the potential for great violence and targeted multiple victims. In July 2004, a judge said there was "no analysis" of how the state Board of Prison Terms had decided 14 years was appropriate, and threw it out. Her sentence was instead converted to five years, four months.
However, an appeals court panel restored her full 14-year sentence as of April 12, 2007. It ruled that a lower court did not follow procedure when they allowed Olson to appeal.
Olson served her time at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla. Her custody status was "Close A", which is reserved for inmates requiring the most supervision.
This status limited her privileges and required that she be counted seven times a day. It also prevented her from being able to seek a relocation to a facility closer to her home. David Nickerson, Olson's attorney, stated that this status reflected the Department of Corrections' view that she was a potential flight risk.
Olson's husband and three daughters continued to support her during her imprisonment and took turns visiting her frequently in Chowchilla. In an interview with "Marie Claire" (coincidentally published by Hearst Corporation), Olson's 23-year-old daughter Emily Peterson dismissed her mother's radical past with the SLA, saying "She lived in Berkeley. It was kind of normal. I always tell people she wasn't a terrorist. She was an urban guerrilla." Kathleen Soliah/Sara Olson never publicly expressed remorse or regret for her actions.
Olson was released on parole from the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla on March 17, 2008. For five days, she stayed at her mother's home in Palmdale, and spent some time hiking with her husband.
On March 21, 2008, she was rearrested when it was decided that she had been mistakenly released a year early from prison due to a miscalculation by the parole board. Her attorney claimed that the action was a political move. Olson was taken back into custody by the California Department of Corrections and placed in the California Institution for Women in Corona for an additional year.
After serving a total of seven years, about half of her sentence, Olson was released from prison on March 17, 2009, to serve her parole in Minnesota. Police unions in both Minnesota and California protested the arrangement, stating that they believe her parole should be served in California, where her crimes were committed.
In a letter to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty also protested Olson being allowed to return to Minnesota.
Olson's 28-year-old daughter, Sophia Shorai, was a contestant in the 2011 season of the talent show "American Idol".
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17220
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Kent Recursive Calculator
KRC (Kent Recursive Calculator) is a lazy functional language developed by David Turner from November 1979 to October 1981 based on SASL, with pattern matching, guards and ZF expressions (now more usually called list comprehensions).
Two implementations of KRC were written: David Turner's original one in BCPL running on EMAS, and Simon J. Croft's later one in C under Unix, and KRC was the main language used for teaching functional programming at the University of Kent at Canterbury (UK) from 1982 to 1985.
The direct successor to KRC is Miranda, which includes a polymorphic type discipline based on that of Milner's ML.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17224
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Kremvax
Kremvax was originally a fictitious Usenet site at the Kremlin, named like the then large number of Usenet VAXen with names of the form foovax. Kremvax was announced on April 1, 1984 in a posting ostensibly originated there by Soviet leader Konstantin Chernenko. The posting was actually forged by Piet Beertema of CWI (in Amsterdam) as an April Fool's prank—"because the notion that Usenet might ever penetrate the Iron Curtain seemed so totally absurd at the time".
Other fictitious sites mentioned in the hoax were moskvax and kgbvax. The actual origin of the email was mcvax, one of the first European sites on the internet.
Six years later Usenet was joined by demos.su, the first genuine site based in Moscow. Some readers needed convincing that the postings from it were not just another prank. Vadim Antonov, the senior programmer at Demos and the major poster from there until mid-1991, was quite aware of all this, and referred to it frequently in his own postings. Antonov later arranged to have the domain's gateway site named kremvax.demos.su, turning fiction into truth and, according to one account, "demonstrating that the hackish sense of humor transcends cultural barriers".
The mid-1980s Usenet users were not aware of the official x.25 computer connections between USSR and other countries, while they existed since 1980, primarily via VNIIPAS and Academset to Soviet bloc countries and Austrian hosts at IIASA and IAEA. In 1983, the "San Francisco Moscow Teleport (SFMT)" venture was created to maintain USSR-American digital connections via VNIIPAS with its own Usenet analogues later known as "Sovamnet" ("Soviet-American net").
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17226
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KRL (programming language)
KRL is a knowledge representation language, developed by Daniel G. Bobrow and Terry Winograd while at Xerox PARC and Stanford University, respectively. It is a frame-based language.
KRL was an attempt to produce a language which was nice to read and write for the engineers who had to write programs in it, processed like human memory, so you could have realistic AI programs, had an underlying semantics which was firmly grounded like logic languages, all in one, all in one language. And I think it - again, in hindsight - it just bogged down under the weight of trying to satisfy all those things at once.
"An Overview of KRL, a Knowledge Representation Language", D.G. Bobrow and T. Winograd, Cognitive Sci 1:1 (1977).
Daniel G. Bobrow, Terry Winograd, An Overview of KRL, A Knowledge Representation Language, Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Memo AIM 293, 1976.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17227
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Knowledge Systems Laboratory
Knowledge Systems Laboratory (KSL) was an artificial intelligence research laboratory within the Department of Computer Science at Stanford University until 2007, located in the Gates Computer Science Building, Stanford. Work focused on knowledge representation for shareable engineering knowledge bases and systems, computational environments for modelling physical devices, architectures for adaptive intelligent systems, and expert systems for science and engineering.
KSL had projects with Stanford Medical Informatics (SMI), the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab (SAIL), the Stanford Formal Reasoning Group (SFRG), the Stanford Logic Group, and the Stanford Center for Design Research (CDR).
This is a partial list (in alphabetical order) of past members:
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17232
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Kyoto Common Lisp
Kyoto Common Lisp (KCL) is an implementation of Common Lisp by Taichi Yuasa and Masami Hagiya, written in C to run under Unix-like operating systems. KCL is compiled to ANSI C. It conforms to Common Lisp as described in the 1984 first edition of Guy Steele's book Common Lisp the Language and is available under a licence agreement.
KCL is notable in that it was implemented from scratch, outside of the standard committee, solely on the basis of the specification. It was one of the first Common Lisp implementations ever, and exposed a number of holes and mistakes in the specification that had gone unnoticed.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17241
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James Parry
James Parry (born July 13, 1967), commonly known by his nickname and username Kibo , is a Usenetter known for his sense of humor, various surrealist net pranks, an absurdly long .signature, and a machine-assisted knack for "": joining any thread in which "kibo" was mentioned. His exploits have earned him a multitude of enthusiasts, who celebrate him as the head deity of the parody religion "Kibology", centered on the humor newsgroup alt.religion.kibology.
James Parry grew up and lived in Scotia, New York. He showed early computing skills, such as being able to open up and reprogram ROM video game cartridges such as those for the Atari 2600, but was more interested in graphics and artistic pursuits. In this vein, he was initially a computer engineering major at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in Troy, New York, but moved to Boston, Massachusetts in 1990 and attended Emerson College, where he studied videography and graphic design. At that time, he also worked as a typeface designer and for the world.std.com internet service provider. He developed several fonts in use today. One of his better-known works is the typography for Philip K. Dick's novel "Gather Yourselves Together".
In the early 1990s, as public awareness grew of the Internet and Usenet, Parry received publicity, including a cover story in "Wired" magazine and mentions in "Playboy" and "The Times". He became known on Usenet for grepping all occurrences of the term "Kibo"—whether intended to refer to Kibo himself or not—and replying, often in a fanciful manner. A typical exchange:
This practice became known as "kibozing". In 2006, Parry estimated that he had posted "an average of 20 articles a week to alt.religion.kibology during the past 15 years, probably about 500 words of original content per article, that's... seven point eight words. Equivalent to about 100 books."
He is perhaps best known on Usenet for his famous (or infamous) "Happynet Proclamation" (1992), circulated to many newsgroups, some absurdly unrelated, which satirized the endless flamewars on the network, with Parry posing as a godlike being issuing an edict full of in-jokes and humor targets that claimed to unify all news into one glorious totality, "happynet". In the article, Kibo claimed that:
Kibology is a parody religion created by Parry, the central figure. Practitioners of Kibology are called "Kibologists" or (sometimes more disdainfully) "Kibozos". Parry began Kibology about 1989. In its early Usenet days it was centered in the newsgroups talk.bizarre and alt.slack, until the creation of alt.religion.kibology in late 1991. The religious satire of Kibology shares tenets of other parody religions, including similar concepts to the Flying Spaghetti Monster and Invisible Pink Unicorn. The alt.religion.kibology newsgroup remained active through the 1990s, with gradually less emphasis on the joke religion and more satirizing popular culture and internet culture. Other popular regular contributors kept the group active even during "Kibo"'s periodic absences from Usenet. In 2003, the group spawned a band, Interröbang Cartel, which by 2011 had written and recorded more than 80 songs.
The term "bozo" and related jokes like the physics particle the "bozon" were Parry hallmarks. Revisions of the Manifesto were published in 1994 and 1998. HappyWeb was introduced in 1999.
In 1992, at age 25 (ten years younger than the constitutional minimum age for election), he launched a spoof campaign for President of the United States.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17249
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Kiritimati
Kiritimati or Christmas Island is a Pacific Ocean raised coral atoll in the northern Line Islands. It is part of the Republic of Kiribati. Its name is a respelling of the English word "Christmas" according to the Kiribati language's conventions for the Latin script, in which the combination "ti" is pronounced "s", and the name is thus pronounced .
The island has the greatest land area of any coral atoll in the world, about ; its lagoon is roughly the same size. The atoll is about in perimeter, while the lagoon shoreline extends for over . Kiritimati comprises over 70% of the total land area of Kiribati, a country encompassing 33 Pacific atolls and islands.
It lies north of the Equator, south of Honolulu, and from San Francisco. Kiritimati Island is in the world's farthest forward time zone, UTC+14, and is one of the first inhabited places on Earth to experience the New Year (see also Caroline Atoll, Kiribati). Despite being east of the 180 meridian, a 1995 realignment of the International Date Line by the Republic of Kiribati moved Kiritimati to west of the dateline.
Nuclear tests were conducted on and around Kiritimati by the United Kingdom in the late 1950s, and by the United States in 1962. During these tests the island was not evacuated. Subsequently, British, New Zealand, and Fijian servicemen as well as local islanders were exposed to the radiation from these blasts.
The entire island is a Wildlife Sanctuary; access to five particularly sensitive areas (see below) is restricted.
At Western discovery, Kiritimati was uninhabited. As on other Line Islands there might have been a small or temporary native population, most probably Polynesian traders and settlers, who would have found the island a useful replenishing station on the long voyages from the Society Islands to Hawaiʻi. This trade route was apparently used with some regularity by about AD 1000. From 1200 onwards Polynesian long-distance voyages became less frequent, and had there been human settlement on Kiritimati, it would have been abandoned in the early-mid second millennium AD. Two possible village sites and some stone structures of these early visitors have been located. Today, most inhabitants are Micronesians, and Gilbertese is the only language of any significance. English is generally understood, but little used outside the tourism sector.
Kiritimati was discovered to Europeans by the Spanish expedition of Hernando de Grijalva in 1537, that charted it as "Acea". This discovery was referred by a contemporary, the Portuguese António Galvão, governor of Ternate, in his book "Tratado dos Descubrimientos" of 1563. Captain James Cook visited it on Christmas Eve (24 December) 1777. Whaling vessels were visiting the island from at least 1822. It was claimed by the United States under the Guano Islands Act of 1856, though little actual mining of guano took place.
Permanent settlement started by 1882, mainly by workers in coconut plantations and fishermen but, due to an extreme drought which killed off tens of thousands of coconut palms – about 75% of Kiritimati's population of this plant – the island was once again abandoned between 1905 and 1912.
Many of the toponyms in the island go back to Father Emmanuel Rougier, a French priest who leased the island from 1917 to 1939 and planted some 800,000 coconut trees there. He lived in his "Paris" house (now only small ruins) located at Benson Point, across the Burgle Channel from "Londres" (today London) at Bridges Point where he established the port. Joe's Hill was named by Joe English, who served as plantation manager for Rougier between 1915 and 1919. English was left alone on the island for a year and a half (1917–19), with two teens, when cholera broke out in Papeete and transport stopped due to the First World War. English was later rescued by Lord John Jellicoe, 1st Earl Jellicoe, admiral of the British Fleet. English, still thinking the war was in effect and that the ship was German, pulled his revolver on the British admiral, causing a short standoff until some explanation defused the situation. Upon his rescue, English's adventures were later chronicled in the "Boston Globe".
Kiritimati was occupied by the Allies in World War II; the Americans took over the island garrison, allowing Australian troops to be used for mainland defense. The first contingent of Americans was a company from the 102nd Infantry Regiment, a National Guard unit from New Haven, Connecticut. The Island was important to hold because if the Japanese had captured it, an airbase could have been constructed that would have allowed interdiction of the main Hawaii-to-Australia supply route. For the first few months there were next to no recreational facilities on the island, and the men amused themselves by shooting at sharks that swam into the lagoon.
The first airstrip was constructed then for servicing the US Army Air Force weather station and communications center. The airstrip also provided rest and refueling facilities for planes traveling between Hawaii and the South Pacific. There was also a small radio-meteorological research station operated by the Kiribati Meteorological Service.
In 1975 the Captain Cook Hotel was built on the former British military base.
The U.S. Guano Islands Act claim was formally ceded by the Treaty of Tarawa between the U.S. and Kiribati, signed in 1979 and ratified in 1983.
During the dispute over the Carolines between Germany and Spain in 1885, arbitrated by Pope Leo XIII, the sovereignty of Spain over the Caroline and Palau islands as part of the Spanish East Indies was analyzed by a commission of cardinals and confirmed by an agreement signed on 17 December. Its Article 2 specifies the limits of Spanish sovereignty in South Micronesia, being formed by the Equator and 11°N Latitude and by 133° and by 164° Longitude. In 1899, Spain sold the Marianas, Carolines and Palau to Germany after its defeat in 1898 in the Spanish–American War. However Emilio Pastor Santos, a researcher of the Spanish National Research Council, claimed in 1948 that there was historical basis, supported by the charts and maps of the time, to argue that Kiritimati (or Acea as in the Spanish maps) and some other islands had never been considered part of the Carolines. Thus Kiritimati was not included in the description of the territory transferred to Germany, and therefore was not affected on the part of Spain to any cessation of transfer and theoretically Spain should have the only jurisdiction and right to this island.
Pastor Santos presented his thesis to the Spanish government in 1948. In the Council of Ministers of Spain on 12 January 1949, the Minister of Foreign Affairs declared on this proposal that it has passed to the first stage of public attention. The Cabinet of Diplomatic Information of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs circulated the following note:
However, no Spanish government has made any attempt in this respect, and this case remains as a historical curiosity related to Kiritimati.
During the Cold War there was some nuclear weapons testing in the Kiritimati area. The United Kingdom conducted its first successful hydrogen bomb test at Malden Island on 15 May 1957; Kiritimati was the operation's main base. In fact, this test did not work as planned, and the first British H-bomb was successfully detonated over the southeastern tip of Kiritimati on 8 November 1957. Subsequent test series in 1958 (Grapple Y and Z) took place above or near Kiritimati itself. The United States conducted 22 successful nuclear detonations as part of Operation Dominic here in 1962. Some toponyms (like Banana and Main Camp) come from the nuclear testing period, during which at times over 4,000 servicemen were present. By 1969, military interest in Kiritimati had ceased and the facilities were abandoned and for the most part dismantled. Some communications, transport and logistics facilities, however, were converted for civilian use and it is due to these installations that Kiritimati came to serve as the administrative center for the Line Islands.
The United Kingdom detonated some of nuclear payload near and directly above Kiritimati in 1957/58, while the total yield of weapons tested by the United States in the vicinity of the island between 25 April and 11 July 1962 was . During the British Grapple X test of 8 November 1957 which took place directly above the southeastern tip of Kiritimati, yield was stronger than expected and there was some blast damage in the settlements. Islanders were usually not evacuated during the nuclear weapons testing, and data on the environmental and public health impact of these tests remains contested.
The island's population has strongly increased in recent years, from about 2,000 in 1989 to about 5,000 in the early 2000s. Kiritimati has two representatives in the Maneaba ni Maungatabu. Today there are five villages, four populated and one abandoned, on the island:
The main villages of Kiritimati are Banana, Tabwakea, and London, which are located along the main road on the northern tip of the island, and Poland, which is across the main lagoon to the South. London is the main village and port facility. Banana is near Cassidy International Airport (IATA code CXI) but may be relocated closer to London to prevent contamination of its groundwater. The abandoned village of Paris is no longer listed in census reports.
The ministry of the Line and Phoenix islands is located in London. There are also two new high schools on the road between Tabwakea and Banana: one Catholic and one Protestant. The University of Hawaii has a climatological research facility on Kiritimati. A Catholic church dedicated under the auspices of Saint Stanislaus and a primary school is located in Poland.
Cassidy International Airport is located just north of Banana and North East Point. It has a paved runway with a length of and was for some time the only airport in Kiribati to serve the Americas, via an Air Pacific (now Fiji Airways) flight to Honolulu, Hawaii. American Te Mauri Travel offers weekly charter flights from Honolulu.
Although Air Pacific hoped to commence on 25 May 2010 flying on a weekly schedule to Kiritimati Island from both Honolulu and Fiji, they canceled reservations for those flights explaining that the runway is not suitable. Rebranded Fiji Airways has resumed services from Nadi and Honolulu to Kiritimati with one Boeing 737 service per week. A monthly air freight service is flown using a chartered Boeing 727 from Honolulu operated by Asia Pacific Airlines.
The abandoned Aeon Field, constructed before the British nuclear tests, is located on the southeastern peninsula, northwest of South East Point.
In the early 1950s, Wernher von Braun proposed using this island as a launch site for manned spacecraft. There is a Japanese JAXA satellite tracking station; the abandoned Aeon Field had at one time been proposed for reuse by the Japanese for their now-canceled HOPE-X space shuttle project. Kiritimati is also located fairly close to the Sea Launch satellite launching spot at 0° N 154° W, about 370 kilometres (200 nmi) to the east in international waters.
Most of the atoll's food supplies have to be imported. Potable water can be in short supply, especially around November in La Niña years. A large and modern jetty, handling some cargo, was built by the Japanese at London. Marine fish provide a large portion of the island's nutrition, although overfishing has caused a drastic decrease in the populations of large, predatory fish over the last several years.
Exports of the atoll are mainly copra (dried coconut pulp); the state-owned coconut plantation covers about . In addition aquarium fish and seaweed are exported. A 1970s project to commercially breed "Artemia salina" brine shrimp in the salt ponds was abandoned in 1978. In recent years there have been attempts to explore the viability of live crayfish and chilled fish exports and salt production.
Furthermore, there is a small amount of tourism, mainly associated with anglers interested in lagoon fishing (for bonefish in particular) or offshore fishing. Week-long ecotourism packages during which some of the normally closed areas can be visited are also available. In recent years, surfers have discovered that there are good waves during the Northern Hemisphere's winter season and there are interests developing to service these recreational tourists. There is some tourism-related infrastructure, such as a small hotel, rental facilities, and food services.
Kiritimati's roughly lagoon opens to the sea in the northwest; "Burgle Channel" (the entrance to the lagoon) is divided into the northern "Cook Island Passage" and the southern "South Passage". The southeastern part of the lagoon is partially dried out today; essentially, progressing SE from Burgle Channel, the main lagoon gradually turns into a network of subsidiary lagoons, tidal flats, partially hypersaline brine ponds and salt pans, which as a whole has about the same area again as the main lagoon. Thus, the land and lagoon areas can only be given approximately, as no firm boundary exists between the main island body and the salt flats. Vaskess Bay is a large bay which extends along the southwest coast of Kiritimati Island.
In addition to the main island, there are several smaller ones. "Cook Island" is part of the atoll proper but unconnected to the Kiritimati mainland. It is a sand/coral island of , divides Burgle Channel into the northern and the southern entrance, and has a large seabird colony. Islets ("motu"s) in the lagoon include "Motu Tabu" () with its "Pisonia" forest and the shrub-covered "Motu Upua" (also called Motu Upou or Motu Upoa, ) at the northern side, and "Ngaontetaake" () at the eastern side.
"Joe's Hill" (originally "La colline de Joe") near Artemia Corners on the southeastern peninsula is the highest point on the atoll, at about ASL. On the northwestern peninsula for example, the land rises only to some 7 m (20 ft), which is still considerable for an atoll.
Despite its proximity to the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), Kiritimati is located in an equatorial dry zone and rainfall is rather low except during El Niño years; on average per year, in some years it can be as little as and much of the flats and ponds can dry up such as in late 1978. On the other hand, in some exceptionally wet years abundant downpours in March–April may result in a total annual precipitation of over . Kiritimati is thus affected by regular, severe droughts. They are exacerbated by its geological structure; climatically "dry" Pacific islands are more typically located in the "desert belt" at about 30°N or S latitude. Kiritimati is a raised atoll, and although it does occasionally receive plenty of precipitation, little is retained given the porous carbonate rock, the thin soil, and the absence of dense vegetation cover on much of the island, while evaporation is constantly high. Consequently, Kiritimati is one of the rather few places close to the Equator which have an effectively arid climate.
The temperature is constantly between 24 °C and 30 °C (75 °F and 86 °F) with more diurnal temperature variation than seasonal variation. Easterly trade winds predominate.
The flora and the fauna consist of taxa adapted to drought. Terrestrial fauna is scant; there are no truly native land mammals and only one native land bird – Kiribati's endemic reed-warbler, the bokikokiko ("Acrocephalus aequinoctialis"). The 1957 attempt to introduce the endangered Rimitara lorikeet ("Vini kuhlii") has largely failed; a few birds seem to linger on, but the lack of abundant coconut palm forest, on which this tiny parrot depends, makes Kiritimati a suboptimal habitat for this species.
The natural vegetation on Kiritimati consists mostly of low shrubland and grassland. What little woodland exists is mainly open coconut palm ("Cocos nucifera") plantation. There are three small woods of catchbird trees ("Pisonia grandis"), at Southeast Point, Northwest Point, and on Motu Tabu. The latter was planted there in recent times. About 50 introduced plant species are found on Kiritimati; as most are plentiful around settlements, former military sites and roads, it seems that these only became established in the 20th century.
Beach naupaka ("Scaevola taccada") is the most common shrub on Kiritimati; beach naupaka scrub dominates the vegetation on much of the island, either as pure stands or interspersed with tree heliotrope ("Heliotropium foertherianum") and bay cedar ("Suriana maritima"). The latter species is dominant on the drier parts of the lagoon flats where it grows up to tall. Tree heliotrope is most commonly found a short distance from the sea- or lagoon-shore. In some places near the seashore, a low vegetation dominated by Polynesian heliotrope ("Heliotropium anomalum"), yellow purslane ("Portulaca lutea") and common purslane ("P. oleracea") is found. In the south and on the sandier parts, "Sida fallax", also growing up to 2 m tall, is abundant. On the southeastern peninsula, "S. fallax" grows more stunted, and Polynesian heliotrope, yellow and common purslane as well as the spiderling "Boerhavia repens", the parasitic vine "Cassytha filiformis", and Pacific Island thintail ("Lepturus repens") supplement it. The last species dominates in the coastal grasslands. The wetter parts of the lagoon shore are often covered by abundant growth of shoreline purslane ("Sesuvium portulacastrum").
Perhaps the most destructive of the recently introduced plants is sweetscent ("Pluchea odorata"), a camphorweed, which is considered an invasive weed as it overgrows and displaces herbs and grasses. The introduced creeper "Tribulus cistoides", despite having also spread conspicuously, is considered to be more beneficial than harmful to the ecosystem, as it provides good nesting sites for some seabirds.
More than 35 bird species have been recorded from Kiritimati. As noted above, only the bokikokiko ("Acrocephalus aequinoctialis"), perhaps a few Rimitara lorikeets ("Vini kuhlii") – if any remain at all – and the occasional eastern reef egret ("Egretta sacra") make up the entire landbird fauna. About 1,000 adult bokikokikos are to be found at any date, but mainly in mixed grass/shrubland away from the settlements.
On the other hand, seabirds are plentiful on Kiritimati, and make up the bulk of the breeding bird population. There are 18 species of seabirds breeding on the island, and Kiritimati is one of the most important breeding grounds anywhere in the world for several of these:
Phaethontiformes
Charadriiformes
Procellariiformes
Pelecaniformes
Kiritimati's lagoon and the saltflats are a prime location for migratory birds to stop over or even stay all winter. The most commonly seen migrants are ruddy turnstone ("Arenaria interpres"), Pacific golden plover ("Pluvialis fulva"), bristle-thighed curlew ("Numenius tahitiensis") and wandering tattler ("Tringa incana"); other seabirds, waders and even dabbling ducks can be encountered every now and then. Around 7 October (± 5 days), some 20 million sooty shearwaters pass through here en route from the North Pacific feeding grounds to breeding sites around New Zealand.
"See also "Extinction" below."
The only mammals native to the region are the common Polynesian rat ("Rattus exulans"), and the goat. Indeed, the rat would seem to have been introduced by native seafarers numerous centuries before Cook found Kiritimati in 1777, and the goat is extinct since 14 January 2004. Black rats ("Rattus rattus") were present at some time, perhaps introduced by 19th century sailors or during the nuclear tests. They have not been able to gain a foothold between predation by cats and competitive exclusion by Polynesian rats, and no black rat population is found on Kiritimati today.
Up to 2,000 feral cats can in some years be found on the island; the population became established in the 19th century. Their depredations seriously harm the birdlife. Since the late 19th century, they have driven about 60% of the seabird species from the mainland completely, and during particular dry spells they will cross the mudflats and feast upon the birds on the "motu"s. Spectacled tern chicks seem to be a favorite food of the local cat population. There are some measures being taken to ensure the cat population does not grow. That lowering the cat population by some amount would much benefit Christmas and its inhabitants is generally accepted, but the situation is too complex to simply go and eradicate them outright (which is theoretically possible; see Marion Island) – see below for details. A limited population of feral pigs exists. They were once plentiful and wreaked havoc especially on the "Onychoprion" and noddies. Pig hunting by locals has been encouraged, and was highly successful at limiting the pig population to a sustainable level, while providing a source of cheap protein for the islanders.
There are some "supertramp" lizards which have reached the island by their own means. Commonly seen are the mourning gecko ("Lepidodactylus lugubris") and the skink "Cryptoblepharus boutonii"; the four-clawed gecko ("Gehyra mutilata") is less often encountered.
There are some crustaceans of note to be found on Kiritimati and in the waters immediately adjacent. The amphibious coconut crab ("Birgus latro") is not as common as for example on Teraina. Ghost crabs (genus "Ocypode"), "Cardisoma carnifex" and "Geograpsus grayi" land crabs, the strawberry land hermit crab ("Coenobita perlatus"), and the introduced brine shrimp "Artemia salina" which populates the saline ponds are also notable.
Overfishing and pollution have impacted on the ocean surrounding the island. In the ocean surrounding uninhabited islands of the Northern Line Islands, Sharks comprised 74% of the top predator biomass (329 g m-2) at Kingman Reef and 57% at Palmyra Atoll (97 g m-2), whereas low shark numbers have been observed at Tabuaeran and Kiritimati.
Green turtles ("Chelonia mydas") regularly nest in small numbers on Kiritimati. The lagoon is famous among sea anglers worldwide for its bonefish ("Albula glossodonta"), and has been stocked with "Oreochromis" tilapia to decrease overfishing of marine species. Though the tilapias thrive in brackish water of the flats, they will not last long should they escape into the surrounding ocean.
Giant Trevally (Caranx ignobilis) are found in large numbers both inside and outside of the lagoon and along the surrounding reefs. Very large specimens of Giant Trevally can be found around these surrounding reefs and they are sought after by many fishermen in addition to Bonefish.
In December 1960, the British colonial authority gazetted Kiritimati as a bird sanctuary under the "Gilbert and Ellice Island Colony Wild Birds Protection Ordinance" of 1938. Access to Cook Island, Motu Tabu and Motu Upua was restricted. Kiritimati was declared a Wildlife Sanctuary in May 1975, in accordance with the Wildlife Conservation Ordinance of the then self-governing colony. Ngaontetaake and the sooty tern breeding grounds at North West Point also became restricted-access zones. Two years later, active conservation measures got underway.
To a limited extent, permits to enter the restricted areas for purposes like research or small-scale ecotourism are given. Kiribati's Wildlife Conservation Unit participates in the Kiritimati Development Committee and the Local Land Planning Board, and there exists an integrated program of wildlife conservation and education. New Zealand is a major sponsor of conservation efforts on Kiritimati.
Egg collecting for food on a massive scale was frequent in the past but is now outlawed. It is to be noted that the sooty terns for example could sustain occasional collection of effectively all of a season's eggs (over 10 million), if given sufficient time to recover and if cats are absent. Even egg collecting on a scale that significantly decreases costly food imports thus in theory could be possible, but not until the cat and rat populations have been brought under control. Poaching remains a concern; with the population rising and spreading out on Kiritimati, formerly remote bird colonies became more accessible and especially the red-tailed tropicbirds and the "Sula" are strongly affected by hunting and disturbance. Tropicbirds are mainly poached for their feathers which are used in local arts and handicraft; it would certainly be possible to obtain them from living birds as it was routinely done at the height of the Polynesian civilization.
It may seem that the erstwhile numbers of seabirds may only ever be approached again by the wholesale eradication of the feral cats. While this has been since shown to be feasible, it is not clear whether even a severe curtailing of the cat population would be desirable. Though it previously was assumed that the small Polynesian rat is of little if any harm for seabirds, even house mice have been shown to eat seabird nestlings. Most nesting birds, in particularly Procellariiformes, are now accepted to be jeopardized by "Rattus exulans". The Kiritimati's cats are meanwhile very fond of young seabirds; it even seems that their behavior has shifted accordingly, with cats being less territorial generally and congregating in numbers at active bird colonies, and generally eschewing rats when seabird chicks are in plenty.
Possession of an unneutered female cat on Kiritimati is illegal, and owners need to prevent their domestic cats from running wild (such animals are usually quickly killed in traps set for this purpose). Nighttime cat hunting has made little effect on the cat population. As noted above, vigorous protecting of active nesting grounds from cats by traps, poison and supplemented by shooting while otherwise leaving them alone to hunt rats may well be the optimal solution.
The 1982/83 "mega-El Niño" devastated seabird populations on Kiritimati. In some species, mortality rose to 90% and breeding success dropped to zero during that time. In general, El Niño conditions will cause seabird populations to drop, taking several years to recover at the present density of predators. Global warming impact on Kiritimati is thus unpredictable. El Niño events seem to become shorter but more frequent in a warmer climate. Much of the island's infrastructure and habitation, with the notable exception of the airport area, is located to the leeward and thus somewhat protected from storms. A rising sea level does not appear to be particularly problematic; the increasing flooding of the subsidiary lagoons would provide easily observed forewarning, and might even benefit seabird populations by making the "motu"s less accessible to predators. In fact, geological data suggests that Kiritimati has withstood prehistoric sea level changes well. The biggest hazard caused by a changing climate would seem to be more prolonged and/or severe droughts, which could even enforce the island's abandonment as they did in 1905. However, it is not clear how weather patterns would change, and it may be that precipitation increases.
The type specimen of the Tuamotu sandpiper ("Prosobonia cancellata") was collected on Kiritimati in 1778, probably on 1 or 2 January, during Captain Cook's visit. The expedition's naturalist William Anderson observed the bird, and it was painted by William Ellis (linked below). The single specimen was in Joseph Banks's collection at the end of the 18th century, but later was lost or destroyed. There is some taxonomic dispute regarding the Kiritimati population. As all "Prosobonia" seem(ed) to be resident birds unwilling to undertake long-distance migrations, an appropriate treatment would be to consider the extinct population the nominate subspecies, as "Prosobonia cancellata cancellata" or Kiritimati sandpiper, distinct from the surviving Tuamotu Islands population more than 2,000 km (1,200 mi) to the southeast.
It may have been, but probably was not, limited to Kiritimati; while no remains have been found, little fieldwork has been conducted and judging from the Tuamotu sandpiper's habits, almost all Line Islands would have offered suitable habitat. The Kiritimati population of "P. cancellata" disappeared in the earlier part of the 19th century or so, almost certainly due to predation by introduced mammals. While "Prosobonia" generally manage to hold their own against Polynesian rats, they are highly vulnerable to the black rat and feral cats. Given the uncertainties surrounding the introduction date and maximum population of the former, the cats seem to be the main culprits in the Kiritimati sandpiper's extinction.
Given that the island was apparently settled to some extent in prehistoric times, it may already have lost bird species then. The geological data indicates that Kiritimati is quite old, was never completely underwater in the Holocene at least, and thus it might have once harbored highly distinct wetland birds. The limited overall habitat diversity on Kiritimati nonetheless limits the range of such hypothetical taxa, as does biogeography due to its remote location. At least one, possibly several "Gallirallus" and/or "Porzana" rails make the most likely candidates, given their former presence in the region and that conditions on Kiritimati would seem well suited. Perhaps a "Todiramphus" kingfisher was also present; such a bird would probably have belonged to the sacred kingfisher ("T. sanctus") group as that species today occurs as a vagrant in Micronesia, and related forms are resident in southeastern Polynesia. These birds would have fallen victim to the Polynesian rat and, in the case of the rails which would have almost certainly been flightless, hunting by natives.
There is a government high school, Melaengi Tabai Secondary School, which is located on Tabuaeran (though the government of Kiribati wished to re-open its campus on Kiritimati instead) in addition to a Christian senior high, St. Francis High School.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17250
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Kubla Khan
Kubla Khan: or, A Vision in a Dream: A Fragment is a poem written by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, completed in 1797 and published in 1816. According to Coleridge's preface to "Kubla Khan", the poem was composed one night after he experienced an opium-influenced dream after reading a work describing Xanadu, the summer palace of the Mongol ruler and Emperor of China Kublai Khan. Upon waking, he set about writing lines of poetry that came to him from the dream until he was interrupted by "a person from Porlock". The poem could not be completed according to its original 200–300 line plan as the interruption caused him to forget the lines. He left it unpublished and kept it for private readings for his friends until 1816 when, at the prompting of Lord Byron, it was published.
The poem is vastly different in style from other poems written by Coleridge. The first stanza of the poem describes Khan's pleasure dome built alongside a sacred river fed by a powerful fountain. The second stanza of the poem is the narrator's response to the power and effects of an Abyssinian maid's song, which enraptures him but leaves him unable to act on her inspiration unless he could hear her once again. Together, they form a comparison of creative power that does not work with nature and creative power that is harmonious with nature. The third and final stanza shifts to a first-person perspective of the speaker detailing his sighting of a woman playing a dulcimer, and if he could revive her song, he could fill the pleasure dome with music. The poem ends with instructions to perform a ritual, for he has drunk the milk of paradise.
Some of Coleridge's contemporaries denounced the poem and questioned his story of its origin. It was not until years later that critics began to openly admire the poem. Most modern critics now view "Kubla Khan" as one of Coleridge's three great poems, along with "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and "Christabel". The poem is considered one of the most famous examples of Romanticism in English poetry, and is one of the most frequently anthologized poems in the English language. A copy of the manuscript is a permanent exhibit at the British Library in London.
The poem is divided into three irregular stanzas, which move loosely between different times and places.
The first stanza begins with a fanciful description of the origin of Kublai Khan's capital Xanadu (lines 1-2). It is described as being near the river Alph, which passes through caves before reaching a dark sea (lines 3-5). Ten miles of land were surrounded with fortified walls (lines 6-7), encompassing lush gardens and forests (lines 8-11).
The second stanza describes a mysterious canyon (lines 12-16). A geyser erupted from the canyon (lines 17-19), throwing rubble into the air (lines 20-23) and forming the source of the sacred river Alph (line 24). The river wandered through the woods, then reached the caves and dark sea described in the first stanza (lines 25-28). Kubla Khan, present for the eruption, heard a prophecy of war (lines 29-30). An indented section presents an image of the pleasure-dome reflected on the water, surrounded by the sound of the geyser above ground and the river underground (lines 31-34). A final un-indented couplet describes the dome again (lines 35-36).
The third stanza shifts to the first-person perspective of the poem's speaker. He once saw a woman in a vision playing a dulcimer (lines 37-41). If he could revive her song within himself, he says, he would revive the pleasure dome itself with music (lines 42-47). Those who heard would also see themselves there, and cry out a warning (lines 48-49). Their warning concerns an alarming male figure (line 50). The stanza ends with instructions and a warning, to carry out a ritual because he has consumed the food of Paradise (lines 51-54).
"Kubla Khan" was likely written in October 1797, though the precise date and circumstances of the first composition of "Kubla Khan" are slightly ambiguous, due limited direct evidence. Coleridge usually dated his poems, but did not date "Kubla Khan", and did not mention the poem directly in letters to his friends.
Coleridge's descriptions of the poem's composition attribute it to 1797. In a manuscript in Coleridge's handwriting (known as the Crewe manuscript), a note by Coleridge says that it was composed "in the fall of the year, 1797." In the preface to the first published edition of the poem, in 1816, Coleridge says that it was composed during an extended stay he had made in Somerset during "the summer of the year 1797." On 14 October 1797, Coleridge wrote a letter to John Thelwall which, although it does not directly mention "Kubla Khan", expresses many of the same feelings as in the poem, suggesting that these themes were on his mind. All of these details have led to the consensus of an October 1797 composition date.
A May 1798 composition date is sometimes proposed because the first written record of the poem is in Dorothy Wordsworth's journal, October 1798. October 1799 has also been suggested because by then Coleridge would have been able to read Robert Southey's "Thalaba the Destroyer", a work which drew on the same sources as "Kubla Khan". At both time periods, Coleridge was again in the area of Ash Farm, near Culbone Church, where Coleridge consistently described composing the poem. However, the October 1797 composition date is more widely accepted.
In September 1797, Coleridge lived in Nether Stowey in the south west of England and spent much of his time walking through the nearby Quantock Hills with his fellow poet William Wordsworth and Wordsworth's sister Dorothy. (His route today is memorialised as the "Coleridge Way".) Some time between 9 and 14 October 1797, when Coleridge says he had completed the tragedy "Osorio", he left Stowey for Lynton. On his return journey, he became sick and rested at Ash Farm, located near Culbone Church and one of the few places to seek shelter on his route. There, he had a dream which inspired the poem.
Coleridge described the circumstances of his dream and the poem in two places: on a manuscript copy written some time before 1816, and in the preface to the printed version of the poem published in 1816. The manuscript states: "This fragment with a good deal more, not recoverable, composed, in a sort of Reverie brought on by two grains of Opium taken to check a dysentry, at a Farm House between Porlock & Linton, a quarter of a mile from Culbone Church." The printed preface describes his location as "a lonely farm house between Porlock and Linton, on the Exmoor confines of Somerset and Devonshire," and embellishes the events into a narrative which has sometimes been seen as part of the poem itself.
According to the extended preface narrative, Coleridge was reading "Purchas his Pilgrimes" by Samuel Purchas, and fell asleep after reading about Kublai Khan. Then, he says, he "continued for about three hours in a profound sleep... during which time he had the most vivid confidence, that he could not have composed less than from two or three hundred lines ... On Awaking he appeared to himself to have a distinct recollection of the whole, and taking his pen, ink, and paper, instantly and eagerly wrote down the lines that are here preserved." The passage continues with a famous account of an interruption: "At this moment he was unfortunately called out by a person on business from Porlock... and on his return to his room, found, to his no small surprise and mortification, that though he still retained some vague and dim recollection of the general purpose of the vision, yet, with the exception of some eight or ten scattered lines and images, all the rest had passed away." The Person from Porlock later became a term to describe interrupted genius. When John Livingston Lowes taught the poem, he told his students "If there is any man in the history of literature who should be hanged, drawn, and quartered, it is the man on business from Porlock."
There are some problems with Coleridge's account, especially the claim to have a copy of Purchas with him. It was a rare book, unlikely to be at a "lonely farmhouse", nor would an individual carry it on a journey; the folio was heavy and almost 1000 pages in size. It is possible that the words of Purchas were merely remembered by Coleridge and that the depiction of immediately reading the work before falling asleep was to suggest that the subject came to him accidentally. Critics have also noted that unlike the manuscript, which says he had taken two grains of opium, the printed version of this story says only that "In consequence of a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been prescribed." The image of himself that Coleridge provides is of a dreamer who reads works of lore and not as an opium addict. Instead, the effects of the opium, as described, are intended to suggest that he was not used to its effects.
According to some critics, the second stanza of the poem, forming a conclusion, was composed at a later date and was possibly disconnected from the original dream.
After its composition, Coleridge periodically read the poem to friends, as to the Wordsworths in 1798, but did not seek to publish it. The poem was set aside until 1815 when Coleridge compiled manuscripts of his poems for a collection titled "Sibylline Leaves". It did not feature in that volume, but Coleridge did read the poem to Lord Byron on 10 April 1816.
Byron persuaded Coleridge to publish the poem, and on 12 April 1816, a contract was drawn up with the publisher John Murray for 80 pounds. The Preface of "Kubla Khan" explained that it was printed "at the request of a poet of great and deserved celebrity, and as far as the author's own opinions are concerned, rather as a psychological curiosity, than on the ground of any supposed "poetic" merits." Coleridge's wife discouraged the publication, and Charles Lamb, a poet and friend of Coleridge, expressed mixed feelings, worrying that the printed version of the poem couldn't capture the power of the recited version.
"Kubla Khan" was published with "Christabel" and "The Pains of Sleep" on 25 May 1816. Coleridge included "A Fragment" as a subtitle "Kubla Khan" to defend against criticism of the poem's incomplete nature. The original published version of the work was separated into 2 stanzas, with the first ending at line 30. The poem was printed four times in Coleridge's life, with the final printing in his "Poetical Works" of 1834. In the final work, Coleridge added the expanded subtitle "Or, A Vision in a Dream. A Fragment". Printed with "Kubla Khan" was a preface that claimed a dream provided Coleridge the lines. In some later anthologies of Coleridge's poetry, the preface is dropped along with the subtitle denoting its fragmentary and dream nature. Sometimes, the preface is included in modern editions but lacks both the first and final paragraphs.
The book Coleridge was reading before he fell asleep was "Purchas, his Pilgrimes, or Relations of the World and Religions Observed in All Ages and Places Discovered, from the Creation to the Present", by the English clergyman and geographer Samuel Purchas, published in 1613. The book contained a brief description of Xanadu, the summer capital of the Mongol ruler Kublai Khan. Coleridge's preface says that he was reading the following sentence, or words of the same substance, in Purchas's "Pilgrimage": "Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and a stately garden thereunto. And thus ten miles of fertile ground were inclosed with a wall."
Coleridge names the wrong book by Purchas (Purchas wrote three books, his "Pilgrimage", his "Pilgrim", and his "Pilgrimes"; the last was his collection of travel stories), and misquotes the line. The text about Xanadu in "Purchas, His Pilgrimes", which Coleridge admitted he did not remember exactly, was: In Xandu did Cublai Can build a stately Pallace, encompassing sixteen miles of plaine ground with a wall, wherein are fertile Meddowes, pleasant Springs, delightfull streames, and all sorts of beasts of chase and game, and in the middest thereof a sumptuous house of pleasure, which may be moved from place to place.
This quotation was based upon the writings of the Venetian explorer Marco Polo who is widely believed to have visited Xanadu in about 1275. Marco Polo also described a large portable palace made of gilded and lacquered cane or bamboo which could be taken apart quickly and moved from place to place. This was the "sumptuous house of pleasure" mentioned by Purchas, which Coleridge transformed into a "stately pleasure dome".
In terms of spelling, Coleridge's printed version differs from Purchas's spelling, which refers to the Tartar ruler as "Cublai Can", and from the spelling used by Milton, "Cathaian Can". His original manuscript spells the name "Cubla Khan" and the place "Xannadu".
In the Crewe manuscript (the earlier unpublished version of the poem), the Abyssinian maid is singing of Mount Amara, rather than Abora. Mount Amara is a real mountain, today called Amba Geshen, located in the Amhara Region of modern Ethiopia, formerly known as the Abyssinian Empire. It was a natural fortress, and was the site of the royal treasury and the royal prison. The sons of the Emperors of Abyssinia, except for the heir, were held prisoner there, to prevent them from staging a coup against their father, until the Emperor's death.
Mount Amara was visited between 1515 and 1521 by Portuguese priest, explorer and diplomat Francisco Alvares (1465–1541), who was on a mission to meet the Christian king of Ethiopia. His description of Mount Amara was published in 1540, and appears in "Purchas, his Pilgrimes", the book Coleridge was reading before he wrote "Kubla Khan".
Mount Amara also appears in Milton's Paradise Lost:
Near where Abessian Kings their issue Guard,
Mount Amara, though this by some suppos'd
True Paradise under the Ethiop line.
Mount Amara is in the same region as Lake Tana, the source of the Blue Nile river. Ethiopian tradition says that the Blue Nile is the River Gihon of the Bible, one of the four rivers that flow out of the Garden of Eden in the Book of Genesis, which says that Gihon flows through the Kingdom of Kush, the Biblical name for Ethiopia and Sudan. In fact the Blue Nile is very far from the other three rivers mentioned in Genesis 2:10–14, but this belief led to the connection in 18th and 19th century English literature between Mount Amara and Paradise.
Charles Lamb provided Coleridge on 15 April 1797 with a copy of his "A Vision of Repentance", a poem that discussed a dream containing imagery similar to those in "Kubla Khan". The poem could have provided Coleridge with the idea of a dream poem that discusses fountains, sacredness, and even a woman singing a sorrowful song.
There are additional strong literary connections to other works, including John Milton's "Paradise Lost", Samuel Johnson's "Rasselas", Chatterton's "African Eclogues", William Bartram's "Travels through North and South Carolina", Thomas Burnet's "Sacred Theory of the Earth", Mary Wollstonecraft's "A Short Residence in Sweden", Plato's "Phaedrus and Ion", Maurice's "The History of Hindostan", and Heliodorus's "Aethiopian History". The poem also contains allusions to the Book of Revelation in its description of New Jerusalem and to the paradise of William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream". The sources used for "Kubla Khan" are also used in Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner".
Opium itself has also been seen as a "source" for many of the poem's features, such as its disorganized action. These features are similar to writing by other contemporary opium eaters and writers, such as Thomas de Quincey and Charles Pierre Baudelaire.
Coleridge may also have been influenced by the surrounding of Culbone Combe and its hills, gulleys, and other features including the "mystical" and "sacred" locations in the region. Other geographic influences include the river, which has been tied to Alpheus in Greece and is similar to the Nile. The caves have been compared to those in Kashmir.
The poem is different in style and form from other poems composed by Coleridge. While incomplete and subtitled a "fragment", its language is highly stylised with a strong emphasis on sound devices that change between the poem's original two stanzas. The poem according to Coleridge's account, is a fragment of what it should have been, amounting to what he was able to jot down from memory: 54 lines. Originally, his dream included between 200 and 300 lines, but he was only able to compose the first 30 before he was interrupted. The second stanza is not necessarily part of the original dream and refers to the dream in the past tense. The rhythm of the poem, like its themes and images, is different from other poems Coleridge wrote during the time, and it is organised in a structure similar to 18th-century odes. The poem relies on many sound-based techniques, including cognate variation and chiasmus. In particular, the poem emphasises the use of the "æ" sound and similar modifications to the standard "a" sound to make the poem sound Asian. Its rhyme scheme found in the first seven lines is repeated in the first seven lines of the second stanza. There is a heavy use of assonance, the reuse of vowel sounds, and a reliance on alliteration, repetition of the first sound of a word, within the poem including the first line: "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan". The stressed sounds, "Xan", "du", "Ku", "Khan", contain assonance in their use of the sounds a-u-u-a, have two rhyming syllables with "Xan" and "Khan", and employ alliteration with the name "Kubla Khan" and the reuse of "d" sounds in "Xanadu" and "did". To pull the line together, the "i" sound of "In" is repeated in "did". Later lines do not contain the same amount of symmetry but do rely on assonance and rhymes throughout. The only word that has no true connection to another word is "dome" except in its use of a "d" sound. Though the lines are interconnected, the rhyme scheme and line lengths are irregular.
The first lines of the poem follow iambic tetrameter with the initial stanza relying on heavy stresses. The lines of the second stanza incorporate lighter stresses to increase the speed of the meter to separate them from the hammer-like rhythm of the previous lines. There also is a strong break following line 36 in the poem that provides for a second stanza, and there is a transition in narration from a third person narration about Kubla Khan into the poet discussing his role as a poet. Without the Preface, the two stanzas form two different poems that have some relationship to each other but lack unity. This is not to say they would be two different poems, since the technique of having separate parts that respond to another is used in the genre of the odal hymn, used in the poetry of other Romantic poets including John Keats or Percy Bysshe Shelley. However, the odal hymn as used by others has a stronger unity among its parts, and Coleridge believed in writing poetry that was unified organically. It is possible that Coleridge was displeased by the lack of unity in the poem and added a note about the structure to the Preface to explain his thoughts. In terms of genre, the poem is a dream poem and related to works describing visions common to the Romantic poets. "Kubla Khan" is also related to the genre of fragmentary poetry, with internal images reinforcing the idea of fragmentation that is found within the form of the poem. The poem's self-proclaimed fragmentary nature combined with Coleridge's warning about the poem in the preface turns "Kubla Khan" into an "anti-poem", a work that lacks structure, order, and leaves the reader confused instead of enlightened. However, the poem has little relation to the other fragmentary poems Coleridge wrote.
Although the land is one of man-made "pleasure", there is a natural, "sacred" river that runs past it. The lines describing the river have a markedly different rhythm from the rest of the passage. The land is constructed as a garden, but like Eden after Man's fall, Xanadu is isolated by walls. The finite properties of the constructed walls of Xanadu are contrasted with the infinite properties of the natural caves through which the river runs. The poem expands on the gothic hints of the first stanza as the narrator explores the dark chasm in the midst of Xanadu's gardens, and describes the surrounding area as both "savage" and "holy". Yarlott interprets this chasm as symbolic of the poet struggling with decadence that ignores nature. It may also represent the dark side of the soul, the dehumanising effect of power and dominion. Fountains are often symbolic of the inception of life, and in this case may represent forceful creativity. Since this fountain ends in death, it may also simply represent the life span of a human, from violent birth to a sinking end. Yarlott argues that the war represents the penalty for seeking pleasure, or simply the confrontation of the present by the past. Though the exterior of Xanadu is presented in images of darkness, and in context of the dead sea, we are reminded of the "miracle" and "pleasure" of Kubla Khan's creation. The vision of the sites, including the dome, the cavern, and the fountain, are similar to an apocalyptic vision. Together, the natural and man-made structures form a miracle of nature as they represent the mixing of opposites together, the essence of creativity. In the third stanza, the narrator turns prophetic, referring to a vision of an unidentified "Abyssinian maid" who sings of "Mount Abora". Harold Bloom suggests that this passage reveals the narrator's desire to rival Khan's ability to create with his own. The woman may also refer to Mnemosyne, the Greek personification of memory and mother of the muses, referring directly to Coleridge's claimed struggle to compose this poem from memory of a dream. The subsequent passage refers to unnamed witnesses who may also hear this, and thereby share in the narrator's vision of a replicated, ethereal, Xanadu. Harold Bloom suggests that the power of the poetic imagination, stronger than nature or art, fills the narrator and grants him the ability to share this vision with others through his poetry. The narrator would thereby be elevated to an awesome, almost mythical status, as one who has experienced an Edenic paradise available only to those who have similarly mastered these creative powers.
One theory says that "Kubla Khan" is about poetry and the two sections discuss two types of poems. The power of the imagination is an important component to this theme. The poem celebrates creativity and how the poet is able to experience a connection to the universe through inspiration. As a poet, Coleridge places himself in an uncertain position as either master over his creative powers or a slave to it. The dome city represents the imagination and the second stanza represents the relationship between a poet and the rest of society. The poet is separated from the rest of humanity after he is exposed to the power to create and is able to witness visions of truth. This separation causes a combative relationship between the poet and the audience as the poet seeks to control his listener through a mesmerising technique. The poem's emphasis on imagination as subject of a poem, on the contrasts within the paradisal setting, and its discussion of the role of poet as either being blessed or cursed by imagination, has influenced many works, including Alfred Tennyson's "Palace of Art" and William Butler Yeats's Byzantium based poems. There is also a strong connection between the idea of retreating into the imagination found within Keats's "Lamia" and in Tennyson's "Palace of Art". The Preface, when added to the poem, connects the idea of the paradise as the imagination with the land of Porlock, and that the imagination, though infinite, would be interrupted by a "person on business". The Preface then allows for Coleridge to leave the poem as a fragment, which represents the inability for the imagination to provide complete images or truly reflect reality. The poem would not be about the act of creation but a fragmentary view revealing how the act works: how the poet crafts language and how it relates to himself.
Through use of the imagination, the poem is able to discuss issues surrounding tyranny, war, and contrasts that exist within paradise. Part of the war motif could be a metaphor for the poet in a competitive struggle with the reader to push his own vision and ideas upon his audience. As a component to the idea of imagination in the poem is the creative process by describing a world that is of the imagination and another that is of understanding. The poet, in Coleridge's system, is able to move from the world of understanding, where men normally are, and enter into the world of the imagination through poetry. When the narrator describes the "ancestral voices prophesying war", the idea is part of the world of understanding, or the real world. As a whole, the poem is connected to Coleridge's belief in a secondary Imagination that can lead a poet into a world of imagination, and the poem is both a description of that world and a description of how the poet enters the world. The imagination, as it appears in many of Coleridge's and Wordsworth's works, including "Kubla Khan", is discussed through the metaphor of water, and the use of the river in "Kubla Khan" is connected to the use of the stream in Wordsworth's "The Prelude". The water imagery is also related to the divine and nature, and the poet is able to tap into nature in a way Kubla Khan cannot to harness its power.
Towards the end of 1797, Coleridge was fascinated with the idea of a river and it was used in multiple poems including "Kubla Khan" and "The Brook". In his "Biographia Literaria" (1817), he explained, "I sought for a subject, that should give equal room and freedom for description, incident, and impassioned reflections on men, nature, and society, yet supply in itself a natural connection to the parts and unity to the whole. Such a subject I conceived myself to have found in a stream, traced from its source in the hills among the yellow-red moss and conical glass-shaped tufts of bent, to the first break or fall, where its drops become audible, and it begins to form a channel". It is possible that the imagery of "Biographia Literaria" followed the recovery of the "Kubla Khan" manuscript during the composition of the book. Water imagery permeated through many of his poems, and the coast that he witnessed on his journey to Linton appears in "Osorio". Additionally, many of the images are connected to a broad use of Ash Farm and the Quantocks in Coleridge's poetry, and the mystical settings of both "Osorio" and "Kubla Khan" are based on his idealised version of the region. "Kubla Khan" was composed in the same year as "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison", and both poems contained images that were used in 14 October 1797 letter to Thelwall. However, the styles are very different as one is heavily structured and rhymed while the other tries to mimic conversational speech. What they do have in common is that they use scenery based on the same location, including repeated uses of dells, rocks, ferns, and a waterfall found in the Somerset region. The Preface uses water imagery to explain what happens when visions are lost by quoting a passage from his poem "The Picture". When considering all of "The Picture" and not just the excerpt, Coleridge describes how inspiration is similar to a stream and that if an object is thrown into it the vision is interrupted. Also, the name "Alph" could connect to the idea of being an alpha or original place.
The Tatars ruled by Kubla Khan were seen in the tradition Coleridge worked from as a violent, barbaric people and were used in that way when Coleridge compared others to Tatars. They were seen as worshippers of the sun, but uncivilised and connected to either the Cain or Ham line of outcasts. However, Coleridge describes Khan in a peaceful light and as a man of genius. He seeks to show his might but does so by building his own version of paradise. The description and the tradition provide a contrast between the daemonic and genius within the poem, and Khan is a ruler who is unable to recreate Eden. There are also comparisons between Khan and Catherine the Great or Napoleon with their building and destroying nations. Though the imagery can be dark, there is little moral concern as the ideas are mixed with creative energies. In the second stanza, Khan is able to establish some order in the natural world but he cannot stop the forces of nature that constantly try to destroy what he made. Nature, in the poem is not a force of redemption but one of destruction, and the paradise references reinforce what Khan cannot attain.
Although the Tatars are barbarians from China, they are connected to ideas within the Judaeo Christian tradition, including the idea of Original Sin and Eden. The account of Cublai Can in Purchas's work, discussed in Coleridge's Preface, connects the idea of paradise with luxury and sensual pleasure. The place was described in negative terms and seen as an inferior representation of paradise, and Coleridge's ethical system did not connect pleasure with joy or the divine. As for specific aspects of the scene, the river and cavern images are used to describe how creativity operates in a post-Edenic reality. The river, Alph, replaces the one from Eden that granted immortality and it disappears into a sunless sea that lacks life. The image is further connected to the Biblical, post-Edenic stories in that a mythological story attributes the violent children of Ham becoming the Tatars, and that Tartarus, derived from the location, became a synonym for hell. Coleridge believed that the Tatars were violent, and that their culture was opposite to the civilised Chinese. The Tatars were also in contrast to the concept of Prester John, who may have been Prester Chan and, in Ludolphus's account, chased out of Asia by the Tatars and, in John Herbert's "Travels", was Abyssinian.
The land is similar to the false paradise of Mount Amara in "Paradise Lost", especially the Abyssinian maid's song about Mount Abora that is able to mesmerise the poet. In the manuscript copy, the location was named both Amora and Amara, and the location of both is the same. There are more connections to "Paradise Lost", including how Milton associates the Tatar ruler to the Post-Edenic world in Adam's vision of the Tartar kingdom. In post-Milton accounts, the kingdom is linked with the worship of the sun, and his name is seen to be one that reveals the Khan as a priest. This is reinforced by the connection of the river Alph with the Alpheus, a river that in Greece was connected to the worship of the sun. As followers of the sun, the Tatar are connected to a tradition that describes Cain as founding a city of sun worshippers and that people in Asia would build gardens in remembrance of the lost Eden.
In the tradition Coleridge relies on, the Tatar worship the sun because it reminds them of paradise, and they build gardens because they want to recreate paradise. Kubla Khan is of the line of Cain and fallen, but he wants to overcome that state and rediscover paradise by creating an enclosed garden. The dome, in Thomas Maurice's description, in "The History of Hindostan" of the tradition, was related to nature worship as it reflects the shape of the universe. Coleridge, when composing the poem, believed in a connection between nature and the divine but believed that the only dome that should serve as the top of a temple was the sky. He thought that a dome was an attempt to hide from the ideal and escape into a private creation, and Kubla Khan's dome is a flaw that keeps him from truly connecting to nature. Maurice's "History of Hindostan" also describes aspects of Kashmir that were copied by Coleridge in preparation for hymns he intended to write. The work, and others based on it, describe a temple with a dome. Purchas's work does not mention a dome but a "house of pleasure". The use of dome instead of house or palace could represent the most artificial of constructs and reinforce the idea that the builder was separated from nature. However, Coleridge did believe that a dome could be positive if it was connected to religion, but the Khan's dome was one of immoral pleasure and a purposeless life dominated by sensuality and pleasure.
The narrator introduces a character he once dreamed about, an Abyssinian maid who sings of another land. She is a figure of imaginary power within the poem who can inspire within the narrator his own ability to craft poetry. When she sings, she is able to inspire and mesmerise the poet by describing a false paradise. The woman herself is similar to the way Coleridge describes Lewti in another poem he wrote around the same time, "Lewti". The connection between Lewti and the Abyssinian maid makes it possible that the maid was intended as a disguised version of Mary Evans, who appears as a love interest since Coleridge's 1794 poem "The Sigh". Evans, in the poems, appears as an object of sexual desire and a source of inspiration. She is also similar to the later subject of many of Coleridge's poems, Asra, based on Sara Hutchinson, whom Coleridge wanted but was not his wife and experienced opium induced dreams of being with her.
The figure is related to Heliodorus's work "Aethiopian History", with its description of "a young Lady, sitting upon a Rock, of so rare and perfect a Beauty, as one would have taken her for a Goddess, and though her present misery opprest her with extreamest grief, yet in the greatness of her afflection, they might easily perceive the greatness of her Courage: A Laurel crown'd her Head, and a Quiver in a Scarf hanged at her back". Her description in the poem is also related to Isis of Apuleius's "Metamorphoses", but Isis was a figure of redemption and the Abyssinian maid cries out for her demon-lover. She is similar to John Keats's Indian woman in "Endymion" who is revealed to be the moon goddess, but in "Kubla Khan" she is also related to the sun and the sun as an image of divine truth.
In addition to real-life counterparts of the Abyssinian maid, Milton's "Paradise Lost" describes Abyssinian kings keeping their children guarded at Mount Amara and a false paradise, which is echoed in "Kubla Khan".
The reception of "Kubla Khan" has changed substantially over time. Initial reactions to the poem were lukewarm, despite praise from notable figures like Lord Byron and Walter Scott. The work went through multiple editions, but the poem, as with his others published in 1816 and 1817, had poor sales. Initial reviewers saw some aesthetic appeal in the poem, but considered it unremarkable overall. As critics began to consider Coleridge's body of work as whole, however, "Kubla Khan" was increasingly singled out for praise. Positive evaluation of the poem in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries treated it as a purely aesthetic object, to be appreciated for its evocative sensory experience. Later criticism continued to appreciate the poem, but no longer considered it as transcending concrete meaning, instead interpreting it as a complex statement on poetry itself and the nature of individual genius.
Literary reviews at the time of the collection's first publication generally dismissed it. At the time of the poem's publication, a new generation of critical magazines, including "Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine", "Edinburgh Review", and "Quarterly Review", had been established, with critics who were more provocative than those of the previous generation. These critics were hostile to Coleridge due to a difference of political views, and due to a puff piece written by Byron about the "Christabel" publication. The first of the negative reviews was written by William Hazlitt, literary critic and Romantic writer, who criticized the fragmentary nature of the work. Hazlitt said that the poem "comes to no conclusion" and that "from an excess of capacity, [Coleridge] does little or nothing" with his material. The only positive quality which Hazlitt notes is a certain aesthetic appeal: he says "we could repeat these lines to ourselves not the less often for not knowing the meaning of them," revealing that "Mr Coleridge can write better "nonsense" verse than any man in English." As other reviews continued to be published in 1816, they, too, were lukewarm at best. The poem was not disliked as strongly as "Christabel", and one reviewer expressed regret that the poem was incomplete. The poem received limited praise for "some playful thoughts and fanciful imagery," and was said to "have much of the Oriental richness and harmony" but was generally considered unremarkable, as expressed by one review which said that "though they are not marked by any striking beauties, they are not wholly discreditable to the author's talents."
These early reviews generally accepted Coleridge's story of composing the poem in a dream, but dismissed its relevance, and observed that many others have had similar experiences. More than one review suggested that the dream had not merited publication, with one review commenting that "in sleep the judgment is the first faculty of the mind which ceases to act, therefore, the opinion of the sleeper respecting his performance is not to be trusted." One reviewer questioned whether Coleridge had really dreamed his composition, suggesting that instead he likely wrote it rapidly upon waking.
More positive appraisals of the poem began to emerge when Coleridge's contemporaries evaluated his body of work overall. In October 1821, Leigh Hunt wrote a piece on Coleridge as part of his "Sketches of the Living Poets" series which singled out Kubla Khan as one of Coleridge's best works: Every lover of books, scholar or not ... ought to be in possession of Mr. Coleridge's poems, if it is only for 'Christabel', 'Kubla Khan', and the 'Ancient Mariner'." Hunt praised the poem's evocative, dreamlike beauty:"["Kubla Khan"] is a voice and a vision, an everlasting tune in our mouths, a dream fit for Cambuscan and all his poets, a dance of pictures such as Giotto or Cimabue, revived and re-inspired, would have made for a Storie of Old Tartarie, a piece of the invisible world made visible by a sun at midnight and sliding before our eyes ... Justly is it thought that to be able to present such images as these to the mind, is to realise the world they speak of. We could repeat such verses as the following down a green glade, a whole summer's morning." An 1830 review of Coleridge's "Poetical Works" similarly praised for its "melodious versification," describing it as "perfect music." An 1834 review, published shortly after Coleridge's death, also praised "Kubla Khan"'s musicality. These three later assessments of "Kubla Khan" responded more positively to Coleridge's description of composing the poem in a dream, as an additional facet of the poetry.
Victorian critics praised the poem and some examined aspects of the poem's background. John Sheppard, in his analysis of dreams titled "On Dreams" (1847), lamented Coleridge's drug use as getting in the way of his poetry but argued: "It is probable, since he writes of having taken an 'anodyne,' that the 'vision in a dream' arose under some excitement of that same narcotic; but this does not destroy, even as to his particular case, the evidence for a wonderfully inventive action of the mind in sleep; for, whatever were the exciting cause, the fact remains the same". T. Hall Caine, in 1883 survey of the original critical response to "Christabel" and "Kubla Khan", praised the poem and declared: "It must surely be allowed that the adverse criticism on 'Christabel' and 'Kubla Khan' which is here quoted is outside all tolerant treatment, whether of raillery or of banter. It is difficult to attribute such false verdict to pure and absolute ignorance. Even when we make all due allowance for the prejudices of critics whose only possible enthusiasm went out to 'the pointed and fine propriety of Poe,' we can hardly believe that the exquisite art which is among the most valued on our possessions could encounter so much garrulous abuse without the criminal intervention of personal malignancy." In a review of H. D. Traill's analysis of Coleridge in the "English Men of Letters", an anonymous reviewer wrote in 1885 "Westminster Review": "Of 'Kubla Khan,' Mr. Traill writes: 'As to the wild dream-poem 'Kubla Khan,' it is hardly more than a psychological curiosity, and only that perhaps in respect of the completeness of its metrical form.' Lovers of poetry think otherwise, and listen to these wonderful lines as the voice of Poesy itself."
Critics at the end of the 19th century favoured the poem and placed it as one of Coleridge's best works. When discussing "Christabel", "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and "Kubla Khan", an anonymous reviewer in the October 1893 "The Church Quarterly Review" claimed, "In these poems Coleridge achieves a mastery of language and rhythm which is nowhere else conspicuously evident in him." In 1895, Andrew Lang reviewed the "Letters of Coleridge" in addition to Coleridge's "Kubla Khan", "Christabel" and "Rime of the Ancient Mariner", saying: "all these poems are 'miraculous;' all seem to have been 'given' by the dreaming 'subconscious self' of Coleridge. The earliest pieces hold no promise of these marvels. They come from what is oldest in Coleridge's nature, his uninvited and irrepressible intuition, magical and rare, vivid beyond common sight of common things, sweet beyond sound of things heard." G E Woodberry, in 1897, said that "Christabel", "Rime of the Ancient Mariner", and "Kubla Khan" "are the marvelous creations of his genius. In these it will be said there is both a world of nature new created, and a dramatic method and interest. It is enough for the purpose of the analysis if it be granted that nowhere else in Coleridge's work, except in these and less noticeably in a few other instances, do these high characteristics occur." In speaking of the three poems, he claimed they "have besides that wealth of beauty in detail, of fine diction, of liquid melody, of sentiment, thought, and image, which belong only to poetry of the highest order, and which are too obvious to require any comment. 'Kubla Khan' is a poem of the same kind, in which the mystical effect is given almost wholly by landscape."
The 1920s contained analysis of the poem that emphasised the poem's power. In "Road to Xanadu" (1927), a book length study of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and "Kubla Khan", John Livingston Lowes claimed that the poems were "two of the most remarkable poems in English". When turning to the background of the works, he argued, "Coleridge as Coleridge, be it said at once, is a secondary moment to our purpose; it is the significant process, not the man, which constitutes our theme. But the amazing "modus operandi" of his genius, in the fresh light which I hope I have to offer, becomes the very abstract and brief chronicle of the procedure of the creative faculty itself." After breaking down the various aspects of the poem, Lowes stated, "with a picture of unimpaired and thrilling vividness, the fragment ends. And with it ends, for all save Coleridge, the dream. 'The earth hath bubbles as the water has, and this is of them.' For 'Kubla Khan' is as near enchantment, I suppose, as we are like to come in this dull world. And over it is cast the glamour, enhanced beyond all reckoning in the dream, of the remote in time and space – that visionary presence of a vague and gorgeous and mysterious Past which brooded, as Coleridge read, above the inscrutable Nile, and domed pavilions in Cashmere, and the vanished stateliness of Xanadu." He continued by describing the power of the poem: "For none of the things which we have seen – dome, river, chasm, fountain, caves of ice, or floating hair – nor any combination of them holds the secret key to that sense of an incommunicable witchery which pervades the poem. That is something more impalpable by far, into which entered who can tell what tracelesss, shadowy recollections ... The poem is steeped in the wonder of all Coleridge's enchanted voyagings." Lowes then concluded about the two works: "Not even in the magical four and fifty lines of 'Kubla Khan' is sheer visualizing energy so intensely exercised as in 'The Ancient Mariner.' But every crystal-clear picture there, is an integral part of a preconceived and consciously elaborated whole ... In 'Kubla Khan' the linked and interweaving images irresponsibly and gloriously stream, like the pulsing, fluctuating banners of the North. And their pageant is as aimless as it is magnificent ... There is, then ... one glory of 'Kubla Khan' and another glory of 'The Ancient Mariner,' as one star differeth from another star in glory." George Watson, in 1966, claimed that Lowes's analysis of the poems "will stand as a permanent monument to historical criticism." Also in 1966, Kenneth Burke, declared, "Count me among those who would view this poem both as a marvel, and as 'in principle' "finished"."
T. S. Eliot attacked the reputation of "Kubla Khan" and sparked a dispute within literary criticism with his analysis of the poem in his essay "Origin and Uses of Poetry" from "The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism" (1933): "The way in which poetry is written is not, so far as our knowledge of these obscure matters as yet extends, any clue to its value ... The faith in mystical inspiration is responsible for the exaggerated repute of "Kubla Khan". The imagery of that fragment, certainly, whatever its origins in Coleridge's reading, sank to the depths of Coleridge's feeling, was saturated, transformed there ... and brought up into daylight again." He goes on to explain, "But it is not "used": the poem has not been written. A single verse is not poetry unless it is a one-verse poem; and even the finest line draws its life from its context. Organization is necessary as well as 'inspiration'. The re-creation of word and image which happens fitfully in the poetry of such a poet as Coleridge happens almost incessantly with Shakespeare." Geoffrey Yarlott, in 1967, responds to Eliot to claim, "Certainly, the enigmatic personages who appear in the poem ... and the vaguely incantatory proper names ... appear to adumbrate rather than crystalize the poet's intention. Yet, though generally speaking intentions in poetry are nothing save as 'realized', we are unable to ignore the poem, despite Mr Eliot's strictures on its 'exaggerated repute'." He continued, "We may question without end "what" it means, but few of us question if the poem is worth the trouble, or whether the meaning is worth the having. While the feeling persists that there is something there which is profoundly important, the challenge to elucidate it proves irresistible." However, Lilian Furst, in 1969, countered Yarlott to argue that, "T. S. Eliot's objection to the exaggerated repute of the surrealist "Kubla Khan" is not unjustified. Moreover, the customary criticism of Coleridge as a cerebral poet would seem to be borne out by those poems such as "This Lime-tree Bower my Prison" or "The Pains of Sleep", which tend more towards a direct statement than an imaginative presentation of personal dilemma."
During the 1940s and 1950s, critics focused on the technique of the poem and how it relates to the meaning. In 1941, G. W. Knight claimed that "Kubla Khan" "needs no defence. It has a barbaric and oriental magnificence that asserts itself with a happy power and authenticity too often absent from visionary poems set within the Christian tradition." Humphrey House, in 1953, praised the poem and said of beginning of the poem: "The whole passage is full of life because the verse has both the needed energy and the needed control. The combination of energy and control in the rhythm and sound is so great" and that Coleridge's words "convey so fully the sense of inexhaustible energy, now falling now rising, but persisting through its own pulse". Also in 1953, Elisabeth Schneider dedicated her book to analysing the various aspects of the poem, including the various sound techniques. When discussing the quality of the poem, she wrote, "I sometimes think we overwork Coleridge's idea of 'the balance or reconciliation of opposite or discordant qualities.' I have to come back to it here, however, for the particular flavor of "Kubla Khan", with its air of mystery, is describable in part through that convenient phrase. Yet, the 'reconciliation' does not quite occur either. It is in fact avoided. What we have instead is the very spirit of 'oscillation' itself." Continuing, she claimed, "The poem is the soul of ambivalence, oscillation's very self; and that is probably its deepest meaning. In creating this effect, form and matter are intricately woven. The irregular and inexact rhymes and varied lengths of the lines play some part. More important is the musical effect in which a smooth, rather swift forward movement is emphasized by the relation of grammatical structure to line and rhyme, yet is impeded and thrown back upon itself even from the beginning". She then concluded: "Here in these interwoven oscillations dwells the magic, the 'dream,' and the air of mysterious meaning of "Kubla Khan". I question whether this effect was all deliberately out by Coleridge, though it might have been. It is possibly half-inherent in his subject ... . What remains is the spirit of 'oscillation,' perfectly poeticized, and possibly ironically commemorative of the author." Following in 1959, John Beer described the complex nature of the poem: "'Kubla Khan' the poem is not a meaningless reverie, but a poem so packed with meaning as to render detailed elucidation extremely difficult." In responding to House, Beer claimed, "That there is an image of energy in the fountain may be accepted: but I cannot agree that it is creative energy of the highest type."
Critics of the 1960s focused on the reputation of the poem and how it compared to Coleridge's other poems. In 1966, Virginia Radley considered Wordsworth and his sister as an important influence to Coleridge writing a great poem: "Almost daily social intercourse with this remarkable brother and sister seemed to provide the catalyst to greatness, for it is during this period that Coleridge conceived his greatest poems, 'Christabel,' 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,' and 'Kubla Khan,' poems so distinctive and so different from his others that many generations of readers know Coleridge solely through them." She latter added that "Of all the poems Coleridge wrote, three are beyond compare. These three, 'The Ancient Mariner,' 'Christabel,' and 'Kubla Khan,' produced an aura which defies definition, but which might be properly be called one of 'natural magic.'" What sets apart the poem from the others is its "verbal enactment of the creative process" which makes it "unique even among the three poems of high imagination." To Radley, "the poem is skilfully wrought, as are all the poems of high imagination. The opposites within it are diverse and effectively so. In tone, the poem juxtaposes quiet with noise ... Action presents its contrasts also ... These seemingly antithetical images combine to demonstrate the proximity of the known and the unknown worlds, the two worlds of Understanding and Imagination." In concluding about the poem, she argued, "In truth, there are other 'Fears in Solitude' than that written by Coleridge and there are other 'Frosts at Midnight'; but there are no other 'Ancient Mariners' or 'Kubla Khans,' nor are there likely to be. In evaluating Coleridge's poetry, it can readily be seen and accepted that for the poems of high imagination his reputation is eternally made."
In the same year as Radley, George Watson argued that "The case of 'Kubla Khan' is perhaps the strangest of all – a poem that stands high even in English poetry as a work of ordered perfection is offered by the poet himself, nearly twenty years after its composition, as a fragment. Anyone can accept that a writer's head should be full of projects he will never fulfil, and most writers are cautious enough not to set them down; Coleridge, rashly, did set them down, so that his very fertility has survived as evidence of infertility." He later argued that the poem "is probably the most original poem about poetry in English, and the first hint outside his notebooks and letters that a major critic lies hidden in the twenty-five-year-old Coleridge." In conclusion about the poem, Watson stated, "The triumph of 'Kubla Khan,' perhaps, lies in its evasions: it hints so delicately at critical truths while demonstrating them so boldly. The contrasts between the two halves of the poem ... So bold, indeed, that Coleridge for once was able to dispense with any language out of the past. It was his own poem, a manifesto. To read it now, with the hindsight of another age, is to feel premonitions of the critical achievement to come ... But the poem is in advance, not just of these, but in all probability of any critical statement that survives. It may be that it stands close to the moment of discovery itself." After responding to Eliot's claims about "Kubla Khan", Yarlott, in 1967, argued that "few of us question if the poem is worth the trouble" before explaining that "The ambiguities inherent in the poem pose a special problem of critical approach. If we restrict ourselves to what is 'given', appealing to the poem as a 'whole', we shall fail probably to resolves its various cruxes. Hence, there is a temptation to look for 'external' influences ... The trouble with all these approaches is that they tend finally to lead "away" from the poem itself." When describing specifics, he argued, "The rhythmical development of the stanza, too, though technically brilliant, evokes admiration rather than delight. The unusually heavy stresses and abrupt masculine rhymes impose a slow and sonorous weightiness upon the movement of the iambic octosyllabics which is quite in contrast, say, to the light fast metre of the final stanza where speed of movement matches buoyancy of tone." Following in 1968, Walter Jackson Bate called the poem "haunting" and said that it was "so unlike anything else in English".
Criticism during the 1970s and 1980s emphasised the importance of the Preface while praising the work. Norman Fruman, in 1971, argued: "To discuss 'Kubla Khan' as one might any other great poem would be an exercise in futility. For a century and a half its status has been unique, a masterpiece "sui generis", embodying interpretive problems wholly its own...It would not be excessive to say that no small part of the extraordinary fame of 'Kubla Khan' inheres in its alleged marvellous conception. Its Preface is world-famous and has been used in many studies of the creative process as a signal instance in which a poem has come to us directly from the unconscious."
In 1981, Kathleen Wheeler contrasts the Crewe Manuscript note with the Preface: "Contrasting this relatively factual, literal, and dry account of the circumstances surrounding the birth of the poem with the actual published preface, one illustrates what the latter is not: it is not a literal, dry, factual account of this sort, but a highly literary piece of composition, providing the verse with a certain mystique." In 1985, David Jasper praised the poem as "one of his greatest meditations on the nature of poetry and poetic creation" and argued "it is through irony, also, as it unsettles and undercuts, that the fragment becomes a Romantic literary form of such importance, nowhere more so than in 'Kubla Khan'." When talking about the Preface, Jasper claimed that it "profoundly influenced the way in which the poem has been understood". Responding in part to Wheeler in 1986, Charles Rzepka analysed the relationship between the poet and the audience of the poem while describing "Kubla Khan" as one of "Coleridge's three great poems of the supernatural". He continued by discussing the preface: "despite its obvious undependability as a guide to the actual process of the poem's composition, the preface can still, in Wheeler's words, lead us 'to ponder why Coleridge chose to write a preface ... ' What the preface describes, of course, is not the actual process by which the poem came into being, but an analogue of poetic creation as "logos", a divine 'decree' or fiat which transforms the Word into the world."
During the 1990s, critics continued to praise the poem with many critics placing emphasis on what the Preface adds to the poem. David Perkins, in 1990, argued that "Coleridge's introductory note to "Kubla Khan" weaves together two myths with potent imaginative appeal. The myth of the lost poem tells how an inspired work was mysteriously given to the poet and dispelled irrecoverably." Also in 1990, Thomas McFarland stated, "Judging by the number and variety of critical effort to interpret their meaning, there may be no more palpably symbolic poems in all of English literature than "Kubla Khan" and "The Ancient Mariner"." In 1996, Rosemary Ashton claimed that the poem was "one of the most famous poems in the language" and claimed the Preface as "the most famous, but probably not the most accurate, preface in literary history." Richard Holmes, in 1998, declared the importance of the poem's Preface while describing the reception of the 1816 volume of poems: "However, no contemporary critic saw the larger possible significance of Coleridge's Preface to 'Kubla Khan', though it eventually became one of the most celebrated, and disputed, accounts of poetic composition ever written. Like the letter from the fictional 'friend' in the "Biographia", it brilliantly suggests how a compressed fragment came to represent a much larger (and even more mysterious) act of creation."
In 2002, J. C. C. Mays pointed out that "Coleridge's claim to be a great poet lies in the continued pursuit of the consequences of 'The Ancient Mariner,' 'Christabel' and 'Kubla Khan' on several levels." Adam Sisman, in 2006, questioned the nature of the poem itself: "No one even knows whether it is complete; Coleridge describes it as a 'fragment,' but there is a case for doubting this. Maybe it is not a poem at all. Hazlitt called it 'a musical composition' ... Though literary detectives have uncovered some of its sources, its remains difficult to say what the poem is about." In describing the merits of the poem and its fragmentary state, he claimed, "The poem stands for itself: beautiful, sensuous and enigmatic." During the same year, Jack Stillinger claimed that "Coleridge wrote only a few poems of the first rank – perhaps no more than a dozen, all told – and he seems to have taken a very casual attitude toward them ... he kept 'Kubla Khan' in manuscript for nearly twenty years before offering it to the public 'rather as a psychological curiosity, than on the grounds of any supposed "poetic" merits'". Harold Bloom, in 2010, argued that Coleridge wrote two kinds of poems and that "The daemonic group, necessarily more famous, is the triad of "The Ancient Mariner", "Christabel", and 'Kubla Khan.'" He goes on to explain the "daemonic": "Opium was the avenging daemon or "alastor" of Coleridge's life, his dark or fallen angel, his experiential acquaintance with Milton's Satan. Opium was for him what wandering and moral tale-telling became for the Mariner – the personal shape of repetition compulsion. The lust for paradise in 'Kubla Khan,' Geraldine's lust for Christabel – these are manifestations of Coleridge's revisionary daemonization of Milton, these are Coleridge's countersublime. Poetic genius, the genial spirit itself, Coleridge must see as daemonic when it is his own rather than when it is Milton's."
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Kashubian language
Kashubian or Cassubian (Kashubian: "", ) is a West Slavic lect belonging to the Lechitic subgroup along with Polish and Silesian. Although often classified as a language in its own right, it is sometimes viewed as a dialect of Pomeranian or as a dialect of Polish.
In Poland, it has been an officially recognized ethnic-minority language since 2005. Approximately 108,000 people use mainly Kashubian at home. It is the only remnant of the Pomeranian language. It is close to standard Polish with influence from Low German and the extinct Polabian and Old Prussian.
The Kashubian lect exists in two different forms: low-prestige vernacular dialects used by older generations in rural areas, and the Kashubian literary standard prescribed in education. The codification of a Kashubian standard language was completed by the beginning of the 21st century.
Kashubian is assumed to have evolved from the language spoken by some tribes of Pomeranians called Kashubians, in the region of Pomerania, on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea between the Vistula and Oder rivers. The Pomeranians were said to have arrived before the Poles, and certain tribes managed to maintain their language and traditions despite German and Polish settlements. It first began to evolve separately in the period from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century as the Polish-Pomeranian linguistic area began to divide based around important linguistic developments centred in the western (Kashubian) part of the area.
In the 19th century, Florian Ceynowa became Kashubian's first known activist. He undertook tremendous efforts to awaken Kashubian self-identity through the establishment of Kashubian language, customs, and traditions. He felt strongly that Poles were born brothers and that Kashubia was a separate nation.
The Young Kashubian movement followed in 1912, led by author and doctor Aleksander Majkowski, who wrote for the paper "Zrzësz Kaszëbskô" as part of the "Zrzëszincë" group. The group contributed significantly to the development of the Kashubian literary language.
The earliest printed documents in Kashubian date from the end of the 16th century. The modern orthography was first proposed in 1879.
Many scholars and linguists debate whether Kashubian should be recognized as a Polish dialect or separate language. From the diachronic view it is a distinct Lechitic West Slavic language, but from the synchronic point of view it is a Polish dialect. Kashubian is closely related to Slovincian, while both of them are dialects of Pomeranian. Many linguists, in Poland and elsewhere, consider it a divergent dialect of Polish. Dialectal diversity is so great within Kashubian that a speaker of southern dialects has considerable difficulty in understanding a speaker of northern dialects. The spelling and the grammar of Polish words written in Kashubian, which is most of its vocabulary, is highly unusual, making it difficult for native Polish speakers to comprehend written text in Kashubian.
Like Polish, Kashubian includes about 5% loanwords from German (such as "" "art"). Unlike Polish, these are mostly from Low German and only occasionally from High German. Other sources of loanwords include the Baltic languages.
The number of speakers of Kashubian varies widely from source to source, ranging from as low as 4,500 to the upper 366,000. In the 2011 census, over 108,000 people in Poland declared that they mainly use Kashubian at home, of these only 10 percent consider Kashubian to be their mother tongue, with the rest considering themselves to be native speakers of both Kashubian and Polish. The number of people who can speak at least some Kashubian is higher, around 366,000. All Kashubian speakers are also fluent in Polish. A number of schools in Poland use Kashubian as a teaching language. It is an official alternative language for local administration purposes in Gmina Sierakowice, Gmina Linia, Gmina Parchowo, Gmina Luzino and Gmina Żukowo in the Pomeranian Voivodeship. Most respondents say that Kashubian is used in informal speech among family members and friends. This is most likely because Polish is the official language and spoken in formal settings.
During the Kashubian diaspora of 1855-1900, 115,700 Kashubians emigrated to North America, with around 15,000 emigrating to Brazil. Among the Polish community of Renfrew County, Ontario, Kashubian is widely spoken to this day, despite the use of more formal Polish by parish priests. In Winona, Minnesota, which Ramułt termed the "Kashubian Capital of America", Kashubian was regarded as "poor Polish," as opposed to the "good Polish" of the parish priests and teaching sisters. Consequently, Kashubian failed to survive Polonization and died out shortly after the mid-20th century.
Important for Kashubian literature was "Xążeczka dlo Kaszebov" by Doctor Florian Ceynowa (1817–1881). Hieronim Derdowski (1852–1902 in Winona, Minnesota) was another significant author who wrote in Kashubian, as was Dr. Aleksander Majkowski (1876–1938) from Kościerzyna, who wrote the Kashubian national epic The Life and Adventures of Remus. Jan Trepczyk was a poet who wrote in Kashubian, as was Stanisław Pestka. Kashubian literature has been translated into Czech, Polish, English, German, Belarusian, Slovene and Finnish. Aleksander Majkowski and Alojzy Nagel belong to the most commonly translated Kashubian authors of the 20th century. A considerable body of Christian literature has been translated into Kashubian, including the New Testament, much of it by Fr. Adam Ryszard Sikora (OFM). Rev. Franciszek Grucza graduated from a Catholic seminary in Pelplin. He was the first priest to introduce Catholic liturgy in Kashubian.
The earliest recorded artifacts of Kashubian date back to the 15th century and include a book of spiritual psalms that were used to introduce Kashubian to the Lutheran church:
The next few texts are also religious catechisms but this time from the Catholic Church, because the majority of Kashubians were Roman Catholic and these texts helped them become more unified in faith:
Throughout the communist period in Poland (1948-1989), Kashubian greatly suffered in education and social status. Kashubian was represented as folklore and prevented from being taught in schools. Following the collapse of communism, attitudes on the status of Kashubian have been gradually changing. It has been included in the program of school education in Kashubia although not as a language of teaching or as a required subject for every child, but as a foreign language taught 3 hours per week at parents' explicit request. Since 1991, it is estimated that there have been around 17,000 students in over 400 schools who have learned Kashubian. Kashubian has some limited usage on public radio and had on public television. Since 2005, Kashubian has enjoyed legal protection in Poland as an official regional language. It is the only language in Poland with that status, which was granted by the "Act of 6 January 2005 on National and Ethnic Minorities and on the Regional Language" of the Polish Parliament. The act provides for its use in official contexts in ten communes in which speakers are at least 20% of the population. The recognition means that heavily populated Kashubian localities have been able to have road signs and other amenities with Polish and Kashubian translations on them.
Friedrich Lorentz wrote in the early 20th century that there were three Kashubian dialects. These include the
Other researches would argue that each tiny region of the Kaszuby has its own dialect, as in "Dialects and Slang of Poland":
A "standard" Kashubian language does not exist despite several attempts to create one; rather a diverse range of dialects takes its place. The vocabulary is heavily influenced by German and Polish and uses the Latin alphabet.
There are several similarities between Kashubian and Polish. For some linguists they consider this a sign that Kashubian is a dialect of Polish but others believe that this is just a sign that the two originate from the same location. They are nevertheless related to a certain degree and their proximity has made Kashubian influenced by Polish and its various dialects, specifically its northern ones.
Some examples of similarities between languages:
Kashubian makes use of simplex and complex phonemes with secondary place articulation , , , and . They follow the Clements and Hume (1995) constriction model, where sounds are represented in terms of constriction. They are then organized according to particular features like anterior, implying the activation of features dominating it. Due to this model, the phonemes above are treated differently from the phonemes , , , and . The vocalic place node would be placed under the C-place node and V-place nodes interpolated to preserve well-forwardness.
Kashubian has simple consonants with a secondary articulation along with complex ones with secondary articulation.
The following digraphs and trigraphs are used:
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Ken Kesey
Kenneth Elton Kesey (September 17, 1935 – November 10, 2001) was an American novelist, essayist, and countercultural figure. He considered himself a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s.
Kesey was born in La Junta, Colorado, and grew up in Springfield, Oregon, graduating from the University of Oregon in 1957. He began writing "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" in 1960 following the completion of a graduate fellowship in creative writing at Stanford University; the novel was an immediate commercial and critical success when published two years later. During this period, Kesey participated in government studies involving hallucinogenic drugs (including mescaline and LSD) to supplement his income.
Following the publication of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", he moved to nearby La Honda, California, and began hosting happenings with former colleagues from Stanford, miscellaneous bohemian and literary figures (most notably Neal Cassady), and other friends collectively known as the Merry Pranksters; these parties, known as Acid Tests, integrated the consumption of LSD with multimedia performances. He mentored the Grateful Dead (the "de facto" "house band" of the Acid Tests) throughout their incipience and continued to exert a profound influence upon the group throughout their long career. "Sometimes a Great Notion"—an epic account of the vicissitudes of an Oregon logging family that aspired to the modernist grandeur of William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha saga—was a commercial success that polarized critics and readers upon its release in 1964, although Kesey regarded the novel as his magnum opus.
In 1965, following an arrest for marijuana possession and subsequent faked suicide, Kesey was imprisoned for five months. Shortly thereafter, he returned home to the Willamette Valley and settled in Pleasant Hill, Oregon, where he maintained a secluded, family-oriented lifestyle for the rest of his life. In addition to teaching at the University of Oregon—an experience that culminated in "Caverns" (1989), a collaborative novel written by Kesey and his graduate workshop students under the pseudonym of "O.U. Levon"—he continued to regularly contribute fiction and reportage to such publications as "Esquire", "Rolling Stone", "Oui", "Running", and "The Whole Earth Catalog"; various iterations of these pieces were collected in "Kesey's Garage Sale" (1973) and "Demon Box" (1986).
Between 1974 and 1980, Kesey published six issues of "Spit in the Ocean", a literary magazine that featured excerpts from an unfinished novel ("Seven Prayers by Grandma Whittier", an account of Kesey's grandmother's struggle with Alzheimer's disease) and contributions from such luminaries as Margo St. James, Kate Millett, Stewart Brand, Saul-Paul Sirag, Jack Sarfatti, Paul Krassner, and William S. Burroughs. After a third novel ("Sailor Song") was released to lukewarm reviews in 1992, he reunited with the Merry Pranksters and began publishing works on the Internet until ill health (including a stroke) curtailed his activities.
Kesey was born in La Junta, Colorado, to dairy farmers Geneva (née Smith) and Frederick A. Kesey. In 1946, the family moved to Springfield, Oregon. Kesey was a champion wrestler in high school and college in the 174-pound weight division. He almost qualified to be on the Olympic team, but a serious shoulder injury stopped his wrestling career. He graduated from Springfield High School in 1953. An avid reader and filmgoer, the young Kesey took John Wayne, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Zane Grey as his role models (later naming a son Zane) and toyed with magic, ventriloquism, and hypnotism.
In 1956, while attending the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication in neighboring Eugene, Oregon, Kesey eloped with his high-school sweetheart, Oregon State College student Norma "Faye" Haxby, whom he had met in seventh grade. According to Kesey, "Without Faye, I would have been swept overboard by notoriety and weird, dope-fueled ideas and flower-child girls with beamy eyes and bulbous breasts." Married until his death at the age of 66, they had three children: Jed, Zane, and Shannon. Additionally, with the approval of Faye Kesey, Ken fathered a daughter, Sunshine Kesey, with fellow Merry Prankster Carolyn "Mountain Girl" Adams. Born in 1966, Sunshine was raised by Adams and her stepfather, Jerry Garcia.
Kesey had a football scholarship for his freshman year, but switched to the University of Oregon wrestling team as a better fit for his build. After posting a .885 winning percentage in the 1956–57 season, he received the Fred Low Scholarship for outstanding Northwest wrestler. In 1957, Kesey was second in his weight class at the Pacific Coast intercollegiate competition. He remains "ranked in the top 10 of Oregon Wrestling's all time winning percentage."
A member of Beta Theta Pi throughout his studies, Kesey graduated from the University of Oregon with a B.A. in speech and communication in 1957. Increasingly disengaged by the playwriting and screenwriting courses that comprised much of his major, he began to take literature classes in the second half of his collegiate career with James B. Hall, a cosmopolitan alumnus of the Iowa Writers' Workshop who had previously taught at Cornell University and later served as provost of College V at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Hall took on Kesey as his protege and cultivated his interest in literary fiction, introducing Kesey (whose reading interests were hitherto confined to science fiction) to the works of Ernest Hemingway and other paragons of literary modernism. After the last of several brief summer sojourns as a struggling actor in Los Angeles, he published his first short story ("First Sunday of September") in the "Northwest Review" and successfully applied to the highly selective Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship for the 1958–59 academic year.
Unbeknownst to Kesey, who applied at Hall's request, the maverick literary critic Leslie Fiedler (then based at the University of Montana) successfully importuned the regional fellowship committee to select the "rough-hewn" Kesey alongside more traditional fellows from Reed College and other elite institutions. Because he lacked the prerequisites to work toward a traditional master's degree in English as a communications major, Kesey elected to enroll in the non-degree program at Stanford University's Creative Writing Center that fall. While studying and working in the Stanford milieu over the next five years, most of them spent as a resident of Perry Lane (a historically bohemian enclave adjacent to the university golf course), he developed intimate lifelong friendships with fellow writers Ken Babbs, Larry McMurtry, Wendell Berry, Ed McClanahan, Gurney Norman, and Robert Stone.
During his initial fellowship year, Kesey frequently clashed with Center director Wallace Stegner, who regarded the young writer as "a sort of highly talented illiterate" and rejected Kesey's application for a departmental Stegner Fellowship before permitting his attendance as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow. Reinforcing these perceptions, Stegner's deputy Richard Scowcroft later recalled that "neither Wally nor I thought he had a particularly important talent." According to Stone, Stegner "saw Kesey... as a threat to civilization and intellectualism and sobriety" and continued to reject Kesey's Stegner Fellowship applications for the 1959–60 and 1960–61 terms.
Nevertheless, Kesey received the prestigious $2,000 Harper-Saxton Prize for his first novel in progress (the oft-rejected "Zoo") and audited the graduate writing seminar—a courtesy nominally accorded to former Stegner Fellows, although Kesey only secured his place by falsely claiming to Scowcroft that his colleague (on sabbatical through 1960) "had said that he could attend classes for free"—through the 1960-61 term. The course was initially taught that year by Viking Press editorial consultant and Lost Generation eminence grise Malcolm Cowley, who was "always glad to see" Kesey and fellow auditor Tillie Olsen. Cowley was succeeded the following quarter by the Irish short-story specialist Frank O'Connor; frequent spats between O'Connor and Kesey ultimately precipitated his departure from the class. While under the tutelage of Cowley, he began to draft and workshop a manuscript that evolved into "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest".
Reflecting upon this period in a 1999 interview with Robert K. Elder, Kesey recalled, "I was too young to be a beatnik, and too old to be a hippie."
At the invitation of Perry Lane neighbor and Stanford psychology graduate student Vik Lovell, an acquaintance of Richard Alpert and Allen Ginsberg, Kesey volunteered to take part in what turned out to be a CIA-financed study under the aegis of Project MKULTRA, a highly secret military program, at the Menlo Park Veterans' Hospital where he worked as a night aide. The project studied the effects of psychoactive drugs, particularly LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, cocaine, aMT, and DMT on people. Kesey wrote many detailed accounts of his experiences with these drugs, both during the study and in the years of private drug-use that followed.
Kesey's role as a medical guinea pig, as well as his stint working at the Veterans' Administration hospital, inspired him to write "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". The success of this book, as well as the demolition of the Perry Lane cabins in August 1963, allowed him to move to a log house at 7940 La Honda Road in La Honda, California, a rustic hamlet in the Santa Cruz Mountains fifteen miles to the west of the Stanford University campus. He frequently entertained friends and many others with parties he called "Acid Tests," involving music (including the Stanford-educated Anonymous Artists of America and Kesey's favorite band, the Grateful Dead), black lights, fluorescent paint, strobe lights, LSD, and other psychedelic effects. These parties were described in some of Ginsberg's poems and served as the basis for Tom Wolfe's "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test", an early exemplar of the nonfiction novel. Other firsthand accounts of the Acid Tests appear in "" by Hunter S. Thompson and the 1967 Hells Angels memoir "Freewheelin Frank:, Secretary of the Angels" (Frank Reynolds; ghostwritten by Michael McClure).
While still enrolled at the University of Oregon in 1957, Kesey wrote "End of Autumn"; according to Rick Dogson, the novel "focused on the exploitation of college athletes by telling the tale of a football lineman who was having second thoughts about the game." Although Kesey came to regard the unpublished work as juvenilia, an excerpt served as his Stanford Creative Writing Center application sample.
During his Woodrow Wilson Fellowship year, Kesey wrote "Zoo", a novel about the beatniks living in the North Beach community of San Francisco, but it was never published.
The inspiration for "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" came while working on the night shift with Gordon Lish at the Menlo Park Veterans' Hospital. There, Kesey often spent time talking to the patients, sometimes under the influence of the hallucinogenic drugs he had volunteered to experiment with. Kesey did not believe that these patients were insane, but rather that society had pushed them out because they did not fit the conventional ideas of how people were supposed to act and behave. Published under the guidance of Cowley in 1962, the novel was an immediate success; in 1963, it was adapted into a successful stage play by Dale Wasserman, and in 1975, Miloš Forman directed a screen adaptation, which won the "Big Five" Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actor (Jack Nicholson), Best Actress (Louise Fletcher), Best Director (Forman) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Lawrence Hauben and Bo Goldman).
Kesey originally was involved in creating the film, but left two weeks into production. He claimed never to have seen the movie because of a dispute over the $20,000 he was initially paid for the film rights. Kesey loathed that, unlike the book, the film was not narrated by the Chief Bromden character, and he disagreed with Jack Nicholson's being cast as Randle McMurphy (he wanted Gene Hackman). Despite this, Faye Kesey has stated that her husband was generally supportive of the film and pleased that it was made.
When the publication of his second novel, "Sometimes a Great Notion" in 1964, required his presence in New York, Kesey, Neal Cassady, and others in a group of friends they called the Merry Pranksters took a cross-country trip in a school bus nicknamed "Furthur". This trip, described in Tom Wolfe's "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" (and later in Kesey's unproduced screenplay, "The Furthur Inquiry") was the group's attempt to create art out of everyday life, and to experience roadway America while high on LSD. In an interview after arriving in New York, Kesey is quoted as saying, "The sense of communication in this country has damn near atrophied. But we found as we went along it got easier to make contact with people. If people could just understand it is possible to be different without being a threat." A huge amount of footage was filmed on 16mm cameras during the trip, which remained largely unseen until the release of Alex Gibney and Alison Elwood's film "Magic Trip" in 2011.
After the bus trip, the Pranksters threw parties they called Acid Tests around the San Francisco Bay Area from 1965 to 1966. Many of the Pranksters lived at Kesey's residence in La Honda. In New York, Cassady introduced Kesey to Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, who then turned them on to Timothy Leary. "Sometimes a Great Notion" inspired a 1970 film starring and directed by Paul Newman; it was nominated for two Academy Awards, and in 1972 was the first film shown by the new television network HBO, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
Kesey was arrested in La Honda, California, for possession of marijuana in 1965. In an attempt to mislead police, he faked suicide by having friends leave his truck on a cliffside road near Eureka, along with an elaborate suicide note, written by the Pranksters. Kesey fled to Mexico in the back of a friend's car. He returned to the United States eight months later. On January 17, 1966, Kesey was sentenced to six months to be served at the San Mateo County jail in Redwood City, California. Two nights later, he was arrested again, this time with Carolyn Adams, while smoking marijuana on the rooftop of Stewart Brand's Telegraph Hill home in San Francisco. On his release, he moved back to the family farm in Pleasant Hill, Oregon, in the Willamette Valley, where he spent the rest of his life. He wrote many articles, books (mostly collections of his articles), and short stories during that time.
In 1984, Kesey's 20-year-old son Jed, a wrestler for the University of Oregon, suffered severe head injuries on the way to a tournament when the team's van crashed after sliding off the highway. Two days later, he was declared brain dead and his parents gave permission for his organs to be donated.
Jed's death deeply affected Kesey, who later called Jed a victim of policies that had starved the team of funding. He wrote to Senator Mark Hatfield:
At a Grateful Dead concert soon after the death of promoter Bill Graham, Kesey delivered a eulogy, mentioning that Graham had donated $1,000 toward a memorial to Jed atop Mount Pisgah, near the Kesey home in Pleasant Hill. Ken Kesey donated $33,395 towards the purchase of a proper bus for the school's wrestling team to replace the van that fell off a cliff.
Kesey was diagnosed with diabetes in 1992. In 1994, he toured with members of the Merry Pranksters, performing a musical play he wrote about the millennium called "Twister: A Ritual Reality". Many old and new friends and family showed up to support the Pranksters on this tour, which took them from Seattle's Bumbershoot all along the West Coast, including a sold-out two-night run at The Fillmore in San Francisco to Boulder, Colorado, where they coaxed the Beat Generation poet Allen Ginsberg into performing with them.
Kesey mainly kept to his home life in Pleasant Hill, preferring to make artistic contributions on the Internet or holding ritualistic revivals in the spirit of the Acid Test. In the official Grateful Dead DVD release "The Closing of Winterland" (2003) documenting the monumental New Year's 1978/1979 concert at the Winterland Arena in San Francisco, Kesey is featured in a between-set interview.
On August 14, 1997, Kesey and his Pranksters attended a Phish concert in Darien Lake, New York. Kesey and the Pranksters appeared onstage with the band and performed a dance-trance-jam session involving several characters from "The Wizard of Oz" and "Frankenstein".
In June 2001, Kesey was invited and accepted as the keynote speaker at the annual commencement of The Evergreen State College. His last major work was an essay for "Rolling Stone" magazine calling for peace in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.
In 1997, health problems began to weaken Kesey, starting with a stroke that year. On October 25, 2001, Kesey had surgery on his liver to remove a tumor. He did not recover from that operation and died of complications on November 10, 2001, at age 66.
The film "Gerry" (2002) is dedicated to Ken Kesey.
Kesey Square is located in uptown Eugene, Oregon.
This is a selected list of Kesey's better-known works.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17257
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Kandahar
Kandahar () or Qandahar (; ; known in older literature as Candahar) is a city in Afghanistan, located in the south of the country on the Arghandab River, at an elevation of . It is Afghanistan's second largest city after Kabul, with a population of about 614,118. It is the capital of Kandahar Province and also the center of the larger cultural region called Loy Kandahar. In 1709, Mirwais Hotak made the region an independent kingdom and turned Kandahar into the capital of the Hotak dynasty. In 1747, Ahmad Shah Durrani, founder of the Durrani dynasty, made Kandahar the capital of the Afghan Empire.
Kandahar is one of the most culturally significant cities of the Pashtuns and has been their traditional seat of power for more than 300 years. It is a major trading center for sheep, wool, cotton, silk, felt, food grains, fresh and dried fruit, and tobacco. The region produces fine fruits, especially pomegranates and grapes, and the city has plants for canning, drying, and packing fruit, and is a major source of marijuana and hashish.
The region around Kandahar is one of the oldest known human settlements. A major fortified city existed at the site of Kandahar, probably as early as 1000–750 BC, and it became an important outpost of the Achaemenid (Persian) Empire in the 6th century BC. Alexander the Great had laid-out the foundation of what is now "Old Kandahar" in the 4th century BC and gave it the Ancient Greek name Αλεξάνδρεια Aραχωσίας (). Many empires have long fought over the city due to its strategic location along the trade routes of southern, central and western Asia.
The city was founded by Alexander the Great in 330 BC who named it Alexandria in Arachosia. Which was the recorded name for this city till the islamic conquest. It is suggested that the name that ""Kandahar"" has later on evolved from ""Iskandar"" pronounced as ""Scandar"" , the local dialect version of the name Alexander The change of the name from ""Scandar"" to Candar is mentioned by the 15th century Portuguese historian João de Barros in his most famous "Décadas da Ásia".
A folk etymology offered is that the word "kand" or "qand" in Persian and Pashto (the local languages) means "candy". The name "Candahar" or "Kandahar" in this form probably translates to candy area. This probably has to do with the location being fertile and historically known for producing fine grapes, pomegranates, apricots, melons and other sweet fruits.
Ernst Herzfeld claimed Kandahar perpetuated the name of the Indo-Parthian king Gondophares, who re-founded the city under the name Gundopharron. An alternative etymology derives the name of the city from Gandhara, the name of an ancient Hindu-Buddhist kingdom located along the Kabul and Swat rivers of northern Afghanistan and Pakistan; Kandahar is not in the former territory of Gandhara.
Excavations of prehistoric sites by archaeologists such as Louis Dupree and others suggest that the region around Kandahar is one of the oldest human settlements known so far.
British excavations in the 1970s discovered that Kandahar existed as a large fortified city during the early 1st millennium BCE; while this earliest period at Kandahar has not been precisely dated via radiocarbon, ceramic comparisons with the latest period at the major Bronze Age city of Mundigak have suggested an approximate time-frame of 1000 to 750 BCE. This fortified city became an important outpost of the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th to 4th centuries BCE, and formed part of the province of Arachosia.
The now "Old Kandahar" was founded in 330 BC by Alexander the Great, near the site of the ancient city of Mundigak (established around 3000 BC). Mundigak served as the provincial capital of Arachosia and was ruled by the Medes followed by the Achaemenids until the arrival of the Greeks from Macedonia. The main inhabitants of Arachosia were the "Pakhtas", an ancient Iranian tribe, who may be among the ancestors of today's Pashtuns. Kandahar was named "Alexandria", a name given to cities that Alexander founded during his conquests.
Kandahar has been a frequent target for conquest because of its strategic location in Asia, controlling the main trade route linking the Indian subcontinent with the Middle East and Central Asia. The territory became part of the Seleucid Empire after the death of Alexander. It is mentioned by Strabo that a treaty of friendship was established eventually between the Greeks and the Mauryas (Indians). The city eventually became part of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom (250 BC-125 BC), and continued that way for two hundred years under the later Indo-Greek Kingdom (180 BC – 10 CE). King Menander I (165 BC – 135 BC) of the Indo-Greek Kingdom practiced Greco-Buddhism and is recorded by the Mahavamsa (Chap. XXIX) to have sent "a Greek ("Yona") Buddhist head monk" named Mahadharmaraksita (literally translated as 'Great Teacher/Preserver of the Dharma') with 30,000 Buddhist monks from "the Greek city of Alasandra" (possibly Alexandria in Arachosia, as Kandhar was known under the Greeks) to Sri Lanka for the dedication of Great Stupa Buddhist temple in Anuradhapura.
While the Diadochi were warring amongst themselves, the Mauryas were developing in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent. The founder of the empire, Chandragupta Maurya, confronted a Macedonian invasion force led by Seleucus I in 305 BC and following a brief conflict, an agreement was reached as Seleucus ceded Gandhara and Arachosia and areas south of Bagram to the Mauryas. During the 120 years of the Mauryas in southern Afghanistan, Buddhism was introduced and eventually become a major religion alongside Zoroastrianism and local pagan beliefs.
Inscriptions made by Emperor Ashoka, a fragment of Edict 13 in Greek, as well as a full Edict, written in both Greek and Aramaic has been discovered in Kandahar. It is said to be written in excellent Classical Greek, using sophisticated philosophical terms. In this Edict, Ashoka uses the word Eusebeia ("Piety") as the Greek translation for the ubiquitous "Dharma" of his other Edicts written in Prakrit.
In the 7th century AD, Arab armies conquered the region with the new religion of Islam but were unable to succeed in fully converting the population. The leader of the expedition that conquered the city was Abbad ibn Ziyad, who governed Sijistan between 673 and 681. In AD 870, Yaqub ibn Layth Saffari, a local ruler of the Saffarid dynasty, conquered Kandahar and the rest of the nearby regions in the name of Islam.
It is believed that the Zunbil dynasty, were probably the rulers of the Kandahar region from the 7th century until the late 9th century AD. Kandahar was taken by Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni in the 11th century followed by the Ghurids of Ghor.
Kandahar appears to have been renamed "Teginābād" in the 10th-12th centuries, but the origin of the new name is unclear. During this period, nearby Panjway served as the administrative center for the area. However, Kandahar was of much more strategic importance, to the extent that Minhaj-i-Siraj attributes the downfall of the Ghaznavids to the loss of Kandahar. The city's name was changed back to Kandahar by the 13th century, after Ala ad-Din Husayn Jahansuz sacked Lashkari Bazar, near Bost. Again, the reason for the name change is not clear.
Kandahar was besieged by a Mongol army in 1221, although Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu defeated them. In 1251, upon accession to the Mongol throne, Möngke Khan granted Kandahar, along with other lands in Afghanistan, to Shams ad-Din Mohammad Kart of the Kart dynasty. However, the city is mentioned as being under Chagatai control in 1260-61; Kandahar didn't come under Kart control until 1281. Later, in 1318, a Chagatai prince raised an army from Kandahar against the Ilkhanid governor of Sistan. Kandahar was described by Ibn Battuta in 1333 as a large and prosperous town three nights journey from Ghazni.
Timur, founder of the Timurid Empire, captured Kandahar in 1383. He appointed his grandson Pir Muhammad as governor of Kandahar in 1390. Following his death in 1407, the city was ruled by other Timurid governors. Kandahar was entrusted to the Arghuns in the late 15th century, who eventually achieved independence from the Timurids. Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, is believed to have visited the town (c. 1521 AD) during his important journey between Hindustan and Mecca in Arabia.
Tamerlane's descendant, Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire, annexed Kandahar in 1508. In 1554, Babur's son, Humayun, handed it over to the Safavid Shah Tahmasp in return of 70,000 soldiers he received from the Shah to reconquer India. In 1595, Humayun's son Akbar the Great conquered the city by diplomacy. Akbar died in 1605 and when this news reached the Persian court, Shah Abbas ordered his army to besiege the city which continued until early 1606 and finally failed due to the reinforcements send by the Mughal Emperor Jahangir forced the Safavid retreat. In the Mughal–Safavid War, Kandahar was once again lost to the Safavids. Kandahar was regarded as important to the Mughal Empire because it was one of the gateways to India, and Mughal control over Kandahar helped to prevent foreign intrusions.
The memory of the wars fought over Kandahar at this time is preserved in the epic poem "Qandahār-nāma" ("The Campaign Against Qandahār"), a major work of Saib Tabrizi which is a classic of Persian literature.
Mirwais Hotak, chief of the Ghilji tribe, revolted in 1709 by killing Gurgin Khan, an ethnic Georgian subject and governor of the Shia Safavid Persians. After establishing the Hotak dynasty in Kandahar, Mirwais and his army successfully defeated subsequent expeditions by Kay Khusraw and Rustam Khán. Mirwais resisted attempts by the Persian government who were seeking to convert the Afghans from Sunni to the Shia sect of Islam. He died of a natural death in November 1715 and was succeeded by his brother Abdul Aziz, but after being suspected of giving Kandahar's sovereignty back to the Persians he was killed by his nephew Mahmud Hotak.
In 1722, Mahmud led an army of Afghans to the Safavid capital Isfahan and proclaimed himself King of Persia. The Hotak dynasty was eventually removed from power by a new Persian ruler, Nader Shah. In 1738, Nader Shah invaded Afghanistan and destroyed the now "Old Kandahar", which was held by Hussain Hotak and his Ghilji tribes. In the meantime, Nader Shah freed Ahmad Khan (later Ahmad Shah Durrani) and his brother Zulfikar who were held prisoners by the Hotak ruler. Before leaving southern Afghanistan for Delhi in India, Nader Shah laid out the foundation for a new town to be built next to the destroyed ancient city, naming it "Naderabad". His rule ended in June 1747 after being murdered by his Persian guards.
Ahmad Shah Durrani, chief of the Durrani tribe, gained control of Kandahar and made it the capital of his new Afghan Empire in October 1747. Previously, Ahmad Shah served as a military commander of Nader Shah Afshar. His empire included present-day Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Khorasan and Kohistan provinces of Iran, along with Punjab in India. In October 1772, Ahmad Shah retired and died from a natural cause. A new city was laid out by Ahmad Shah and is dominated by his mausoleum, which is adjacent to the Mosque of the Cloak in the center of the city. By 1776, his eldest son Timur Shah had transferred Afghanistan's main capital, due to several conflicts with various Pashtun tribes, from Kandahar to Kabul, where the Durrani legacy continued.
In September 1826, Syed Ahmad Shaheed's followers arrived to Kandahar in search of volunteers to help them wage jihad against the Sikh invaders to what is now Pakistan. Led by Ranjit Singh, the Sikhs had captured several of Afghanistan's territories in the east, including what is now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Kashmir. More than 400 local Kandahar warriors assembled themselves for the jihad. Sayed Din Mohammad Kandharai was appointed as their leader.
British-led Indian forces from neighbouring British India invaded the city in 1839, during the First Anglo-Afghan War, but withdrew in 1842. The British and Indian forces returned in 1878 during the Second Anglo-Afghan War. They emerged from the city in July 1880 to confront the forces of Ayub Khan, but were defeated at the Battle of Maiwand. They were again forced to withdraw a few years later, despite winning the Battle of Kandahar.
Kandahar remained peaceful for the next 100 years, except during 1929 when loyalists of Habibullah Kalakani (Bache Saqqaw) placed the fortified city on lock-down and began torturing its population. Nobody was allowed to enter or leave from within the city's tall defensive walls, and as a result of this many people suffered after running out of food supplies. This lasted until October 1929 when Nadir Khan and his Afghan army came to eliminate Kalakani, known as the Tajik bandit from the village of Kalakan in northern Kabul Province.
During Zahir Shah's rule, the city slowly began expanding by adding modern style streets and housing schemes. In the 1960s, during the rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, Kandahar International Airport was built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers next to the city. The U.S. also completed several other major projects in Kandahar and in other parts of southern Afghanistan. In the meantime, Soviet engineers were busy building major infrastructures in other parts of the country, such as Bagram Airfield and Kabul International Airport.
During the 1980s Soviet–Afghan War, Kandahar city (and the province as a whole) witnessed heavy fighting as it became a center of resistance as the mujahideen forces waged a strong guerrilla warfare against the Soviet-backed government, who tightly held on control of the city. Government and Soviet troops surrounded the city and subjected it to heavy air bombardment in which many civilians lost lives. In January 1982 indiscriminate shelling and bombing by the Soviets killed hundreds. 300 civilians were killed during Soviet bombings in July 1984. It was under siege again in April 1986. Kandahar International Airport was used by the Soviet Army during their ten-year troop placement in the country. The city also became a battle ground for the US and Pakistani-backed against the pro-Communist government of Afghanistan. After the Soviet withdrawal and the collapse of Najibullah's government in 1992, Kandahar fell to local mujahideen commander, Gul Agha Sherzai. However Sherzai lacked authority against other local commanders which led to lawlessness in the city and fighting in 1993.
In August 1994 the Taliban movement captured Kandahar from commander Mullah Naqib almost without a fight, and turned the city to its capital. The Taliban introduced a strict form of sharia law, banning formal education for boys and girls, including watching TV, films, music, and playing sports. In December 1999, a hijacked Indian Airlines Flight 814 plane by Pakistani militants loyal to Harkat-ul-Mujahideen landed at Kandahar International Airport and kept the passengers hostage as part of a demand to release 3 Pakistani militants from prison in India.
In October 2001, as part of Operation Enduring Freedom, the United States Navy began hitting targets inside the city by precision-guided cruise missiles that were fired from the Persian Gulf. These targets were the airport and buildings that were occupied by the Taliban, including Arab families who had arrived several years earlier and were residing in the area. About a month later, the Taliban began surrendering in mass numbers to a private militia that had been formed by Gul Agha Sherzai and Hamid Karzai. Kandahar once again fell into the hands of Sherzai, who had control over the area before the rise of the Taliban. He was transferred in 2003 and replaced by Yousef Pashtun until Asadullah Khalid took the post in 2005. The current Governor of the province is Toryalai Wesa. He was appointed by President Hamid Karzai in December 2008 after Rahmatullah Raufi's four-month rule.
As of 2002, Kandahar International Airport is used by members of the United States armed forces and NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). NATO began training the newly formed Afghan National Police and are now given the security responsibility of the city. The military of Afghanistan, backed by NATO forces, has gradually expanded its authority and presence throughout most of the country. The 205th Corps of the Afghan National Army is based at Kandahar and provides military assistance to the south of the country. The Canadian Forces maintain their military command headquarters at Kandahar, heading the Regional Command South of the NATO led International Security Assistance Force in Kandahar Province. The Taliban also have supporters inside the city reporting on events.
NATO forces expanded the Afghan police force for the prevention of a Taliban comeback in Kandahar, the militants' ""spiritual birthplace"" and a strategic key to ward off the Taliban insurgency, as a part of a larger effort that also aimed to deliver services such as electricity and clean drinking water that the Taliban could not provide – encouraging support for the government in a city that was once the Taliban's headquarters. The most significant battle between NATO troops and the Taliban lasted throughout the summer of 2006, culminating in Operation Medusa. The Taliban failed to defeat the Western troops in open warfare, which marked a turn in their tactics towards IED emplacement. In June 2008, it was reported that over 1,000 inmates had escaped from Sarposa prison. In Spring 2010, the province and the city of Kandahar became a target of American operations following "Operation Moshtarak" in the neighboring Helmand Province. In March 2010, U.S. and NATO commanders released details of plans for the biggest offensive of the war against the Taliban insurgency.
In May 2010 Kandahar International Airport became subject of a combined rocket and ground attack by insurgents, following similar attacks on Kabul and Bagram in the preceding weeks. Although this attack did not lead to many casualties on the side of NATO forces, it did show that the militants are still capable of launching multiple, coordinated operations in Afghanistan. In June 2010, a shura was held by Afghan President Hamid Karzai with tribal and religious leaders of the Kandahar region. The meeting highlighted the need for support of NATO-led forces in order to stabilize parts of the province.
By 2011, Kandahar became known as the assassination city of Afghanistan after witnessing many target killings. In July Ahmed Wali Karzai, brother of President Hamid Karzai, was shot by his longtime head of security. Soon after the Quetta Shura of the Taliban claimed responsibility. The next day an Islamic cleric (mulla) of the famous Red Mosque in the Shahr-e Naw area of the city and a number of other people were killed by a Taliban suicide bomber who had hidden explosives inside his turban. On 27 July 2011, the mayor of the city, Ghulam Haider Hamidi, was assassinated by another Taliban militant who had hidden explosives in his turban. Two deputy mayors had been killed in 2010, while many tribal elders and Islamic clerics have also been assassinated in the last several years.
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy network is often blamed as the masterminds behind the Taliban-led insurgency. The Afghan government alleges that the ISI is using the insurgents in the name of Islamic jihad to counter the growing influence of its rival India in Afghanistan and the Afghan claim regarding the disputed Durand Line border. The overwhelming majority of the victims in the attacks are ordinary Afghan civilians. On 6 June 2012, at least 21 civilians were killed and 50 others injured when two Taliban suicide bombers on motorcycles blew themselves up in a market area near Kandahar International Airport.
On 4 May 2020, a policewoman was assassinated in the center of Kandahar, making her the fifth policewoman to be killed during the previous two months in Kandahar. No group claimed responsibility for the killing of the policewomen.
The Arghandab River runs along the west of Kandahar. The city has 15 districts and a total land area of 27,337 hectares. The total number of dwellings in Kandahar is 61,902.
Kandahar is the regional hub in southern Afghanistan, close to the border with Pakistan. Non-built up land use accounts for 59% of the total land area. Within the built-up area, vacant plots occupy a slightly higher percentage of land (36%) than residential land (34%). There is a significant commercial cluster along the road to Pakistan in District 5. India, Iran and Pakistan have consulates here for trade, military and political links.
Kandahar has a semi-arid climate (Köppen "BWh"), characterised by little precipitation and high variation between summer and winter temperatures. Summers start in mid-May, last until late-September, and are extremely dry. Temperatures peak in July with a 24-hour daily average of around . They are followed by dry autumns from early October to late November, with days still averaging in the 20s °C (above 68 °F) into November, though nights are sharply cooler. Winter begins in December and sees most of its precipitation in the form of rain. Temperatures average in January, although lows can drop well below freezing. They end in early-March and are followed by a pleasant spring till late-April with temperatures generally in the upper 10s °C to lower 30s °C (65–88 °F) range. Sunny weather dominates year-round, especially in summer, when rainfall is extremely rare. The annual mean temperature is .
Kandahar International Airport serves as southern Afghanistan's main airport for domestic and international flights. It is also used as a major military base as well as shipping and receiving of supplies for the NATO armies. The entire area in and around the airport is heavily guarded but a section is designated for civilian passengers. Most international flights are to the UAE, Iran, India, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan.
Pakistan plans to build a railroad track from the Pakistani town of Chaman to Kandahar which will connect Afghan Railways with Pakistan Railways. The feasibility study was completed in 2006 but no construction work had begun.
Kandahar is connected to Quetta Pakistan Via Chaman Boarder and Kabul by the Kabul-Kandahar Highway and to Herat by the Kandahar-Herat Highway. There is a bus station located at the start of the Kabul-Kandahar Highway, where a number of privately owned older-model Mercedes-Benz coach buses are available to take passengers to most major cities of the country. Kandahar is also connected by road to Quetta in neighboring Pakistan. Due to the ongoing war the route to Kabul has become increasingly dangerous as insurgent attacks on convoys and destruction of bridges make it an unreliable link between the two cities.
Commuters of the city use the public bus system (Milli Bus), and taxicabs and rickshaws are common. Private vehicle use is increasing, partially due to road and highway improvements. Large dealerships are importing cars from Dubai, UAE.
Before the 1978 coup in Kabul, majority of the city's population were enrolled in schools. Nearly all of the elite class of the city fled to neighboring Pakistan during the early 1980s, and from there they began immigrating to North America, the European Union, Australia and other parts of the world.
The two oldest known schools are Ahmad Shah Baba High School and Zarghona Ana High School. There are a number of new schools that opened in the last decade, with more being built in the future as the city's population grows with the large returning Afghans from neighboring countries. Afghan Turk High Schools is one of the top private schools in the city. The main university is Kandahar University. A number of training centers have also opened in the last decade.
Telecommunication services in the city are provided by Afghan Wireless, Roshan, Etisalat, MTN Group and Afghan Telecom. In November 2006, the Afghan Ministry of Communications signed a $64.5 million agreement with ZTE for the establishment of a countrywide fiber optical cable network. This was intended to improve telephone, internet, television and radio broadcast services not just in Kandahar but throughout the country.
The tomb of Ahmad Shah Durrani is located in the city centre, which also houses Durrani's brass helmet and other personal items. In front of Durrani's mausoleum is the Shrine of the Cloak, containing one of the most valued relics in the Islamic world, which was given by the Emir of Bokhara (Murad Beg) to Ahmad Shah Durrani. The Sacred Cloak is kept locked away, taken out only at times of great crisis. Mullah Omar took it out in November 1996 and displayed it to a crowd of "ulema" of religious scholars to have himself declared Amir al-Mu'minin (Commander of the Faithful). Prior to that it was taken out when the city was struck by a cholera epidemic in the 1930s.
The village of "Sher Surkh" is located southeast of the city, in the suburbs of the old city of Nadirabad. Kandahar Museum is located at the western end of the third block of buildings lining the main road east of "Eidgah Durwaza" (gate). It has many paintings by the now famous Ghiyassuddin, painted while he was a young teacher in Kandahar. He is acknowledged among Afghanistan's leading artists.
Just to the north of the city, off its northeast corner at the end of "buria" (matting) bazaar, there is a shrine dedicated to a saint who lived in Kandahar more than 300 years ago. The grave of "Hazratji Baba", long to signify his greatness, but otherwise covered solely by rock chips, is undecorated save for tall pennants at its head. A monument to Islamic martyrs stands in the center of Kandahar's main square, called "Da Shahidanu Chawk", which was built in the 1940s.
The "Chilzina" is a rock-cut chamber above the plain at the end of the rugged chain of mountains forming the western defence of Kandahar's "Old City". This is here that Ashoka's Kandahar Bilingual Rock Inscription was found. Forty steps, about, lead to the chamber, which is guarded by two chained lions, defaced, and inscribed with an account of Moghul conquest. The rugged cliffs from which the "Chilzina" was hewn form the natural western bastion of the "Old City" of Kandahar, which was destroyed in 1738 by Nadir Shah Afshar of Persia.
A short distance from "Chilzina", going west on the main highway, a bright blue dome appears on the right. This is the mausoleum of Mirwais Hotak, the Ghiljai chieftain who declared Kandahar's independence from the Persians in 1709. The shrine of Baba Wali Kandhari (Baba Sahib), its terraces shaded by pomegranate groves beside the Arghandab River, is also very popular for picnics and afternoon outings. He was Muslim pir who had a strange encounter with Guru Nanak at Hasan Abdal in what is now Attock District of Pakistan. The shrine of Baba Wali is important to Muslims and Sikhs. Close to Baba Wali's shrine is a military base established by the United States armed forces in about 2007.
Decades of war left Kandahar and the rest of the country destroyed and depopulated, but in recent years billions of dollars began pouring in for construction purposes and millions of expats have returned to Afghanistan. New residential areas have been established around the city, and a number of modern-style buildings have been constructed.
Some residents of the city have access to clean drinking water and electricity, and the government is working to extend these services to every home. The city relies on electricity from the Kajaki hydroelectricity plant in neighbouring Helmand, which is being upgraded or expanded. About north of the city is the Dahla Dam, the second largest dam in Afghanistan.
The "Aino Mina" is a new housing project for up to two million people on the northern edge of the city. Originally called the "Kandahar Valley" and started by Mahmud Karzai, it was announced that the project would build up to 20,000 single-family homes and associated infrastructure such as roads, water and sewer systems, and community buildings, including schools.
It recently won 2 awards, the "Residential Project" and "Sustainable Project" of the Year at the Middle East Architect Awards. Many of the high-ranking government employees and civil servants as well as wealthy businessmen live in this area, which is a more secured community in Kandahar. Work on the next $100 million scheme was initiated in 2011.
Also, construction of Hamidi Township in the Morchi Kotal area of the city began in August 2011. It is named after Ghulam Haider Hamidi, the mayor of Kandahar who was assassinated by militants in late July 2011. Situated along the Kandahar-Uruzgan Highway in the northeast of the city, the new township will have 2,000 residential and commercial plots. Including new roads, schools, commercial markets, clinics, canals and other facilities.
About east of Kandahar, a huge industrial park is under construction with modern facilities. The park will have professional management for the daily maintenance of public roads, internal streets, common areas, parking areas, 24 hours perimeter security, access control for vehicles and persons.
The population of Kandahar numbers approximately 491,500 . The Pashtuns make up the overwhelming majority population of the city and province but exact figures are not available. In a 2003 estimate by the National Geographic, Pashtuns were put at ca. 70%, Tajiks 20%, Baloch 2%, and Uzbeks 2%.
Pashto serves as the main language in the city and the region. Persian is also understood by a fair number of the city dwellers, especially those serving in the government and the educated Afghans. Both are the official languages of Afghanistan. A 2006 compendium of provincial data prepared by the Afghan Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development and United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) states:
The Pashtun culture is dominant in this region.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17260
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Caspar Schwenckfeld
Caspar (or Kaspar) Schwen(c)kfeld von Ossig () (1489 or 1490 – 10 December 1561) was a German theologian, writer, and preacher who became a Protestant Reformer and spiritualist. He was one of the earliest promoters of the Protestant Reformation in Silesia.
Schwenckfeld came to Reformation principles through Thomas Müntzer and Andreas Karlstadt. However, he developed his own principles and fell out with Martin Luther over the eucharistic controversy (1524). He had his own views on the sacraments - the Heavenly Flesh doctrine - developed in close association with his humanist colleague, Valentin Crautwald (1465–1545). His followers became a new sect ("see Schwenckfelders"), which was outlawed in Germany, but his ideas influenced Anabaptism, Pietism on mainland Europe, and Puritanism in England.
Many of his followers were persecuted in Europe and thus forced to either convert or flee. Because of this, there are Schwenkfelder Church congregations in countries such as the United States (which was then a part of the United Kingdom).
Schwenckfeld was born in Ossig near Liegnitz, Silesia now Osiek, near Legnica, Poland, to noble parents in 1489. From 1505 to 1507 he was a student in Cologne, and in 1507 enrolled at the University of Frankfurt on the Oder. Between 1511 and 1523, Schwenckfeld served the Duchy of Liegnitz as an adviser to Duke Charles I (1511–1515), Duke George I (1515–1518), and Duke Frederick II (1518–1523).
In 1518 or 1519, Schwenckfeld experienced an awakening that he called a "visitation of God." Luther's writings had a deep influence on Schwenckfeld, and he embraced the "Lutheran" Reformation and became a student of the Scriptures. In 1521, Schwenckfeld began to preach the gospel, and in 1522 won Duke Friedrich II over to Protestantism. He organized a "Brotherhood" of his converts for the purpose of study and prayer in 1523. In 1525, he rejected Luther's idea of Real Presence and came to a spiritual interpretation of the Lord's Supper, which was subsequently rejected by Luther. Schwenckfeld began to teach that the true believer ate the spiritual body of Christ. He pushed for reformation wherever he went, but also criticized reformers that he thought went to extremes. He emphasized that for one to be a true Christian, one must not change only outwardly but inwardly. Because of the communion and other controversies, Schwenckfeld broke with Luther and followed what some describe as a "middle way". Because of his break from Luther and the Magisterial Reformation, scholars typically categorize Schwenckfeld as a member of the Radical Reformation. He voluntarily exiled himself from Silesia in 1529 in order to relieve pressure on and embarrassment of his duke. He lived in Strassburg from 1529–1534 and then in Swabia.
Some of the teachings of Schwenckfeld included opposition to war, secret societies, and oath-taking, that the government had no right to command one's conscience, that regeneration is by grace through inner work of the Spirit, that believers feed on Christ spiritually, and that believers must give evidence of regeneration. He rejected infant baptism, outward church forms, and "denominations". His views on the Eucharist prompted Luther to publish several sermons on the subject in his 1526 "The Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ—Against the Fanatics".
In 1540 Martin Luther expelled Caspar Schwenckfeld from Silesia. In 1541, Schwenckfeld published the "Great Confession on the Glory of Christ". Many considered the writing to be heretical. He taught that Christ had two natures, divine and human, but that he became progressively more divine. He also published a number of works about interpreting the Scriptures during the 1550s, often responding to the rebuttals of the Lutheran Reformer Matthias Flacius Illyricus.
In 1561, Schwenckfeld became sick with dysentery, and gradually grew weaker until he died in Ulm on the morning of December 10, 1561. Because of his enemies, the fact of his death and the place of his burial were kept secret.
Schwenckfeld did not organize a separate church during his lifetime, but followers seemed to gather around his writings and sermons. In 1700 there were about 1,500 of them in Lower Silesia. Many fled Silesia under persecution of the Austrian emperor, and some found refuge on the lands of Count Nicolaus Ludwig Zinzendorf and his Herrnhuter Brüdergemeinde. These followers became known as Schwenkfelders. A group arrived in Philadelphia in 1731, followed by five more migrations up to 1737. In 1782, the Society of Schwenkfelders was formed, and in 1909 the Schwenkfelder Church was organized.
The Schwenkfelder Church has remained small, and currently there are five churches with about 3,000 members in southeastern Pennsylvania. All of these bodies are within a fifty-mile radius of Philadelphia.
The Schwenkfelder Library & Heritage Center is a small museum, library and archives in Pennsburg, Pennsylvania. It is the only institution dedicated to the preservation and interpretation of the Schwenkfelder story, including Caspar Schwenckfeld, the Radical Reformation, religious toleration, the Schwenkfelders in Europe and America, and the Schwenkfelder Church. The Schwenkfelder Library & Heritage Center has exhibits and programs throughout the year.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17262
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Kitt Peak National Observatory
The Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) is a United States astronomical observatory located on Kitt Peak of the Quinlan Mountains in the Arizona-Sonoran Desert on the Tohono O'odham Nation, west-southwest of Tucson, Arizona. With over twenty optical and two radio telescopes, it is one of the largest gatherings of astronomical instruments in the northern hemisphere.
Kitt Peak National Observatory was founded in 1958. It was home to what was the largest solar telescope in the world, and many large astronomical telescopes of the late 20th century in the United States.
The observatory was administered by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) from the early 1980s until 2019, after which it was overseen by the National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory.
Kitt Peak was selected by its first director, Aden B. Meinel, in 1958 as the site for a national observatory under contract with the National Science Foundation (NSF) and was administered by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy. The land was leased from the Tohono O'odham under a perpetual agreement. The second director (1960 to 1971) was Nicholas U. Mayall. In 1982, NOAO was formed to consolidate the management of three optical observatories — Kitt Peak; the National Solar Observatory facilities at Kitt Peak and Sacramento Peak, New Mexico; and the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. The observatory sites are under lease from the Tohono O'odham Nation at the amount of a quarter dollar per acre yearly, which was overwhelmingly approved by the Council in the 1950s. In 2005, the Tohono O'odham Nation brought suit against the National Science Foundation to stop further construction of gamma ray detectors in the Gardens of the Sacred Tohono O'odham Spirit I'itoi, which are just below the summit.
The largest optical instruments at KPNO are the Mayall 4 meter telescope and the WIYN 3.5 meter telescope; there are also several two- and one-meter class telescopes. The McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope is currently the largest solar telescope in the world and the largest unobstructed reflector (it doesn't have a secondary mirror in the path of incoming light). The ARO 12m Radio Telescope is also at the location.
Kitt Peak is famous for hosting the first telescope (an old 91 cm reflector) used to search for near-Earth asteroids, and calculating the probability of an impact with planet Earth.
Kitt Peak hosts an array of programs for the public to take part in, including:
Kitt Peak's Southeastern Association for Research and Astronomy (SARA) Telescope was featured in the WIPB-PBS documentary, "Seeing Stars in Indiana". The project followed SARA astronomers from Ball State University to the observatory and featured time-lapse images from various points around Kitt Peak.
A major project in the 2010s at Kitt Peak is the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument instrument for the Mayall.
The Kitt Peak National Observatory of the United States was dedicated on March 16, 1960. At the dedication a 36-inch telescope and various facilities were ready. Construction was underway for the then planned 84 inch telescope. (i.e the KNPO 2.1 meter)
The 84 inch (2.1 m) had its first light in September 1964.
Over the decades the mountaintop hosted many telescopes, and achieved a variety of discoveries. Some examples of astronomical research KNPO contributed to include the study of "Dark Matter", Cosmic distances, high-redshift galaxies, and the bootes void. In addition, the observatory has engaged in variety of public outreach and education programs.
In 2018, KNPO established plans for its "Windows on the universe Center for Astronomy Outreach."
Some examples of the discoveries using KNPO telescopes. This is a very small listing, with many thousands of asteroids discovered by the Spacewatch telescopes.
In 1976 the Mayall Telescope was used to discover methane ice on Pluto.
The 90 cm Spacewatch telescope was used to discover the Kuiper belt body, 20000 Varuna in the year 2000. This was discovered by an astronomer noticing the slow moving object in a blink comparison.
Due to its high elevation, the observatory experiences a much cooler and wetter climate throughout the year than most of the Sonoran desert.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17264
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Karlheinz Stockhausen
Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important (; ; ; ) but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. A critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music" . He is known for his groundbreaking work in electronic music, for introducing controlled chance (aleatory techniques or aleatoric musical techniques) into serial composition, and for musical spatialization.
He was educated at the Hochschule für Musik Köln and the University of Cologne, later studying with Olivier Messiaen in Paris and with Werner Meyer-Eppler at the University of Bonn. One of the leading figures of the Darmstadt School, his compositions and theories were and remain widely influential, not only on composers of art music, but also on jazz and popular music. His works, composed over a period of nearly sixty years, eschew traditional forms. In addition to electronic music—both with and without live performers—they range from miniatures for musical boxes through works for solo instruments, songs, chamber music, choral and orchestral music, to a cycle of seven full-length operas. His theoretical and other writings comprise ten large volumes. He received numerous prizes and distinctions for his compositions, recordings, and for the scores produced by his publishing company.
His notable compositions include the series of nineteen "Klavierstücke" (Piano Pieces), "Kontra-Punkte" for ten instruments, the electronic/musique-concrète "Gesang der Jünglinge", "Gruppen" for three orchestras, the percussion solo "Zyklus", "Kontakte", the cantata "Momente", the live-electronic "Mikrophonie I", "Hymnen", "Stimmung" for six vocalists, "Aus den sieben Tagen", "Mantra" for two pianos and electronics, "Tierkreis", "Inori" for soloists and orchestra, and the gigantic opera cycle "Licht".
He died of sudden heart failure at the age of 79, on 5 December 2007 at his home in Kürten, Germany.
Stockhausen was born in Burg Mödrath, the "castle" of the village of Mödrath. The village, located near Kerpen in the Cologne region, was displaced in 1956 to make way for lignite strip mining, but the castle itself still stands. Despite its name, the building is not actually a castle at all, but rather was a manor house built in 1830 by a local businessman named Arend. Because of its imposing size, locals began calling it "Burg Mödrath" (Mödrath Castle). From 1925 to 1932 it was the maternity home of the Bergheim district, and after the war it served for a time as a shelter for war refugees. In 1950, the owners, the Düsseldorf chapter of the Knights of Malta, turned it into an orphanage, but it was subsequently returned to private ownership and became a private residence again (; ). In 2017, an anonymous patron purchased the house and opened it in April 2017 as an exhibition space for modern art, with the first floor to be used as the permanent home of the museum of the WDR Electronic Music Studio, where Stockhausen had worked from 1953 until shortly before WDR closed the studio in 2000 .
His father, Simon Stockhausen, was a schoolteacher, and his mother Gertrud (née Stupp) was the daughter of a prosperous family of farmers in Neurath in the Cologne Bight. A daughter, Katherina, was born the year after Karlheinz, and a second son, Hermann-Josef ("Hermännchen") followed in 1932. Gertrud played the piano and accompanied her own singing but, after three pregnancies in as many years, experienced a mental breakdown and was institutionalized in December 1932, followed a few months later by the death of her younger son, Hermann .
From the age of seven, Stockhausen lived in Altenberg, where he received his first piano lessons from the Protestant organist of the Altenberger Dom, Franz-Josef Kloth . In 1938 his father remarried. His new wife, Luzia, had been the family's housekeeper. The couple had two daughters . Because his relationship with his new stepmother was less than happy, in January 1942 Karlheinz became a boarder at the teachers' training college in Xanten, where he continued his piano training and also studied oboe and violin . In 1941 he learned that his mother had died, ostensibly from leukemia, although everyone at the same hospital had supposedly died of the same disease. It was generally understood that she had been a victim of the Nazi policy of killing "useless eaters" (; ). The official letter to the family falsely claimed she had died 16 June 1941, but recent research by Lisa Quernes, a student at the Landesmusikgymnasium in Montabaur, has determined that she was gassed along with 89 other people at the Hadamar Euthanasia Centre in Hesse-Nassau on 27 May 1941 . Stockhausen dramatized his mother's death in hospital by lethal injection, in Act 1 scene 2 ("") of the opera Donnerstag aus Licht . In the autumn of 1944, he was conscripted to serve as a stretcher bearer in Bedburg . In February 1945, he met his father for the last time in Altenberg. Simon, who was on leave from the front, told his son, "I'm not coming back. Look after things". By the end of the war, his father was regarded as missing in action, and may have been killed in Hungary . A comrade later reported to Karlheinz that he saw his father wounded in action . Fifty-five years after the fact, a journalist writing for the "Guardian" newspaper stated unequivocally, though without offering any fresh evidence, that Simon Stockhausen was killed in Hungary in 1945 .
From 1947 to 1951, Stockhausen studied music pedagogy and piano at the Hochschule für Musik Köln (Cologne Conservatory of Music) and musicology, philosophy, and Germanics at the University of Cologne. He had training in harmony and counterpoint, the latter with Hermann Schroeder, but he did not develop a real interest in composition until 1950. He was admitted at the end of that year to the class of Swiss composer Frank Martin, who had just begun a seven-year tenure in Cologne . At the Darmstädter Ferienkurse in 1951, Stockhausen met Belgian composer Karel Goeyvaerts, who had just completed studies with Olivier Messiaen (analysis) and Darius Milhaud (composition) in Paris, and Stockhausen resolved to do likewise . He arrived in Paris on 8 January 1952 and began attending Messiaen's courses in aesthetics and analysis, as well as Milhaud's composition classes. He continued with Messiaen for a year, but he was disappointed with Milhaud and abandoned his lessons after a few weeks . In March 1953, he left Paris to take up a position as assistant to Herbert Eimert at the newly established Electronic Music Studio of Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk (NWDR) (from 1 January 1955, Westdeutscher Rundfunk, or WDR) in Cologne . In 1963, he succeeded Eimert as director of the studio . From 1954 to 1956, he studied phonetics, acoustics, and information theory with Werner Meyer-Eppler at the University of Bonn . Together with Eimert, Stockhausen edited the journal " Die Reihe" from 1955 to 1962 .
On 29 December 1951, in Hamburg, Stockhausen married Doris Andreae (; ). Together they had four children: Suja (b. 1953), Christel (b. 1956), Markus (b. 1957), and Majella (b. 1961) (; ). They were divorced in 1965 . On 3 April 1967, in San Francisco, he married Mary Bauermeister, with whom he had two children: Julika (b. 22 January 1966) and Simon (b. 1967) (; ). They were divorced in 1972 (; ).
Four of Stockhausen's children became professional musicians (Kurtz 1992, 202), and he composed some of his works specifically for them. A large number of pieces for the trumpet—from "Sirius" (1975–77) to the trumpet version of "In Freundschaft" (1997)—were composed for and premièred by his son Markus (; ; ). Markus, at the age of 4 years, had performed the part of The Child in the Cologne première of "Originale", alternating performances with his sister Christel . "Klavierstück XII" and "Klavierstück XIII" (and their versions as scenes from the operas "Donnerstag aus Licht" and "Samstag aus Licht") were written for his daughter Majella, and were first performed by her at the ages of 16 and 20, respectively (; ; ). The saxophone duet in the second act of "Donnerstag aus Licht", and a number of synthesizer parts in the "Licht" operas, including "Klavierstück XV" ("Synthi-Fou") from "Dienstag", were composed for his son Simon (; ; ), who also assisted his father in the production of the electronic music from "Freitag aus Licht". His daughter Christel is a flautist who performed and gave a course on interpretation of "Tierkreis" in 1977 , later published as an article .
In 1961, Stockhausen acquired a parcel of land in the vicinity of Kürten, a village east of Cologne, near Bergisch Gladbach in the Bergisches Land. He had a house built there, which was designed to his specifications by the architect Erich Schneider-Wessling, and he resided there from its completion in the autumn of 1965 .
After lecturing at the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik at Darmstadt (first in 1953), Stockhausen gave lectures and concerts in Europe, North America, and Asia . He was guest professor of composition at the University of Pennsylvania in 1965 and at the University of California, Davis in 1966–67 (; ). He founded and directed the Cologne Courses for New Music from 1963 to 1968, and was appointed Professor of Composition at the Hochschule für Musik Köln in 1971, where he taught until 1977 (; ). In 1998, he founded the Stockhausen Courses, which are held annually in Kürten .
From the mid-1950s onward, Stockhausen designed (and in some cases arranged to have printed) his own musical scores for his publisher, Universal Edition, which often involved unconventional devices. The score for his piece "Refrain", for instance, includes a rotatable (refrain) on a transparent plastic strip. Early in the 1970s, he ended his agreement with Universal Edition and began publishing his own scores under the Stockhausen-Verlag imprint . This arrangement allowed him to extend his notational innovations (for example, dynamics in "Weltparlament" [the first scene of "Mittwoch aus Licht"] are coded in colour) and resulted in eight German Music Publishers Society Awards between 1992 ("Luzifers Tanz") and 2005 ("Hoch-Zeiten", from "Sonntag aus Licht") . The "Momente" score, published just before Stockhausen's death in 2007, won this prize for the ninth time .
In the early 1990s, Stockhausen reacquired the licenses to most of the recordings of his music he had made to that point, and started his own record company to make this music permanently available on Compact Disc .
Stockhausen died of sudden heart failure on the morning of 5 December 2007 in Kürten, North Rhine-Westphalia. Just the night before, he had finished a work (then recently commissioned) for performance by the Mozart Orchestra of Bologna . He was 79 years old.
Stockhausen wrote 370 individual works. He often departs radically from musical tradition and his work is influenced by Olivier Messiaen, Edgard Varèse, and Anton Webern, as well as by film and by painters such as Piet Mondrian (; ; ) and Paul Klee .
Stockhausen began to compose in earnest only during his third year at the conservatory . His early student compositions remained out of the public eye until, in 1971, he published "Chöre für Doris", "Drei Lieder" for alto voice and chamber orchestra, "Choral" for a cappella choir (all three from 1950), and a Sonatine for Violin and Piano (1951) .
In August 1951, just after his first Darmstadt visit, Stockhausen began working with a form of athematic serial composition that rejected the twelve-tone technique of Schoenberg . He characterized many of these earliest compositions (together with the music of other, like-minded composers of the period) as "punktuelle" ("punctual" or "pointist" music, commonly mistranslated as "pointillist") "Musik", though one critic concluded after analysing several of these early works that Stockhausen "never really composed punctually" . Compositions from this phase include "Kreuzspiel" (1951), the "Klavierstücke I–IV" (1952—the fourth of this first set of four "Klavierstücke", titled "Klavierstück IV", is specifically cited by Stockhausen as an example of "punctual music" ), and the first (unpublished) versions of "Punkte" and "Kontra-Punkte" (1952) . However, several works from these same years show Stockhausen formulating his "first really ground-breaking contribution to the theory and, above all, practice of composition", that of "group composition", found in Stockhausen's works as early as 1952 and continuing throughout his compositional career . This principle was first publicly described by Stockhausen in a radio talk from December 1955, titled "Gruppenkomposition: "Klavierstück I"" .
In December 1952, he composed a "Konkrete Etüde", realized in Pierre Schaeffer's Paris musique concrète studio. In March 1953, he moved to the NWDR studio in Cologne and turned to electronic music with two "Electronic Studies" (1953 and 1954), and then introducing spatial placements of sound sources with his mixed "concrète" and electronic work "Gesang der Jünglinge" (1955–56). Experiences gained from the "Studies" made plain that it was an unacceptable oversimplification to regard timbres as stable entities . Reinforced by his studies with Meyer-Eppler, beginning in 1955, Stockhausen formulated new "statistical" criteria for composition, focussing attention on the aleatoric, directional tendencies of sound movement, "the change from one state to another, with or without returning motion, as opposed to a fixed state" . Stockhausen later wrote, describing this period in his compositional work, "The first revolution occurred from 1952/53 as "musique concrète", "electronic tape music", and "space music", entailing composition with transformers, generators, modulators, magnetophones, etc; the integration of all concrete and abstract (synthetic) sound possibilities (also all noises), and the controlled projection of sound in space" (, reprinted in ). His position as "the leading German composer of his generation" was established with "Gesang der Jünglinge" and three concurrently composed pieces in different media: "Zeitmaße" for five woodwinds, "Gruppen" for three orchestras, and "Klavierstück XI" . The principles underlying the latter three compositions are presented in Stockhausen's best-known theoretical article, ". . . wie die Zeit vergeht . . ." (". . . How Time Passes . . ."), first published in 1957 in vol. 3 of "Die Reihe" .
His work with electronic music and its utter fixity led him to explore modes of instrumental and vocal music in which performers' individual capabilities and the circumstances of a particular performance (e.g., hall acoustics) may determine certain aspects of a composition. He called this "variable form" . In other cases, a work may be presented from a number of different perspectives. In "Zyklus" (1959), for example, he began using graphic notation for instrumental music. The score is written so that the performance can start on any page, and it may be read upside down, or from right to left, as the performer chooses . Still other works permit different routes through the constituent parts. Stockhausen called both of these possibilities "polyvalent form" , which may be either open form (essentially incomplete, pointing beyond its frame), as with "Klavierstück XI" (1956), or "closed form" (complete and self-contained) as with "Momente" (1962–64/69) .
In many of his works, elements are played off against one another, simultaneously and successively: in "Kontra-Punkte" ("Against Points", 1952–53), which, in its revised form became his official "opus 1", a process leading from an initial "point" texture of isolated notes toward a florid, ornamental ending is opposed by a tendency from diversity (six timbres, dynamics, and durations) toward uniformity (timbre of solo piano, a nearly constant soft dynamic, and fairly even durations) . In "Gruppen" (1955–57), fanfares and passages of varying speed (superimposed durations based on the harmonic series) are occasionally flung between three full orchestras, giving the impression of movement in space .
In his "Kontakte" for electronic sounds (optionally with piano and percussion) (1958–60), he achieved for the first time an isomorphism of the four parameters of pitch, duration, dynamics, and timbre .
In 1960, Stockhausen returned to the composition of vocal music (for the first time since "Gesang der Jünglinge") with "Carré" for four orchestras and four choirs . Two years later, he began an expansive cantata titled "Momente" (1962–64/69), for solo soprano, four choir groups and thirteen instrumentalists . In 1963, Stockhausen created "Plus-Minus", "2 × 7 pages for realisation" containing basic note materials and a complex system of transformations to which those materials are to be subjected in order to produce an unlimited number of different compositions (; ). Through the rest of the 1960s, he continued to explore such possibilities of "process composition" in works for live performance, such as "Prozession" (1967), "Kurzwellen", and "Spiral" (both 1968), culminating in the verbally described "intuitive music" compositions of "Aus den sieben Tagen" (1968) and "Für kommende Zeiten" (1968–70) (; ; ; ). Some of his later works, such as "Ylem" (1972) and the first three parts of "Herbstmusik" (1974), also fall under this rubric . Several of these process compositions were featured in the all-day programmes presented at Expo 70, for which Stockhausen composed two more similar pieces, "Pole" for two players, and "Expo" for three (; ). In other compositions, such as "Stop" for orchestra (1965), "Adieu" for wind quintet (1966), and the "Dr. K Sextett", which was written in 1968–69 in honour of Alfred Kalmus of Universal Edition, he presented his performers with more restricted improvisational possibilities .
He pioneered live electronics in "Mixtur" (1964/67/2003) for orchestra and electronics , "Mikrophonie I" (1964) for tam-tam, two microphones, two filters with potentiometers (6 players) (; ), "Mikrophonie II" (1965) for choir, Hammond organ, and four ring modulators , and "Solo" for a melody instrument with feedback (1966) . Improvisation also plays a part in all of these works, but especially in "Solo" . He also composed two electronic works for tape, "Telemusik" (1966) and "Hymnen" (1966–67) (; ). The latter also exists in a version with partially improvising soloists, and the third of its four "regions" in a version with orchestra . At this time, Stockhausen also began to incorporate pre-existent music from world traditions into his compositions (; ). "Telemusik" was the first overt example of this trend .
In 1968, Stockhausen composed the vocal sextet "Stimmung", for the Collegium Vocale Köln, an hour-long work based entirely on the overtones of a low B-flat . In the following year, he created "Fresco" for four orchestral groups, a "Wandelmusik" ("foyer music") composition . This was intended to be played for about five hours in the foyers and grounds of the Beethovenhalle auditorium complex in Bonn, before, after, and during a group of (in part simultaneous) concerts of his music in the auditoriums of the facility . The overall project was given the title "Musik für die Beethovenhalle" . This had precedents in two collective-composition seminar projects that Stockhausen gave at Darmstadt in 1967 and 1968: "Ensemble" and "Musik für ein Haus" (; ; ; ), and would have successors in the "park music" composition for five spatially separated groups, "Sternklang" ("Star Sounds") of 1971, the orchestral work "Trans", composed in the same year and the thirteen simultaneous "musical scenes for soloists and duets" titled "Alphabet für Liège" (1972) .
Since the mid-1950s, Stockhausen had been developing concepts of spatialization in his works, not only in electronic music, such as the 5-channel "Gesang der Jünglinge" (1955–56) and "Telemusik" (1966), and 4-channel "Kontakte" (1958–60) and "Hymnen" (1966–67). Instrumental/vocal works like "Gruppen" for three orchestras (1955–57) and "Carré" for four orchestras and four choirs (1959–60) also exhibit this trait (; ; ). In lectures such as "Music in Space" from 1958 , he called for new kinds of concert halls to be built, "suited to the requirements of spatial music". His idea was In 1968, the West German government invited Stockhausen to collaborate on the German Pavilion at the 1970 World Fair in Osaka and to create a joint multimedia project for it with artist Otto Piene. Other collaborators on the project included the pavilion's architect, Fritz Bornemann, Fritz Winckel, director of the Electronic Music Studio at the Technical University of Berlin, and engineer Max Mengeringhausen. The pavilion theme was "gardens of music", in keeping with which Bornemann intended "planting" the exhibition halls beneath a broad lawn, with a connected auditorium "sprouting" above ground. Initially, Bornemann conceived this auditorium in the form of an amphitheatre, with a central orchestra podium and surrounding audience space. In the summer of 1968, Stockhausen met with Bornemann and persuaded him to change this conception to a spherical space with the audience in the centre, surrounded by loudspeaker groups in seven rings at different "latitudes" around the interior walls of the sphere (; ).
Although Stockhausen and Piene's planned multimedia project, titled "Hinab-Hinauf", was developed in detail , the World Fair committee rejected their concept as too extravagant and instead asked Stockhausen to present daily five-hour programs of his music . Stockhausen's works were performed for 5½ hours every day over a period of 183 days to a total audience of about a million listeners . According to Stockhausen's biographer, Michael Kurtz, "Many visitors felt the spherical auditorium to be an oasis of calm amidst the general hubbub, and after a while it became one of the main attractions of Expo 1970" .
Beginning with "Mantra" for two pianos and electronics (1970), Stockhausen turned to formula composition, a technique which involves the projection and multiplication of a single, double, or triple melodic-line formula (; ; ). Sometimes, as in "Mantra" and the large orchestral composition with mime soloists, "Inori", the simple formula is stated at the outset as an introduction. He continued to use this technique (e.g., in the two related solo-clarinet pieces, "Harlekin" [Harlequin] and "Der kleine Harlekin" [The Little Harlequin] of 1975, and the orchestral "Jubiläum" [Jubilee] of 1977) through the completion of the opera-cycle "Licht" in 2003 (; ; ; ; ; ; ). Some works from the 1970s did not employ formula technique—e.g., the vocal duet "Am Himmel wandre ich" (In the Sky I am Walking, one of the 13 components of the multimedia "Alphabet für Liège", 1972, which Stockhausen developed in conversation with the British biophysicist and lecturer on mystical aspects of sound vibration Jill Purce), "Laub und Regen" (Leaves and Rain, from the theatre piece "Herbstmusik" (1974), the unaccompanied-clarinet composition "Amour", and the choral opera "Atmen gibt das Leben" (Breathing Gives Life, 1974/77)—but nevertheless share its simpler, melodically oriented style (; ). Two such pieces, "Tierkreis" ("Zodiac", 1974–75) and "In Freundschaft" (In Friendship, 1977, a solo piece with versions for virtually every orchestral instrument), have become Stockhausen's most widely performed and recorded compositions (; ; ).
This dramatic simplification of style provided a model for a new generation of German composers, loosely associated under the label "neue Einfachheit" or New Simplicity . The best-known of these composers is Wolfgang Rihm, who studied with Stockhausen in 1972–73. His orchestral composition "Sub-Kontur" (1974–75) quotes the formula of Stockhausen's "Inori" (1973–74), and he has also acknowledged the influence of "Momente" on this work .
Other large works by Stockhausen from this decade include the orchestral "Trans" (1971) and two music-theatre compositions utilizing the "Tierkreis" melodies: "Musik im Bauch" ("Music in the Belly") for six percussionists (1975), and the science-fiction "opera" "Sirius" (1975–77) for eight-channel electronic music with soprano, bass, trumpet, and bass clarinet, which has four different versions for the four seasons, each lasting over an hour and a half .
Between 1977 and 2003, Stockhausen composed seven operas in a cycle titled "Licht: Die sieben Tage der Woche" ("Light: The Seven Days of the Week") . The "Licht" cycle deals with the traits associated in various historical traditions with each weekday (Monday = birth and fertility, Tuesday = conflict and war, Wednesday = reconciliation and cooperation, Thursday = traveling and learning, etc.) and with the relationships between three archetypal characters: Michael, Lucifer, and Eve (; ). Each of these characters dominates one of the operas ("Donnerstag" [Thursday], "Samstag" [Saturday], and "Montag" [Monday], respectively), the three possible pairings are foregrounded in three others, and the equal combination of all three is featured in "Mittwoch" (Wednesday) .
Stockhausen's conception of opera was based significantly on ceremony and ritual, with influence from the Japanese Noh theatre , as well as Judeo-Christian and Vedic traditions . In 1968, at the time of the composition of "Aus den sieben Tagen", Stockhausen had read a biography by Satprem about the Bengali guru Sri Aurobindo , and subsequently he also read many of the published writings by Aurobindo himself. The title of "Licht" owes something to Aurobindo's theory of "Agni" (the Hindu and Vedic fire deity), developed from two basic premises of nuclear physics; Stockhausen's definition of a formula and, especially, his conception of the "Licht" superformula, also owes a great deal to Sri Aurobindo's category of the "supramental" . Similarly, his approach to voice and text sometimes departed from traditional usage: Characters were as likely to be portrayed by instrumentalists or dancers as by singers, and a few parts of "Licht" (e.g., "Luzifers Traum" from "Samstag", "Welt-Parlament" from "Mittwoch", "Lichter-Wasser" and "Hoch-Zeiten" from "Sonntag") use written or improvised texts in simulated or invented languages (; ; ; ; ).
The seven operas were not composed in "weekday order" but rather starting (apart from "Jahreslauf" in 1977, which became the first act of "Dienstag") with the "solo" operas and working toward the more complex ones: "Donnerstag" (1978–80), "Samstag" (1981–83), "Montag" (1984–88), "Dienstag" (1977/1987–91), "Freitag" (1991–94), "Mittwoch" (1995–97), and finally "Sonntag" (1998–2003) .
Stockhausen had dreams of flying throughout his life, and these dreams are reflected in the "Helikopter-Streichquartett" (the third scene of "Mittwoch aus Licht"), completed in 1993. In it, the four members of a string quartet perform in four helicopters flying independent flight paths over the countryside near the concert hall. The sounds they play are mixed together with the sounds of the helicopters and played through speakers to the audience in the hall. Videos of the performers are also transmitted back to the concert hall. The performers are synchronized with the aid of a click track, transmitted to them and heard over headphones .
The first performance of the piece took place in Amsterdam on 26 June 1995, as part of the Holland Festival . Despite its extremely unusual nature, the piece has been given several performances, including one on 22 August 2003 as part of the Salzburg Festival to open the Hangar-7 venue , and the German première on 17 June 2007 in Braunschweig as part of the Stadt der Wissenschaft 2007 Festival . The work has also been recorded by the Arditti Quartet.
In 1999 he was invited by Walter Fink to be the ninth composer featured in the annual Komponistenporträt of the Rheingau Musik Festival.
In 1999, BBC producer Rodney Wilson asked Stockhausen to collaborate with Stephen and Timothy Quay on a film for the fourth series of Sound on Film International. Although Stockhausen's music had been used for films previously (most notably, parts of Hymnen in Nicolas Roeg's "Walkabout" in 1971), this was the first time he had been asked to provide music specially for the purpose. He adapted 21 minutes of material taken from his electronic music for "Freitag aus Licht", calling the result "Zwei Paare" (Two Couples), and the Brothers Quay created their animated film, which they titled "In Absentia", based only on their reactions to the music and the simple suggestion that a window might be an idea to use . When, at a preview screening, Stockhausen saw the film, which shows a madwoman writing letters from a bleak asylum cell, he was moved to tears. The Brothers Quay were astonished to learn that his mother had been "imprisoned by the Nazis in an asylum, where she later died. … This was a very moving moment for us as well, especially because we had made the film without knowing any of this" .
After completing "Licht", Stockhausen embarked on a new cycle of compositions based on the hours of the day, "Klang" ("Sound"). Twenty-one of these pieces were completed before Stockhausen's death . The first four works from this cycle are First Hour: "Himmelfahrt" (Ascension), for organ or synthesizer, soprano and tenor (2004–2005); Second Hour: "Freude" (Joy) for two harps (2005); Third Hour: "Natürliche Dauern" (Natural Durations) for piano (2005–2006); and Fourth Hour: "Himmels-Tür" (Heaven's Door) for a percussionist and a little girl (2005) . The Fifth Hour, "Harmonien" (Harmonies), is a solo in three versions for flute, bass clarinet, and trumpet (2006) . The Sixth through Twelfth hours are chamber-music works based on the material from the Fifth Hour . The Thirteenth Hour, "Cosmic Pulses", is an electronic work made by superimposing 24 layers of sound, each having its own spatial motion, among eight loudspeakers placed around the concert hall . Hours 14 through 21 are solo pieces for bass voice, baritone voice, basset-horn, horn, tenor voice, soprano voice, soprano saxophone, and flute, respectively, each with electronic accompaniment of a different set of three layers from "Cosmic Pulses" . The twenty-one completed pieces were first performed together as a cycle at the Festival MusikTriennale Köln on 8–9 May 2010, in 176 individual concerts .
In the 1950s and early 1960s, Stockhausen published a series of articles that established his importance in the area of music theory. Although these include analyses of music by Mozart, Debussy, Bartók, Stravinsky, Goeyvaerts, Boulez, Nono, Johannes Fritsch, Michael von Biel, and, especially, Webern (; ; ; ), the items on compositional theory directly related to his own work are regarded as the most important generally. "Indeed, the "Texte" come closer than anything else currently available to providing a general compositional theory for the postwar period" . His most celebrated article is "... wie die Zeit vergeht ..." ("... How Time Passes ..."), first published in the third volume of "Die Reihe" (1957). In it, he expounds a number of temporal conceptions underlying his instrumental compositions "Zeitmaße", "Gruppen", and "Klavierstück XI". In particular, this article develops (1) a scale of twelve tempos analogous to the chromatic pitch scale, (2) a technique of building progressively smaller, integral subdivisions over a basic (fundamental) duration, analogous to the overtone series, (3) musical application of the concept of the partial field (time fields and field sizes) in both successive and simultaneous proportions, (4) methods of projecting large-scale form from a series of proportions, (5) the concept of "statistical" composition, (6) the concept of "action duration" and the associated "variable form", and (7) the notion of the "directionless temporal field" and with it, "polyvalent form" .
Other important articles from this period include "Elektronische und Instrumentale Musik" ("Electronic and Instrumental Music", 1958, ; ), "Musik im Raum" ("Music in Space", 1958, ), "Musik und Graphik" ("Music and Graphics", 1959, ), "Momentform" (1960, ), "Die Einheit der musikalischen Zeit" ("The Unity of Musical Time", 1961, ; ), and "Erfindung und Entdeckung" ("Invention and Discovery", 1961, ), the last summing up the ideas developed up to 1961. Taken together, these temporal theories suggested that the entire compositional structure could be conceived as "timbre": since "the different experienced components such as colour, harmony and melody, meter and rhythm, dynamics, and form correspond to the different segmental ranges of this unified time" [], the total musical result at any given compositional level is simply the "spectrum" of a more basic duration—i.e., its "timbre", perceived as the overall effect of the overtone structure of that duration, now taken to include not only the "rhythmic" subdivisions of the duration but also their relative "dynamic" strength, "envelope", etc.
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Compositionally considered, this produced a change of focus from the individual tone to a whole complex of tones related to one another by virtue of their relation to a "fundamental"—a change that was probably the most important compositional development of the latter part of the 1950s, not only for Stockhausen's music but for "advanced" music in general. Some of these ideas, considered from a purely theoretical point of view (divorced from their context as explanations of particular compositions) drew significant critical fire (, , ). For this reason, Stockhausen ceased publishing such articles for a number of years, as he felt that "many useless polemics" about these texts had arisen, and he preferred to concentrate his attention on composing .
Through the 1960s, although he taught and lectured publicly , Stockhausen published little of an analytical or theoretical nature. Only in 1970 did he again begin publishing theoretical articles, with "Kriterien", the abstract for his six seminar lectures for the Darmstädter Ferienkurse . The seminars themselves, covering seven topics ("Micro- and Macro-Continuum", "Collage and Metacollage", "Expansion of the Scale of Tempos", "Feedback", "Spectral Harmony—Formant Modulation", "Expansion of Dynamics—A Principle of "Mikrophonie I"", and "Space Music—Spatial Forming and Notation") were published only posthumously .
Stockhausen's two early "Electronic Studies" (especially the second) had a powerful influence on the subsequent development of electronic music in the 1950s and 1960s, particularly in the work of the Italian Franco Evangelisti and the Poles Andrzej Dobrowolski and Włodzimierz Kotoński . The influence of his "Kontra-Punkte", "Zeitmasse" and "Gruppen" may be seen in the work of many composers, including Igor Stravinsky's "Threni" (1957–58) and "Movements" for piano and orchestra (1958–59) and other works up to the "Variations: Aldous Huxley In Memoriam" (1963–64), whose rhythms "are likely to have been inspired, at least in part, by certain passages from Stockhausen's "Gruppen"" . Though music of Stockhausen's generation may seem an unlikely influence, Stravinsky said in a 1957 conversation: I have all around me the spectacle of composers who, after their generation has had its decade of influence and fashion, seal themselves off from further development and from the next generation (as I say this, exceptions come to mind, Krenek, for instance). Of course, it requires greater effort to learn from one's juniors, and their manners are not invariably good. But when you are seventy-five and your generation has overlapped with four younger ones, it behooves you not to decide in advance "how far composers can go", but to try to discover whatever new thing it is makes the new generation new.
Amongst British composers, Sir Harrison Birtwistle readily acknowledges the influence of Stockhausen's "Zeitmaße" (especially on his two wind quintets, "Refrains and Choruses" and "Five Distances") and "Gruppen" on his work more generally (; ; ; ; ). Brian Ferneyhough says that, although the "technical and speculative innovations" of "Klavierstücke I–IV", "Kreuzspiel" and "Kontra-Punkte" escaped him on first encounter , they nevertheless produced a "sharp emotion, the result of a beneficial shock engendered by their boldness" and provided "an important source of motivation (rather than of imitation) for my own investigations" . While still in school, he became fascinated upon hearing the British première of "Gruppen", and listened many times to the recording of this performance, while trying to penetrate its secrets—how it always seemed to be about to explode, but managed nevertheless to escape unscathed in its core—but scarcely managed to grasp it. Retrospectively, it is clear that from this confusion was born my interest for the formal questions which remain until today. Although it eventually evolved in a direction of its own, Ferneyhough's 1967 wind sextet, "Prometheus", began as a wind quintet with cor anglais, stemming directly from an encounter with Stockhausen's "Zeitmaße" . With respect to Stockhausen's later work, he said, I have never subscribed (whatever the inevitable personal distance) to the thesis according to which the many transformations of vocabulary characterizing Stockhausen's development are the obvious sign of his inability to carry out the early vision of strict order that he had in his youth. On the contrary, it seems to me that the constant reconsideration of his premises has led to the maintenance of a remarkably tough thread of historical consciousness which will become clearer with time. . . . I doubt that there has been a single composer of the intervening generation who, even if for a short time, did not see the world of music differently thanks to the work of Stockhausen. In a short essay describing Stockhausen's influence on his own work, Richard Barrett concludes that "Stockhausen remains the composer whose next work I look forward most to hearing, apart from myself of course" and names as works that have had particular impact on his musical thinking "Mantra", "Gruppen", "Carré", "Klavierstück X", "Inori", and "Jubiläum" .
French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez once declared, "Stockhausen is the greatest living composer, and the only one whom I recognize as my peer" (; ). Boulez also acknowledged the influence of performing Stockhausen's "Zeitmaße" on his subsequent development as a conductor . Another French composer, Jean-Claude Éloy, regards Stockhausen as the most important composer of the second half of the 20th century, and cites virtually "all his catalog of works" as "a powerful discoveration , and a true revelation" .
Dutch composer Louis Andriessen acknowledged the influence of Stockhausen's "Momente" in his pivotal work "Contra tempus" of 1968 . German composer Wolfgang Rihm, who studied with Stockhausen, was influenced by "Momente", "Hymnen", and "Inori" .
At the Cologne ISCM Festival in 1960, the Danish composer Per Nørgård heard Stockhausen's "Kontakte" as well as pieces by Kagel, Boulez, and Berio. He was profoundly affected by what he heard and his music suddenly changed into "a far more discontinuous and disjunct style, involving elements of strict organization in all parameters, some degree of aleatoricism and controlled improvisation, together with an interest in collage from other musics" .
Jazz musicians such as Miles Davis , Cecil Taylor, Charles Mingus, Herbie Hancock, Yusef Lateef (; ), and Anthony Braxton cite Stockhausen as an influence.
Stockhausen was influential within pop and rock music as well. Frank Zappa acknowledges Stockhausen in the liner notes of "Freak Out!", his 1966 debut with The Mothers of Invention. On the back of The Who's second LP released in the US, "Happy Jack", their primary composer and guitarist Pete Townshend, is said to have "an interest in Stockhausen". Rick Wright and Roger Waters of Pink Floyd also acknowledge Stockhausen as an influence (; ). San Francisco psychedelic groups Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead are said to have done the same ; Stockhausen said that the Grateful Dead were "well orientated toward new music" . Founding members of Cologne-based experimental band Can, Irmin Schmidt and Holger Czukay, both studied with Stockhausen at the Cologne Courses for New Music . German electronic pioneers Kraftwerk also say they studied with Stockhausen , and Icelandic vocalist Björk has acknowledged Stockhausen's influence (; ; ).
Stockhausen, along with John Cage, is one of the few avant-garde composers to have succeeded in penetrating the popular consciousness (; ; ). The Beatles included his face on the cover of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" . This reflects his influence on the band's own avant-garde experiments as well as the general fame and notoriety he had achieved by that time (1967). In particular, "A Day in the Life" (1967) and "Revolution 9" (1968) were influenced by Stockhausen's electronic music (; ). Stockhausen's name, and the perceived strangeness and supposed unlistenability of his music, was even a punchline in cartoons, as documented on a page on the official Stockhausen web site (Stockhausen Cartoons). Perhaps the most caustic remark about Stockhausen was attributed to Sir Thomas Beecham. Asked "Have you heard any Stockhausen?", he is alleged to have replied, "No, but I believe I have trodden in some" (, annotated on 366: "Apocryphal; source unknown").
Stockhausen's fame is also reflected in works of literature. For example, he is mentioned in Philip K. Dick's 1974 novel "Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said" and in Thomas Pynchon's 1966 novel "The Crying of Lot 49". The Pynchon novel features "The Scope", a bar with "a strict electronic music policy". Protagonist Oedipa Maas asks "a hip graybeard" about a "sudden chorus of whoops and yibbles" coming out of "a kind of jukebox." He replies, "That's by Stockhausen... the early crowd tends to dig your Radio Cologne sound. Later on we really swing" .
The French writer Michel Butor acknowledges that Stockhausen's music "taught me a lot", mentioning in particular the electronic works "Gesang der Jünglinge" and "Hymnen" .
Later in his life, Stockhausen was portrayed by at least one journalist, John O'Mahony of the "Guardian" newspaper, as an eccentric, for example being alleged to live an effectively polygamous lifestyle with two women, to whom O'Mahony referred as his "wives", while at the same time stating he was not married to either of them . In the same article, O'Mahony claims Stockhausen said he was born on a planet orbiting the star Sirius. In the German newspaper "Die Zeit", Stockhausen stated that he was educated at Sirius (see Controversy below).
Robin Maconie finds that, "Compared to the work of his contemporaries, Stockhausen's music has a depth and rational integrity that is quite outstanding... His researches, initially guided by Meyer-Eppler, have a coherence unlike any other composer then or since" . Maconie also compares Stockhausen to Beethoven: "If a genius is someone whose ideas survive all attempts at explanation, then by that definition Stockhausen is the nearest thing to Beethoven this century has produced. Reason? His music lasts" , and "As Stravinsky said, one never thinks of Beethoven as a superb orchestrator because the quality of invention transcends mere craftsmanship. It is the same with Stockhausen: the intensity of imagination gives rise to musical impressions of an elemental and seemingly unfathomable beauty, arising from necessity rather than conscious design" .
Christopher Ballantine, while comparing and contrasting the categories of experimental and avant-garde music, concludes that Perhaps more than any other contemporary composer, Stockhausen exists at the point where the dialectic between experimental and avant-garde music becomes manifest; it is in him, more obviously than anywhere else, that these diverse approaches converge. This alone would seem to suggest his remarkable significance.
Igor Stravinsky expressed great, but not uncritical, enthusiasm for Stockhausen's music in the conversation books with Robert Craft (e.g., ) and for years organised private listening sessions with friends in his home where he played tapes of Stockhausen's latest works (; ). In an interview published in March 1968, however, he says of an unidentified person, I have been listening all week to the piano music of a composer now greatly esteemed for his ability to stay an hour or so ahead of his time, but I find the alternation of note-clumps and silences of which it consists more monotonous than the foursquares of the dullest eighteenth-century music. The following October, a report in "Sovetskaia Muzyka" translated this sentence (and a few others from the same article) into Russian, substituting for the conjunction "but" the phrase "Ia imeiu v vidu Karlkheintsa Shtokkhauzena" ("I am referring to Karlheinz Stockhausen"). When this translation was quoted in Druskin's Stravinsky biography, the field was widened to "all" of Stockhausen's compositions and Druskin adds for good measure, "indeed, works he calls unnecessary, useless and uninteresting", again quoting from the same "Sovetskaia Muzyka" article, even though it had made plain that the characterization was of American "university composers" .
Early in 1995, BBC Radio 3 sent Stockhausen a package of recordings from contemporary artists Aphex Twin, Richie Hawtin (Plastikman), Scanner and Daniel Pemberton, and asked him for his opinion on the music. In August of that year, Radio 3 reporter Dick Witts interviewed Stockhausen about these pieces for a broadcast in October, subsequently published in the November issue of the British publication "The Wire" asking what advice he would give these young musicians. Stockhausen made suggestions to each of the musicians, who were then invited to respond. All but Plastikman obliged .
Throughout his career, Stockhausen excited controversy. One reason for this is that his music displays high expectations about "shaping and transforming the world, about the truth of life and of reality, about the creative departure into a future determined by spirit", so that Stockhausen's work "like no other in the history of new music, has a polarizing effect, arouses passion, and provokes drastic opposition, even hatred" . Another reason was acknowledged by Stockhausen himself in a reply to a question during an interview on the Bavarian Radio on 4 September 1960, reprinted as a foreword to his first collection of writings:
After the student revolts in 1968, musical life in Germany became highly politicized, and Stockhausen found himself a target for criticism, especially from the leftist camp who wanted music "in the service of the class struggle". Cornelius Cardew and Konrad Boehmer denounced their former teacher as a "servant of capitalism". In a climate where music mattered less than political ideology, some critics held that Stockhausen was too élitist, while others complained he was too mystical .
As reported in the German magazine "Der Spiegel", the première (and only performance to date) on 15 November 1969 of Stockhausen's work "Fresco" for four orchestral groups (playing in four different locations) was the scene of a scandal. The rehearsals were already marked by objections from the orchestral musicians questioning such directions as "glissandos no faster than one octave per minute" and others phoning the artists union to clarify whether they really had to perform the Stockhausen work as part of the orchestra. In the backstage warm-up room at the premiere a hand-lettered sign could be seen saying: "We're playing, otherwise we would be fired". During the première the parts on some music stands suddenly were replaced by placards reading things like "Stockhausen-Zoo. Please don't feed", that someone had planted. Some musicians, fed up with the monkeyshines, left after an hour, though the performance was planned for four to five hours. Stockhausen fans protested, while Stockhausen foes were needling the musicians asking: "How can you possibly participate in such crap?" ("Wie könnt ihr bloß so eine Scheiße machen!"). At one point someone managed to switch off the stand lights, leaving the musicians in the dark. After 260 minutes the performance ended with no-one participating any longer .
In an obituary in the German newspaper "Die Zeit", Karlheinz Stockhausen was quoted as having said: "I was educated at Sirius and want to return to there, although I am still living in Kürten near Cologne." On hearing about this, conductor Michael Gielen stated: "When he said he knew what was happening at Sirius, I turned away from him in horror. I haven't listened to a note since." He called Stockhausen's statements "hubris" and "nonsense", while at the same time defending his own belief in astrology: "Why should these large celestial bodies exist if they do not stand for something? I cannot imagine that there is anything senseless in the universe. There is much we do not understand" .
In a press conference in Hamburg on 16 September 2001, Stockhausen was asked by a journalist whether the characters in "Licht" were for him "merely some figures out of a common cultural history" or rather "material appearances". Stockhausen replied, "I pray daily to Michael, but not to Lucifer. I have renounced him. But he is very much present, like in New York recently" . The same journalist then asked how the events of 11 September had affected him, and how he viewed reports of the attack in connection with the harmony of humanity represented in "Hymnen". He answered:
Well, what happened there is, of course—now all of you must adjust your brains—the biggest work of art there has ever been. The fact that spirits achieve with one act something which we in music could never dream of, that people practise ten years madly, fanatically for a concert. And then die. [Hesitantly.] And that is the greatest work of art that exists for the whole Cosmos. Just imagine what happened there. There are people who are so concentrated on this single performance, and then five thousand people are driven to Resurrection. In one moment. I couldn't do that. Compared to that, we are nothing, as composers. [...] It is a crime, you know of course, because the people did not agree to it. They did not come to the "concert". That is obvious. And nobody had told them: "You could be killed in the process."
As a result of the reaction to the press report of Stockhausen's comments, a four-day festival of his work in Hamburg was cancelled. In addition, his pianist daughter announced to the press that she would no longer appear under the name "Stockhausen" . In a subsequent message, he stated that the press had published "false, defamatory reports" about his comments, and said:
At the press conference in Hamburg, I was asked if Michael, Eve and Lucifer were historical figures of the past and I answered that they exist now, for example Lucifer in New York. In my work, I have defined Lucifer as the cosmic spirit of rebellion, of anarchy. He uses his high degree of intelligence to destroy creation. He does not know love. After further questions about the events in America, I said that such a plan appeared to be Lucifer's greatest work of art. Of course I used the designation "work of art" to mean the work of destruction personified in Lucifer. In the context of my other comments this was unequivocal.
Amongst the numerous honours and distinctions that were bestowed upon Stockhausen are:
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Ken MacLeod
Kenneth Macrae MacLeod (born 2 August 1954) is a Scottish science fiction writer.
MacLeod was born in Stornoway, Scotland on 2 August 1954. He graduated from Glasgow University with a degree in zoology and has worked as a computer programmer and written a masters thesis on biomechanics. He was a Trotskyist activist in the 1970s and early 1980s and is married and has two children. He lived in South Queensferry near Edinburgh before moving to Gourock, on the Firth of Clyde, in June 2017.
MacLeod is opposed to Scottish independence.
He is part of a group of British science fiction writers who specialise in hard science fiction and space opera. His contemporaries include Stephen Baxter, Iain M. Banks, Paul J. McAuley, Alastair Reynolds, Adam Roberts, Charles Stross, Richard Morgan, and Liz Williams.
His science fiction novels often explore socialist, communist, and anarchist political ideas, especially Trotskyism and anarcho-capitalism (or extreme economic libertarianism).
He is known for his constant in-joking and punning on the intersection between socialist ideologies and computer programming, as well as other fields. For example, his chapter titles such as "Trusted Third Parties" or "Revolutionary Platform" usually have double (or multiple) meanings. A future programmers union is called "Information Workers of the World Wide Web", or the "Webblies", a reference to the Industrial Workers of the World, who are nicknamed the "Wobblies". The Webblies idea formed a central part of the novel "For the Win" by Cory Doctorow and MacLeod is acknowledged as coining the term. Doctorow and Charles Stross also used one of MacLeod's references to the singularity as "the rapture for nerds" as the title for their collaborative novel "Rapture of the Nerds." (Although MacLeod denies coining the phrase.) There are also many references to, or puns on, zoology and palaeontology. For example, in "The Stone Canal" the title of the book, and many places described in it, are named after anatomical features of marine invertebrates such as starfish.
The Science Fiction Foundation have published an analysis of MacLeod's work titled "The True Knowledge Of Ken MacLeod" (2003; ), edited by Andrew M. Butler and Farah Mendlesohn. As well as critical essays it contains material by MacLeod himself, including his introduction to the German edition of Banks' "Consider Phlebas".
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Kanem–Bornu Empire
The Kanem–Bornu Empire existed in areas which are now part of Chad and Nigeria. It was known to the Arabian geographers as the Kanem Empire from the 8th century AD onward and lasted as the independent kingdom of Bornu (the Bornu Empire) until 1900. The Kanem Empire (c. 700–1380) was located in the present countries of Chad, Nigeria and Libya. At its height it encompassed an area covering not only most of Chad, but also parts of southern Libya (Fezzan) and eastern Niger, northeastern Nigeria and northern Cameroon. The Bornu Empire (1380s–1893) was a state in what is now northeastern Nigeria, in time becoming even larger than Kanem, incorporating areas that are today parts of Chad, Niger, Sudan, and Cameroon. The early history of the Empire is mainly known from the Royal Chronicle or "Girgam" discovered in 1851 by the German traveller Heinrich Barth.
Kanem was located at the southern end of the trans-Saharan trade route between Tripoli and the region of Lake Chad. Besides its urban elite, it also included a confederation of nomadic peoples who spoke languages of the Teda–Daza (Toubou) group.
In the 8th century, Wahb ibn Munabbih used Zaghawa to describe the Teda-Tubu group, in the earliest use of the ethnic name. Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi also mentions the Zaghawa in the 9th century, as did Ibn al-Nadim in his "Kitāb al-Fihrist" in the 10th-century. Kanem comes from "anem", meaning south in the Teda and Kanuri languages, and hence a geographic term. During the first millennium, as the Sahara underwent desiccation, people speaking the Kanembu language migrated to Kanem in the south. This group contributed to the formation of the Kanuri people. Kanuri traditions state the Zaghawa dynasty led a group of nomads called the Magumi.
This desiccation of the Sahara resulted in two settlements, those speaking Teda-Daza northeast of Lake Chad, and those speaking Chadic west of the lake in Bornu and Hausa-land.
The origins of Kanem are unclear. The first historical sources tend to show that the kingdom of Kanem began forming around 700 AD under the nomadic Tebu-speaking Kanembu. The Kanembu were supposedly forced southwest towards the fertile lands around Lake Chad by political pressure and desiccation in their former range. The area already possessed independent, walled city-states belonging to the Sao culture. Under the leadership of the Duguwa dynasty, the Kanembu would eventually dominate the Sao, but not before adopting many of their customs. War between the two continued up to the late 16th century.
One scholar, Dierk Lange, has proposed another theory based on a diffusionist ideology. This theory was much criticised by the scientific community, as it seriously lacks of direct and clear evidences. Lange connects the creation of Kanem-Bornu with exodus from the collapsed Assyrian Empire c. 600 BC to the northeast of Lake Chad.
He also proposes that the lost state of Agisymba (mentioned by Ptolemy in the middle of the 2nd century AD) was the antecedent of the Kanem Empire.
Kanem was connected via a trans-Saharan trade route with Tripoli via Bilma in the Kawar. Slaves were imported from the south along this route.
Kanuri tradition states Sayf b. Dhi Yazan established dynastic rule over the nomadic Magumi around the 9th or 10th century, through divine kingship. For the next millennium, the Mais ruled the Kanuri, which included the Ngalaga, Kangu, Kayi, Kuburi, Kaguwa, Tomagra and Tubu.
Kanem is mentioned as one of three great empires in Bilad el-Sudan, by Al Yaqubi in 872. He describes the kingdom of "the Zaghāwa who live in a place called Kānim," which included several vassal kingdoms, and "Their dwellings are huts made of reeds and they have no towns." Living as nomads, their cavalry gave them military superiority. In the 10th century, al-Muhallabi mentions two towns in the kingdom, one of which was Mānān. Their king was considered divine, believing he could "bring life and death, sickness and health." Wealth was measured in livestock, sheep, cattle, camels and horses. From Al-Bakri in the 11th century onwards, the kingdom is referred to as "Kanem". In the 12th century Muhammad al-Idrisi described Mānān as "a small town without industry of any sort and little commerce." Ibn Sa'id al-Maghribi describes Mānān as the capital of the Kanem kings in the 13th century and Kanem as a powerful Muslim kingdom.
The Kanuri-speaking Muslim Saifawas gained control of Kanem from the Zaghawa nomads in the 9th century. This included control of the Zaghawa trade links in the central Sahara with Bilma and other salt mines. Yet, the principal trade commodity was slaves. Tribes to the south of Lake Chad were raided as "kafirun", and then transported to Zawila in the Fezzan, where the slaves were traded for horses and weapons. The annual number of slaves traded increased from 1,000 in the 7th century to 5,000 in the 15th. Mai Hummay began his reign in 1075, and formed alliances with the Kay, Tubu, Dabir and Magumi. Mai Humai was the first Muslim king of Kanem, and was converted by his Muslim tutor Muhammad b. Mānī. This dynasty replaced the earlier Zaghawa dynasty. They remained nomadic until the 11th century, when they fixed their capital at Nijmi.
According to Richmond Palmer, it was customary to have "the Mai sitting in a curtained cage called "fanadir," "dagil," or "tatatuna"...a large cage for a wild animal, with vertical wooden bars."
Humai's successor, Dunama (1098-1151), performed the Hajj three times, before drowning at Aidab. His wealth included 100,000 horsemen and 120,000 soldiers.
Kanem's expansion peaked during the long and energetic reign of "Mai" Dunama Dabbalemi (1210-1259). Dabbalemi initiated diplomatic exchanges with sultans in North Africa, sending a giraffe to the Hafsid monarch, and arranged for the establishment of a madrasa of al-Rashíq in Cairo to facilitate pilgrimages to Mecca. During his reign, he declared jihad against the surrounding tribes and initiated an extended period of conquest with his cavalry of 41,000. He fought the Bulala for 7 years, 7 months, and 7 days. After dominating the Fezzan, he established a governor at Traghan, delegated military command amongst his sons. As the Sefawa extended control beyond Kanuri tribal lands, fiefs were granted to military commanders, as "cima", or 'master of the frontier'. Civil discord was said to follow his opening of the sacred Mune.
By the end of the 14th century, internal struggles and external attacks had torn Kanem apart. War with the So brought the death of four Mai: "Selemma", "Kure" "Gana", "Kure Kura", and "Muhammad", all sons of "'Abdullāh b. Kadai". Then, war with the Bulala resulted in the death of four Mai in succession between 1377 and 1387: "Dawūd", "Uthmān b". "Dawūd", "Uthmān b. Idris", and "Bukar Liyāu". Finally, around 1387 the Bulala forced "Mai" Umar b. Idris to abandon Njimi and move the Kanembu people to Bornu on the western edge of Lake Chad.
But even in Bornu, the Sayfawa Dynasty's troubles persisted. During the first three-quarters of the 15th century, for example, fifteen Mais occupied the throne. Then, around 1460 Ali Gazi (1473-1507) defeated his rivals and began the consolidation of Bornu. He built a fortified capital at Ngazargamu, to the west of Lake Chad (in present-day Nigeria), the first permanent home a Sayfawa "mai" had enjoyed in a century. So successful was the Sayfawa rejuvenation that by the early 16th century "Mai" Idris Katakarmabe (1507-1529) was able to defeat the Bulala and retake Njimi, the former capital. The empire's leaders, however, remained at Ngazargamu because its lands were more productive agriculturally and better suited to the raising of cattle. Ali Gaji was the first ruler of the empire to assume the title of Caliph.
Bornu peaked during the reign of Mai Idris Alooma (c. 1571–1603), reaching the limits of its greatest territorial expansion, gaining control over Hausaland, and the people of Ahir and Tuareg. Peace was made with Bulala, when a demarcation of boundaries was agreed, upon with a non-aggression pact. Military innovations included the use of mounted Turkish musketeers, slave musketeers, mailed cavalrymen, and footmen. This army was organized into an advance guard and a rear reserve, transported via camel or large boats and fed by free and slave women cooks. Military tactics were honed by drill and organization, supplemented with a scorched earth policy. "Ribāts" were built on frontiers, and trade routes to the north were secure, allowing friendly relations to be established with the Pasha of Tripoli and the Turkish empire. Ibn Furtu called Alooma Amir al-Mu'minin, after he implemented Sharia, and relied upon large fiefholders to ensure justice.
The Lake Chad to Tripoli route became an active highway in the 17th century, with horses traded for slaves. About two million slaves traveled this route to be traded in Tripoli, the largest slave market in the Mediterranean. As Martin Meredith states, "Wells along the way were surrounded by the skeletons of thousands of slaves, mostly young women and girls, making a last desperate effort to reach water before dying of exhaustion once there."
Most of the successors of Idris Alooma are only known from the meagre information provided by the "Diwan". Some of them are noted for having undertaken the pilgrimage to Mecca others for their piety. In the eighteenth century Bornu was affected by several long-lasting famines. Aïr was independently operating the Bilma salt mines by 1750, having been a tributary since 1532.
The administrative reforms and military brilliance of Aluma sustained the empire until the mid-17th century when its power began to fade. By the late 18th century, Bornu rule extended only westward, into the land of the Hausa of modern Nigeria. The empire was still ruled by the Mai who was advised by his councilors ("kokenawa") in the state council or ""nokena"". The members of his Nokena council included his sons and daughters and other royalty (the Maina) and non-royalty (the Kokenawa, "new men"). The Kokenawa included free men and slave eunuchs known as "kachela." The latter "had come to play a very important part in Bornu politics, as eunuchs did in many Muslim courts."
During the 17th century and 18th century, Bornu became a centre for Islamic learning. Islam and the Kanuri language was widely adopted, while slave raiding propelled the economy.
Around this time, Fulani people invading from the west were able to make major inroads into Bornu during the Fulani War. By the early 19th century, Kanem-Bornu was clearly an empire in decline, and in 1808 Fulani warriors conquered Ngazargamu. Usman dan Fodio led the Fulani thrust and proclaimed a jihad (holy war) on the irreligious Muslims of the area. His campaign eventually affected Kanem-Bornu and inspired a trend toward Islamic orthodoxy.
Muhammad al-Amin al-Kanemi contested the Fulani advance. Kanem was a Muslim scholar and non-Sayfawa warlord who had put together an alliance of Shuwa Arabs, Kanembu, and other seminomadic peoples. He eventually built in 1814 a capital at Kukawa (in present-day Nigeria). Sayfawa "mais" remained titular monarchs until 1846. In that year, the last "mai", in league with the Ouaddai Empire, precipitated a civil war, resulting in the death of Mai Ibrahim, the last mai. It was at that point that Kanemi's son, Umar, became Shehu, thus ending one of the longest dynastic reigns in international history. By then, Hausaland in the west, was lost to the Sokoto Caliphate, while the east and north were lost to the Wadai Empire.
Although the dynasty ended, the kingdom of Kanem-Bornu survived. Umar eschewed the title "mai" for the simpler designation "shehu" (from the Arabic "shaykh"), could not match his father's vitality, and gradually allowed the kingdom to be ruled by advisers ("wazirs"). Bornu began a further decline as a result of administrative disorganization, regional particularism, and attacks by the militant Ouaddai Empire to the east. The decline continued under Umar's sons. In 1893, Rabih az-Zubayr led an invading army from eastern Sudan and conquered Bornu. Following his expulsion shortly thereafter, the state was absorbed by the new Northern Nigeria Protectorate, in the sphere of the British Empire, and eventually became part of the independent state of Nigeria. From the arrival of the British, a remnant of the old kingdom was (and still is) allowed to continue to exist in subjection to the various Governments of the country as the Borno Emirate.
Rabih's invasion meant the death of Shehu Ashimi, Shehu Kyari and Shehu Sanda Wuduroma between 1893 and 1894. The British recognized Rahib as the 'Sultan of Borno', until the French killed Rabih on 22 April 1900 during the Battle of Kousséri. The French then occupied Dikwa, Rabih's capital, in April 1902, after the British had occupied Borno in March. Yet, based on their 1893 treaty, most of Borno remained under British control, while the Germans occupied eastern Borno, including Dikwa, as 'Deutsch Bornu'. The French did name Abubakar, the Shehu of Dikwa Emirate, until the British convinced him to be the Shehu of the Borno Emirate. The French then named his brother, Sanda, Shehu of Dikwa. Shehu Garbai formed a new capital, Yerwa, on 9 Jan. 1907. After WWI, Deutsch Bornu became the British Northern Cameroons. Upon Sheha Abubakar's death in 1922, Sanda Kura became Shehu of Borno. Then upon his death in 1937, his cousin, Shehu of Dikwa Sanda Kyarimi, became Shehu of Borno. As Vincent Hiribarren points out, "By becoming Shehu of the whole of Borno, Sanda Kyarimi reunited under his personal rule a territory which had been divided since 1902. For 35 years two Shehus had co-existed." In 1961, the Northern Cameroons voted to join Nigeria, effectively joining the frontiers of the kingdom of Bornu.
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Konstantin Chernenko
Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko ( ; , 24 September 1911 – 10 March 1985) was a Soviet politician and the fifth General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He led the Soviet Union from 13 February 1984 until his death on 10 March 1985.
Born to a poor family from Siberia, Chernenko joined the Komsomol (the Communist Party's youth league) in 1929 and became a full member of the party in 1931. After holding a series of propaganda posts, in 1948 he became the head of the propaganda department in Moldavia, serving under Leonid Brezhnev. After Brezhnev took over as First Secretary of the CPSU in 1964, Chernenko rose to head the General Department of the Central Committee, responsible for setting the agenda for the Politburo and drafting Central Committee decrees. In 1971 Chernenko became a full member of the Central Committee, and in 1978 he was made a full member of the Politburo.
After the death of Brezhnev and his successor Yuri Andropov, Chernenko was elected General Secretary in February 1984 and made Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet in April 1984. Due to his rapidly failing health, he was often unable to fulfill his official duties. He died in March 1985 after leading the country for only 13 months, and was succeeded as General Secretary by Mikhail Gorbachev.
Chernenko was born to a poor family in the Siberian village of Bolshaya Tes (now in Novosyolovsky District, Krasnoyarsk Krai) on 24 September 1911. His father, Ustin Demidovich (of Ukrainian origin), worked in copper mines and gold mines while his mother took care of the farm work.
Chernenko joined the Komsomol (Communist Youth League) in 1929, and became a full member of the Communist Party in 1931. From 1930 to 1933, he served in the Soviet frontier guards on the Soviet–Chinese border. After completing his military service, he returned to Krasnoyarsk as a propagandist. In 1933 he worked in the Propaganda Department of the Novosyolovsky District Party Committee. A few years later he was promoted to head of the same department in Uyarsk Raykom. Chernenko then steadily rose through the Party ranks, becoming the Director of the Krasnoyarsk House of Party Enlightenment, then in 1939 the Deputy Head of the Agitprop Department of Krasnoyarsk Territorial Committee, and finally in 1941 Secretary of the Territorial Party Committee for Propaganda. In the 1940s he established a close relationship with Fyodor Kulakov. In 1945, he acquired a diploma from a party training school in Moscow, and in 1953 he finished a correspondence course for schoolteachers.
The turning point in Chernenko's career was his assignment in 1948 to head the Communist Party's propaganda department in the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. There, he met and won the confidence of Leonid Brezhnev, the first secretary of the Moldavian SSR from 1950 to 1952 and future leader of the Soviet Union. Chernenko followed Brezhnev in 1956 to fill a similar propaganda post in the CPSU Central Committee in Moscow. In 1960, after Brezhnev was named chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (titular head of state of the Soviet Union), Chernenko became his chief of staff.
In 1964, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was deposed, and succeeded by Brezhnev. During Brezhnev's tenure as Party leader, Chernenko's career continued successfully. He was nominated in 1965 as head of the General Department of the Central Committee, and given the mandate to set the Politburo agenda and prepare drafts of numerous Central Committee decrees and resolutions. He also monitored telephone wiretaps and covert listening devices in various offices of the top Party members. Another of his jobs was to sign hundreds of Party documents daily, a job he did for the next 20 years. Even after he became General Secretary of the Party, he continued to sign papers referring to the General Department (when he could no longer physically sign documents, a facsimile was used instead).
In 1971, Chernenko was promoted to full membership in the Central Committee: Overseeing Party work over the Letter Bureau, dealing with correspondence. In 1976, he was elected secretary of the Letter Bureau. He became Candidate in 1977, and in 1978 a full member of the Politburo, second to the General Secretary in the Party hierarchy.
During Brezhnev's final years, Chernenko became fully immersed in ideological Party work: heading Soviet delegations abroad, accompanying Brezhnev to important meetings and conferences, and working as a member of the commission that revised the Soviet Constitution in 1977. In 1979, he took part in the Vienna arms limitation talks.
After Brezhnev's death in November 1982, there was speculation that the position of General Secretary would fall to Chernenko, but he was unable to rally enough support for his candidacy within the Party. Ultimately, KGB chief Yuri Andropov, who had been more mindful of Brezhnev's failing health, succeeded to the position.
Yuri Andropov died in February 1984, after just 15 months in office. Chernenko was then elected to replace Andropov even though Andropov himself stated he wanted Gorbachev to succeed him. Additionally, Chernenko was terminally ill himself.
Despite these factors, Yegor Ligachev writes in his memoirs that Chernenko was elected general secretary without a hitch. At the Central Committee plenary session on 13 February 1984, four days after Andropov's death, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Premier, and Politburo member Nikolai Tikhonov moved that Chernenko be elected general secretary, and the Committee duly voted him in.
Arkady Volsky, an aide to Andropov and other general secretaries, recounts an episode that occurred after a Politburo meeting on the day following Andropov's demise: As Politburo members filed out of the conference hall, either Andrei Gromyko or (in later accounts) Dmitriy Ustinov is said to have put his arm round Nikolai Tikhonov's shoulders and said: "It's okay, Kostya is an agreeable guy ("pokladisty muzhik"), one can do business with him..." The Politburo failed to pass the decision for Gorbachev, who was nominally Chernenko's second in command, to run the meetings of the Politburo itself in the absence of Chernenko; the latter due to his declining health began to miss those meetings with increasing frequency. As Nikolai Ryzhkov describes it in his memoirs, "every Thursday morning he (Mikhail Gorbachev) would sit in his office like a little orphan – I would often be present at this sad procedure – nervously awaiting a telephone call from the sick Chernenko: Would he come to the Politburo himself or would he ask Gorbachev to stand in for him this time again?"
At Andropov's funeral, he could barely read the eulogy. Those present strained to catch the meaning of what he was trying to say in his eulogy. He spoke rapidly, swallowed his words, kept coughing and stopped repeatedly to wipe his lips and forehead. He ascended Lenin's Mausoleum by way of a newly installed escalator and descended with the help of two bodyguards.
Chernenko represented a return to the policies of the late Brezhnev era. Nevertheless, he supported a greater role for the labour unions, and reform in education and propaganda. The one major personnel change Chernenko made was the dismissal of the Chief of the General Staff, Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, who had advocated less spending on consumer goods in favour of greater expenditures on weapons research and development. Ogarkov was subsequently replaced by Marshal Sergey Akhromeyev.
In foreign policy, he negotiated a trade pact with China. Despite calls for renewed détente, Chernenko did little to prevent the escalation of the Cold War with the United States. For example, in 1984, the Soviet Union prevented a visit to West Germany by East German leader Erich Honecker. However, in late autumn of 1984, the U.S. and the Soviet Union did agree to resume arms control talks in early 1985. In November 1984 Chernenko met with Britain's Labour Party leader, Neil Kinnock.
In 1980, the United States had boycotted the Summer Olympics held in Moscow in protest at the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The following 1984 Summer Olympics were due to be held in Los Angeles, California. On 8 May 1984, under Chernenko's leadership, the USSR announced its intention not to participate, citing security concerns and "chauvinistic sentiments and an anti-Soviet hysteria being whipped up in the United States". The boycott was joined by 14 Eastern Bloc countries and allies, including Cuba (but not Romania). The action was widely seen as revenge for the U.S. boycott of the Moscow Games. The boycotting countries organised their own "Friendship Games" in the summer of 1984.
Chernenko started smoking at the age of nine, and he was always known to be a heavy smoker as an adult. Long before his election as general secretary, he had developed emphysema and right-sided heart failure. In 1983 he had been absent from his duties for three months due to bronchitis, pleurisy and pneumonia. Historian John Lewis Gaddis describes him as "an enfeebled geriatric so zombie-like as to be beyond assessing intelligence reports, alarming or not" when he succeeded Andropov in 1984.
In early 1984, Chernenko was hospitalised for over a month but kept working by sending the Politburo notes and letters. During the summer, his doctors sent him to Kislovodsk for the mineral spas, but on the day of his arrival at the resort Chernenko's health deteriorated, and he contracted pneumonia. Chernenko did not return to the Kremlin until later in 1984. He awarded Orders to cosmonauts and writers in his office, but was unable to walk through the corridors of his office and was driven in a wheelchair.
By the end of 1984, Chernenko could hardly leave the Central Clinical Hospital, a heavily guarded facility in west Moscow, and the Politburo was affixing a facsimile of his signature to all letters, as Chernenko had done with Andropov's when he was dying. Chernenko's illness was first acknowledged publicly on 22 February 1985 during a televised election rally in Kuibyshev Borough of northeast Moscow, where the General Secretary stood as candidate for the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR, when Politburo member Viktor Grishin revealed that the General Secretary was absent in accordance with doctors' advice. Two days later, in a televised scene that shocked the nation, Grishin dragged the terminally ill Chernenko from his hospital bed to a ballot box to vote. On 28 February 1985, Chernenko appeared once more on television to receive parliamentary credentials and read out a brief statement on his electoral victory: "the election campaign is over and now it is time to carry out the tasks set for us by the voters and the Communists who have spoken out".
Emphysema and the associated lung and heart damage worsened significantly for Chernenko in the last three weeks of February 1985. According to the Chief Kremlin doctor, Yevgeny I. Chazov, Chernenko had also developed both chronic hepatitis and cirrhosis of the liver. On 10 March at 15:00, Chernenko fell into a coma and died later that evening at 19:20. He was 73 years old. An autopsy revealed the cause of death to be a combination of chronic emphysema, an enlarged and damaged heart, congestive heart failure and liver cirrhosis.
Chernenko became the third Soviet leader to die in less than three years. Upon being informed in the middle of the night of his death, U.S. President Ronald Reagan is reported to have remarked "How am I supposed to get anyplace with the Russians if they keep dying on me?"
Chernenko was honored with a state funeral and was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis. He is the last person to have been interred there.
The impact of Chernenko—or the lack thereof—was evident in the way in which his death was reported in the Soviet press. Soviet newspapers carried stories about Chernenko's death and Gorbachev's selection on the same day. The papers had the same format: page 1 reported the party Central Committee session on 11 March that elected Gorbachev and printed the new leader's biography and a large photograph of him; page 2 announced the demise of Chernenko and printed his obituary.
After the death of a Soviet leader it was customary for his successors to open his safe. When Gorbachev had Chernenko's safe opened, it was found to contain a small folder of personal papers and several large bundles of money; a large amount of money was also found in his desk. It is not known where he had obtained the money or what he intended to use it for.
Chernenko was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labour, 1976, in 1981 and in 1984 he was awarded Hero of the Socialist Labour: on the latter occasion, Minister of Defence Ustinov underlined his rule as an "outstanding political figure, a loyal and unwavering continuer of the cause of the great Lenin"; in 1981 he was awarded with the Bulgarian Order of Georgi Dimitrov and in 1982 he received the Lenin Prize for his "Human Rights in Soviet Society".
Chernenko had a son from his first marriage, Albert, who became a noted Soviet legal theorist. With his second wife, Anna Dmitrevna Lyubimova (1913–2010), who married him in 1944, he also had two daughters, Yelena (who worked at the Institute of Party History) and Vera (who worked at the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C. in the United States), and a son, Vladimir, who was a Goskino editorialist.
In 2015, archival documents were published, according to which Konstantin Chernenko had many more wives, and many more children with them; this circumstance, perhaps, was the reason for the slowing of Chernenko's career growth in the 1940s.
He had a gosdacha (state-owned vacation house) named Sosnovka-3 in Troitse-Lykovo by the Moskva River with a private beach, while Sosnovka-1 was used by Mikhail Suslov.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17272
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Keeshond
The Keeshond ( , plur. Keeshonden) is a medium-sized dog with a plush, two-layer coat of silver and black fur with a ruff and a curled tail. It originated in Holland, and its closest relatives are the German spitzes such as the "Großspitz" (Large Spitz), "Mittelspitz" (Medium Spitz), "Kleinspitz" (Miniature Spitz), "Zwergspitz" (Dwarf-Spitz) or Pomeranian.
The Keeshond was previously known as the Dutch Barge Dog, as it was frequently seen on barges traveling the canals and rivers of The Netherlands. The Keeshond was the symbol of the Patriot faction in The Netherlands during political unrest in the years immediately preceding the French Revolution.
In the late 19th century, the breed was developed in England from imports obtained in both The Netherlands and Germany. In 1930, the Keeshond was first registered with The American Kennel Club.
A member of the spitz group of dogs, the Keeshond in American Kennel Club (AKC) standard is to tall and ± in the Fédération Cynologique Internationale (FCI) standard and weighs to . Sturdily built, they have a typical spitz appearance. Neither coarse nor refined, they have a wedge-shaped head, medium-length muzzle with a definite stop, small pointed ears, and an expressive face. The tail is tightly curled and, in profile, should be carried such that it is indistinguishable from the compact body of the dog.
Like all spitz-type dogs, the Keeshond has a dense double coat, with a thick ruff around the neck. Typically, the males of this breed will have a thicker, more pronounced ruff than the females. The body should be abundantly covered with long, straight, harsh hair standing well out from a thick, downy undercoat. The hair on the legs should be smooth and short, except for a feathering on the front legs and "trousers" on the hind legs. The hair on the tail should be profuse, forming a rich plume. The head, including muzzle, skull, and ears, should be covered with smooth, soft, short hair—velvety in texture on the ears. The coat must not part down the back.
Coat care requires line brushing on a fairly regular basis. The Keeshond typically 'blows' its undercoat once a year for males, twice a year for females. During this time, the loss of coat is excessive and their guard hairs will lie flat to their back. It usually takes 2 weeks for the 'blow' to complete, in order for new undercoat to begin growing back in. A Keeshond should never be shaved, as their undercoat provides a natural barrier against heat and cold. Keeping their coat in good condition will allow efficient insulation in both hot and cold weather.
The color should be a mixture of grey and black and some white as well. The undercoat should be very pale grey or cream (not tawny). The hair of the outer coat is black tipped, the length of the black tips producing the characteristic shading of color. The color may vary from light to dark, but any pronounced deviation from the grey color is not permissible. The plume of the tail should be very light grey when curled on back and the tip of the tail should be black. Legs and feet should be cream. Ears should be very dark - almost black.
Shoulder line markings (light grey) should be well defined. The color of the ruff and "trousers" is generally lighter than that of the body. "Spectacles" and shadings, as later described, are characteristic of the breed and must be present to some degree. There should be no pronounced white markings.
According to the American Kennel Club breed standard, the legs and feet are to be cream; feet that are totally black or white are severe faults. Black markings more than halfway down the foreleg, except for pencilling, are faulted.
The other important marking is the "spectacles," a delicate dark line running from the outer corner of each eye toward the lower corner of each ear, which, coupled with markings forming short eyebrows, is necessary for the distinct expressive look of the breed. All markings should be clear, not muddled or broken. Absence of the spectacles is considered a serious fault. The eyes should be dark brown, almond-shaped with black eye rims.
Ears should be small, dark, triangular, and erect.
Keeshonden tend to be very playful, with quick reflexes and strong jumping ability. They are thoughtful, eager to please and very quick learners, which means they are also quick to learn things their humans did not intend to teach them. However, Keeshonden make excellent agility and obedience dogs. In fact, so amenable to proper training is this bright, sturdy dog that they have been successfully trained to serve as guide dogs for the blind; only their lack of size has prevented them from being more widely used in this role.
They love children and are excellent family dogs, preferring to be close to their humans whenever possible. They generally get along with other dogs as well and will enjoy a good chase around the yard. Keeshonden are very intuitive and empathetic and are often used as comfort dogs. Most notably, at least one Keeshond, Tikva, was at Ground Zero following the September 11 attacks to help comfort the rescue workers. The breed has a tendency to become especially clingy towards their owners, more so than most other breeds. If their owner is out, or in another room behind a closed door, they may sit, waiting for their owner to reappear, even if there are other people nearby. Many have been referred to as their "owner's shadow," or "velcro dogs".
They are known by their loud, distinctive bark. Throughout the centuries, the Keeshond has been very popular as a watch dog on barges on canals in the Netherlands and middle Europe. This trait is evident to this day, and they are alert dogs that warn their owners of any new visitors. Although loud and alert, Keeshonden are not aggressive towards visitors. They generally welcome visitors affectionately once their family has accepted them. Unfortunately, barking may become a problem if not properly handled. Keeshonden that are kept in a yard, and not allowed to be with their humans, are unhappy and often become nuisance barkers.
The Keeshond is very bright in work and obedience. The Keeshond ranks 16th in Stanley Coren's "The Intelligence of Dogs", being of excellent working/obedience intelligence. This intelligence makes a Keeshond a good choice for the dog owner who is willing to help a dog learn the right lessons, but also entails added responsibility.
While affectionate, Keeshonden are not easy for the inexperienced trainer. Consistency and fairness are needed; and, while most dogs need a structured environment, it is especially necessary with a Keeshond. Like most of the independent-minded spitz breeds, Keeshonden respond poorly to heavy-handed or forceful training methods.
Many behavioral problems with Keeshonden stem from these intelligent dogs inventing their own activities (often destructive ones, like digging and chewing) out of boredom. They need daily contact with their owners and lots of activity to remain happy. Keeshonden do not live happily alone in a kennel or backyard.
Keeshonden can also be timid dogs. It is important to train them to respect, but not fear, their owners and family. Keeshonden want to please, so harsh punishment is not necessary when the dog does not obey as quickly as desired. They like to spend time with their owners and love attention.
Keeshonden are generally a very healthy breed. Though congenital health issues are not common, the conditions which have been known to sometimes occur in Keeshonden are hip dysplasia, luxating patellas (trick knee), epilepsy, Cushing's disease, diabetes, primary hyperparathyroidism, and hypothyroidism. Von Willebrand's disease has been known in Keeshonden but is very rare. An accurate test for the gene causing primary hyperparathyroidism (or PHPT) has recently been developed at Cornell University. As with any breed, it is important when buying a puppy to make sure that both parents have been tested and certified free from inherited problems. Test results may be obtained from the breeder, and directly from the Orthopaedic Foundation For Animals site.
Keeshonds in a UK Kennel Club survey had a median lifespan of 12 years 2 months. 1 in 4 died of old age, at an average of 14–15 years.
Because of their double coat, Keeshonden need regular brushing; an hour a week will keep the dog comfortable and handsome. The Keeshond's coat sheds dirt when dry, and the breed is not prone to doggy odor, so frequent bathing is unnecessary and undesirable. The coat acts as insulation and protects the dog from sunburn and insects, so shaving is not desirable, however some owners find it beneficial to clip their dogs' coats in hotter weather. The coat also loses its distinct color as the black tipping on the hairs will be shorn off. If frequent brushing is too much effort, it is better to choose another breed rather than clip the Keeshond short.
The Keeshond was named after the 18th-century Dutch Patriot, Cornelis (Kees) de Gyselaer (spelled 'Gijzelaar' in Modern Dutch), leader of the rebellion against the House of Orange. The dog became the rebels' symbol; and, when the House of Orange returned to power, this breed almost disappeared. The word 'keeshond' is a compound word: 'Kees' is a nickname for Cornelius (de Gyselaer), and 'hond' is the Dutch word for dog. In the Netherlands, "keeshond" is the term for German Spitzes that encompass them all from the toy or dwarf (Pomeranian) to the Wolfspitz (Keeshond). The sole difference among the German Spitzes is their coloring and size guidelines. There are debates over the origin of the breed; many English references point to the Keeshond as we know it originating in the Netherlands. On the other hand, according to the FCI, the breed is cited as being part of the German Spitz family, originating in Germany along with the Pomeranian (toy or dwarf German Spitz) and American Eskimo dog (small or standard German Spitz).
The first standard for "Wolfspitz" was posted at the Dog Show of 1880 in Berlin. The Club for German Spitzes was founded in 1899. The German standard was revised in 1901 to specify the characteristic color that we know today, "silver grey tipped with black". In the late 19th century the "Overweight Pomeranian", a white German Spitz and most likely a Standard German Spitz, was shown in the British Kennel Club. The "Overweight Pomeranian" was no longer recognized by the British Kennel Club in 1915. In the 1920s, Baroness van Hardenbroeck took an interest in the breed and began to build it up again. The Nederlandse Keeshond Club was formed in 1924. The Dutch Barge Dog Club of England was formed in 1925 by Mrs. Wingfield-Digby and accepted into the British Kennel Club in 1926, when the breed and the club were renamed to Keeshond.
Carl Hinderer is credited with bringing his Schloss Adelsburg Kennel, which he founded in 1922 in Germany, with him to America in 1923. His German Champion Wolfspitz followed him two by two in 1926. At that time, less than ten years after World War I, Germany was not regarded fondly in England and America; and the Wolfspitz/Keeshond was not recognized by the AKC. Consequently, Carl had to register each puppy with his club in Germany. Despite this, Carl joined the Maryland KC and attended local shows.
Carl regularly wrote to the AKC, including the New York headquarters, to promote the Wolfspitz. While going through New York on his way to Germany in 1930, Carl visited the AKC offices and presented Wachter, his Germany champion, to AKC President, Dr. DeMond, who promptly agreed to start the recognition process, with some caveats including changing the name to Keeshond, and asked Carl to bring back all the relevant data from Germany. Carl also translated the German standard to English for the AKC. The Keeshond was accepted for AKC registration in 1930.
Despite intense lobbying the FCI would not accept the Keeshond as a separate breed since it viewed the Wolfspitz and Keeshond as identical. In 1997, the German Spitz Club updated its standard so that the typically smaller Keeshond preferred in America and other English-speaking countries could be included. This greatly expanded the gene pool and unified the standard internationally for the first time. Now bred for many generations as a companion dog, the Keeshond easily becomes a loving family member.
As a result of the breed's history and friendly disposition, Keeshonden are sometimes referred to as "The Smiling Dutchman".
Historically, Keeshonden being part of the German Spitz family had been interbred with their smaller brethren (small, standard, and dwarf German spitzes) and came in several colors—white, black, red, orange, orange-shaded white (also called orange and cream), and silver gray. Originally, like the other German spitzes, many colors, including piebalds, were allowed, but as time progressed, only the silver-grey and cream (wolf-gray) color was finally established into the Wolfspitz type.
No one knows the exact number of colored Keeshonden born in the United States. Incorrect or incomplete documentation makes it impossible to determine how many colored Keeshonden, and of which colors, have been born in the United States.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17274
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Krag–Jørgensen
The Krag–Jørgensen is a repeating bolt action rifle designed by the Norwegians Ole Herman Johannes Krag and Erik Jørgensen in the late 19th century. It was adopted as a standard arm by Denmark, the United States and Norway. About 300 were delivered to Boer forces of the South African Republic.
A distinctive feature of the Krag–Jørgensen action is its magazine. While many other rifles of its era use an integral box magazine loaded by a charger or stripper clip, the magazine of the Krag–Jørgensen is integral with the receiver (the part of the rifle that houses the operating parts), featuring an opening on the right hand side with a hinged cover. Instead of a charger, single cartridges are inserted through the side opening, and are pushed up, around, and into the action by a spring follower. Later, similar to a charger, a claw type clip would be made for the Krag that allowed the magazine to be loaded all at once, also known as the Krag "speedloader magazine".
The design presents both advantages and disadvantages compared with a top-loading "box" magazine. Normal loading was one cartridge at a time, and this could be done more easily with a Krag than a rifle with a "box" magazine. In fact, several cartridges can be dumped into the opened magazine of a Krag at once with no need for careful placement, and when shutting the magazine-door the cartridges are forced to line up correctly inside the magazine. The design was also easy to "top off", and unlike most top-loading magazines, the Krag–Jørgensen's magazine could be topped up without opening the rifle's bolt. The Krag–Jørgensen is a popular rifle among collectors, and is valued by shooters for its smooth action.
The 1880s were an interesting period in the development of modern firearms. During this decade smokeless powder came into general use, and the calibre of various service rifles diminished. Several nations adopted small calibre repeating bolt-action rifles during this decade.
Even though Norway had adopted the repeating Jarmann rifle in 1884, it was soon clear that it was at best an interim weapon. Ole Krag, captain in the Norwegian Army and director of Kongsberg Våpenfabrikk (the government weapons factory), therefore continued the development of small arms, as he had since at least 1866. Not satisfied with the tubular magazine of the Jarmann rifle and his earlier Krag–Petersson rifle (adopted by the Royal Norwegian Navy in 1876), he enlisted the help of master gunsmith Erik Jørgensen. Together they developed the "capsule" magazine. The principal feature of the capsule magazine was that instead of being a straight box protruding below the stock of the rifle, it wrapped around the bolt action. Early models contained ten rounds and were fitted to modified versions of the Jarmann—though they could be adapted to any bolt-action rifle.
In 1886, Denmark was on the verge of adopting a new rifle for its armed forces. One of the early prototypes of the new rifle was sent to Denmark. The feedback given by the Danes was vital in the further development of the weapon. The test performed in Denmark revealed the need to lighten the rifle, as well as the possible benefits of a completely new action. Krag and Jørgensen therefore decided to convert the magazine into what they referred to as a "half-capsule", containing only five rounds of ammunition instead of the previous ten. They also, over the next several months, combined what they considered the best ideas from other gunsmiths with a number of their own ideas to design a distinct bolt action for their rifle. The long extractor, situated on top of the bolt, was inspired by the Jarmann mechanism, while the use of curved surfaces for cocking and ejecting the spent round was probably inspired by the designs from Mauser. For a time after the weapon was adopted by Denmark they experimented with dual frontal locking lugs, but decided against it on grounds of cost and weight. The ammunition of the day did not need dual frontal locking lugs, and the bolt already had three lugs—one in front, one just in front of the bolt handle, and the bolt handle itself—which were considered more than strong enough.
The rifle had a feature known as a magazine cut-off. This is a switch on the left rear of the receiver. When flipped up (on the Norwegian Krag-J rifles and carbines), the cut-off does not allow cartridges in the internal magazine to be fed into the chamber by the advancing bolt. This was intended to be used for firing single rounds when soldiers were comfortably firing at distant targets, so the magazine could be quickly turned on in case of an incoming charge or issue to charge the enemy. This instantly gives five rounds to the shooter for quick firing. The M1903 Springfield that replaced the Krags had a magazine cutoff, as did the SMLE (Lee–Enfield) until 1915.
After strenuous tests, Denmark adopted the Krag–Jørgensen rifle on July 3, 1889. The Danish rifle differed in several key areas from the weapons later adopted by the United States and Norway, particularly in its use of a forward (as opposed to downward) hinged magazine door, the use of rimmed ammunition, and the use of an outer steel liner for the barrel.
The Danish Krag–Jørgensen was chambered for the 8×58R cartridge (0.31 in / 7.87 mm), and was at least in the early years used as a single shooter with the magazine in reserve. It stayed in service right up to the German invasion of Denmark on April 9, 1940. Danish Krags were given the German identification code Scharfschützen-Gewehr 312(d).
While information on the various subtypes of the Krag–Jørgensen used in Denmark has proven difficult to find, at least the following subtypes were manufactured:
Like many other armed forces, the United States military was searching for a new rifle in the early 1890s. A competition was held in 1892, comparing 53 rifle designs including Lee, Krag, Mannlicher, Mauser, and Schmidt–Rubin. The trials were held at Governors Island, New York, and the finalists were all foreign manufacturers—the Krag, the Lee, and the Mauser. The contract was awarded to the Krag design in August 1892, with initial production deferred as the result of protests from domestic inventors and arms manufacturers. Two rifle designers, Russell and Livermore, even sued the US government over the initial selection of the Krag, forcing a review of the testing results in April and May 1893. In spite of this, an improved form of the Krag–Jørgensen was again selected, and was awarded the contract. The primary reason for the selection of the Krag appears to have been its magazine design, which could be topped off as needed without raising and retracting the bolt (thus putting the rifle temporarily out of action). Ordnance officials also believed the Krag's magazine cutoff and lower reloading speed to be an advantage, one which conserved ammunition on the battlefield. This magazine design would later resurface as a distinct disadvantage once U.S. soldiers encountered Spanish troops armed with the charger-loaded 1893 7mm Spanish Mauser in the Spanish–American War.
Around 500,000 "Krags" in .30 Army (.30-40) calibre were produced at the Springfield Armory in Massachusetts from 1894 to 1904. The Krag–Jørgensen rifle in .30 Army found use in the Boxer Rebellion, the Spanish–American War and the Philippine–American War. A few carbines were used by United States cavalry units fighting Apaches in New Mexico Territory and preventing poaching in Yellowstone National Park. Two-thousand rifles were taken to France by the United States Army 10th–19th engineers (railway) during World War I; but there is no evidence of use by front-line combat units during that conflict.
The US 'Krags' were chambered for the rimmed "cartridge, caliber 30, U.S. Army", round, also known as the .30 U.S., .30 Army, or .30 Government, and, more popularly, by its civilian name, the .30-40 Krag. The .30 Army was the first smokeless powder round adopted by the U.S. military, but its civilian name retained the "caliber-charge" designation of earlier black powder cartridges. Thus the .30-40 Krag employs a round-nose 220-grain (14 g) cupro-nickel jacketed .30 caliber (7.62 mm) bullet propelled by 40 grains (3 g) of smokeless powder to a muzzle velocity of approximately 2000 feet (600 m) per second. As with the .30-30 Winchester, it is the use of black powder nomenclature that leads to the incorrect assumption that the .30-40 Krag was once a black powder cartridge.
In U.S. service, the Krag eventually proved uncompetitive with Mauser-derived designs, most notably in combat operations in Cuba and the Philippines during the Spanish–American War. It served as the U.S. military's primary rifle for only 12 years, when it was replaced by the M1903 Springfield rifle in 1906 and many units did not receive it until 1908 and later.
There were at least nine different models of the American Krag–Jørgensen:
A few prototype Model 1898 sniper rifles were assembled with Cataract telescopic sights for limited testing. In 1901, 100 Model 1898 rifles, and 100 Model 1899 carbines were fitted with a Parkhurst clip loading attachment to test use of Mauser-type stripper clips. In 1902, 100 rifles were made with barrels in an effort to develop one model acceptable to both infantry and cavalry. The so-called "NRA carbines" were rifles cut down to carbine length for sale to members of the National Rifle Association beginning in 1926 as a means of keeping skilled armoury workmen employed at Benicia Arsenal.
In the early 20th century, the United States also distributed the Krag to some Caribbean countries in which US forces intervened. These included Haiti, where they equipped the Gendarmerie d'Haïti (newly founded in 1915) with surplus Krags. A 1919 letter to the Marine Commandant from the First Provisional Brigade in Port-au-Prince noted: ""...[A]bout 2,000 bandits infest the hills... I don't believe that in all Haiti there are more than 400 to 500 rifles, if that many. They are very short of ammunition.. They use our ammunition and the Krag by tying a piece of goatskin on string around the base of the cartridge."
The 1916-1924 American occupation of the Dominican Republic resulted in a small flow of Krags to that country. The Guardia Nacional Dominicana issued the received Krag rifles, though the rifles broke down quickly when issued to unfamiliar Dominican troops, and spare parts were hard to obtain. The discovery of Krag bullets in victims' bodies in the 1937 Parsley Massacre was taken by US observers as evidence of the government's involvement in the killings. At the start of World War II, the Dominican government had 1,860 Krags on-hand, supplementing their over 2,000 Spanish Mausers.
In Nicaragua, to support the government of Adolfo Díaz, the American government provided Krags to the newly formed Guardia Nacional in 1925. In 1961, Cuban militias were still fielding some Krag-Jørgensons during the Bay of Pigs invasion.
In 1919, the United States provided discounted arms sales to the Liberians, giving them a number of Springfield Krag rifles, in addition to Peabody and Mauser rifles.
The Swedish-Norwegian Rifle Commission started its work in 1891. One of their first tasks was to find the best possible calibre for the new weapon. After extensive ballistic tests where different calibres were tested (8 mm, 7.5 mm, 7 mm, 6.5 mm etc.), the optimal caliber was determined to be 6.5 mm (0.256 in). Following this decision, a joint Norwegian-Swedish commission was established in December 1893. This commission worked through a series of meetings to decide on the different measurements for the cartridge case. A rimless cartridge case of 55 mm length was approved, and each possible measurement (diameter at base, diameter at neck, angle of case, angle of shoulder etc.) was decided upon. The corresponding dimensions of the cartridge chamber to be used in a future service rifle was also determined. The cartridge became what is later known as 6.5×55mm. The round of ammunition is also known as 6.5×55 Krag, 6.5×55 Scan, 6.5×55 Mauser, 6.5×55 Swedish, and 6.5×55 Nor, but they all referred to the same cartridge.
Some historians have assumed that there was a difference in cartridge blueprint measurements between Swedish and Norwegian 6.5×55mm ammunition, but this may be unintentional. Due to different interpretations of the blueprint standard, i.e. the standards of manufacturing using maximum chamber in the Krag vs. minimum chamber in the Swedish Mauser, a small percentage of the ammunition produced in Norway proved to be slightly oversize when chambered in the Swedish Mauser action, i.e. requiring a push on the bolt handle to chamber in the Swedish arm. A rumour arose not long after the 6.5×55mm cartridge was adopted that one could use Swedish ammunition in Norwegian rifles, but not Norwegian ammunition in Swedish rifles. Some even alleged that this incompatibility was deliberate, to give Norway the tactical advantage of using captured ammunition in a war, while denying the same advantage to the Swedes. However, after the rumour first surfaced in 1900, the issue was examined by the Swedish military. They declared the difference to be insignificant, and that both the Swedish and Norwegian ammunition was within the specified parameters laid down. Despite this finding, the Swedish weapon-historian Josef Alm repeated the rumour in a book in the 1930s, leading many to believe that there was a significant difference between the ammunition manufactured in Norway and Sweden. It is worth noting that Sweden would later adopt a 6.5×55mm rifle with a much stronger Mauser bolt action, the m/94 carbine in 1894 and the m/96 rifle in 1896, both of which were proof-tested with loads generating significantly more pressure than those used to proof the Norwegian Krag action.
Once the question of ammunition was settled, the Norwegians started looking at a modern arm to fire their newly designed cartridge. The processing was modelled on the US Army Ordnance selection process and considered, among other things, sharp-shooting at different ranges, shooting with defective or dirty ammunition, rapidity of shooting, conservation of ammunition, corrosion resistance, and ease of assembly and disassembly. After the test, three rifles were shortlisted:
About fifty Krag–Jørgensen rifles were produced in 1893 and issued to soldiers for field testing. The reports were good, and a few modifications were later incorporated into the design. Despite the fact that both the Mannlicher and Mauser submissions were significantly faster to reload than the Krag, the latter, having been designed in Norway, was selected. As in the United States, rapidity of fire was deemed to be of lesser importance in an era when current military philosophy still emphasized precise aimed fire and conservation of ammunition. Instead, the magazine was looked upon as a reserve, to be used only when authorized by a commanding officer. The Krag–Jørgensen was formally adopted as the new rifle for the Norwegian Army on April 21, 1894.
A total of more than 215,000 Krag–Jørgensen rifles and carbines were built at the Kongsberg Arms Factory in Norway. 33,500 additional M/1894 rifles were produced at Steyr (Österreichische Waffenfabrik Gesellschaft) in 1896–1897 under contracts for the Norwegian Army (29,000 rifles) and the Civilian Marksmanship Organisation (4,500 rifles). The various subtypes of Krag–Jørgensen replaced all rifles and carbines previously used by the Norwegian armed forces, notably the Jarmann M1884, the Krag–Petersson and the last of the remaining Remington M1867 and modified kammerladers rimfire rifles and carbines.
A number of 1896 and 1897 Steyr-manufactured Krag rifles resembling the M1894 Norwegian and chambered in 6.5×55, but lacking some Norwegian inspection markings and having serial numbers outside the sequences of those produced for Norway, were in Boer hands during the second Boer War of 1899–1902—most have serial numbers below 900. Markings show these rifles were manufactured by Steyr concurrently with a large order of M1894 rifles made for Norway. Some parts of rejected Norwegian rifles may have been used in these weapons—many small parts have serial numbers that do not match receiver numbers, these mismatched small parts sometimes have numbers in ranges of rifles made for Norway, yet appear original to the rifle. Photographs of high-ranking Boer officers holding M1894-like rifles exist. Cartridge casings in 6.5×55 have been found on the Magersfontein battlefield and may have been fired by such M1894-like rifles. Some sources state that about 100 1896-date and at least about 200 1897-date rifles reached the Boers. Some rifles meeting this description exist in South African museums with Boer-war documentation, and in England documented as captured bring-backs. A few rifles having Norwegian inspector stamps and serial numbers in the civilian marksmanship organization serial number range are also known to be in South African museums and may have been used by Boer forces—it is suspected that these may have arrived in South Africa with a small Scandinavian volunteer force that fought for the Boers. A small number of Steyr 1897 M1894-like 6.5×55 rifles with 3-digit serial numbers outside the Norwegian contract ranges and in the same range as these Boer Krags, and lacking Norwegian inspection stamps like the low-numbered 1897 rifles in South African museums, are known to exist in the USA—it is not known if these have Boer connections or were initially delivered elsewhere.
The Krag–Jørgensen was produced in Norway for a very long time, and in a number of different variations. The major military models are the following:
In addition, most models were produced for the civilian market as well. After World War II a limited number of Krag–Jørgensens were made in purely civilian models.
The Swedish-Norwegian Rifle Commission only briefly looked into bayonets, focusing on selecting the best possible rifle. However, their report mentions that they have experimented with knife shaped bayonets and spike bayonets, both in loose forms and in folding forms. Very few of the experimental bayonets are known today.
The bayonet that was finally approved, probably alongside the rifle itself, was a knife bayonet. Later on, longer bayonets were approved as well, and renewed experiments with spike bayonets took place during the development of the M/1912.
A number of special bayonets and oddities were experimented with during the time the Krag–Jørgensen was a Norwegian service rifle, two of which are mentioned here.
During the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany, the German forces demanded that Kongsberg Våpenfabrikk build weapons for the German armed forces. They placed large orders for the Krag–Jørgensen, the Colt M1914 (license-produced Colt M1911), and 40 mm anti-aircraft guns. However, production was kept down by sabotage and slow work by the employees. Out of the total of 13,450 rifles ordered by the Germans, only between 3,350 and 3,800 were actually delivered. Early deliveries was identical to the M1894, but with German proof marks and substandard workmanship compared to M1894 produced earlier. During the war the model was altered to be externally more like the German Kar98K. This was achieved by shortening the barrel by 15 cm (6 inches) down to 61.3 cm (24 inches) and shortening the stock by 18 cm (7 inches), and adding a front sight hood similar to that of the Kar98K. These shortened Krag–Jørgensen's were known in Norway as the "Stomperud-Krag". A number of the Krag–Jørgensens manufactured for the Germans have been described as 'bastards', created from mismatched parts left over from previous production.
Experiments with using the German standard issue 7.92×57mm ammunition also took place, a cartridge as powerful as the .30-06 and the modern 7.62 mm NATO.
While information on the Wehrmacht's use of the Krag–Jørgensen is hard to find, it is assumed that it was issued primarily to second line units since the Wehrmacht attempted to only issue firearms in standard calibres to front line troops. It was also issued to the Hird—the armed part of Nasjonal Samling (NS) ("National Unity"), the national-socialist party of Vidkun Quisling's puppet government. It is further likely that the experiments with 7.92 mm ammunition means that the Germans considered a wider use of the Krag–Jørgensen.
A few Krag–Jørgensen rifles were put together after 1945, for sale to civilian hunters and sharpshooters, among them 1600 of the so-called "Stomperud Krag". While there were at no point any plans for re-equipping the Norwegian Army with the Krag–Jørgensen, attempts were made to adapt it to firing more modern, high-powered ammunition like the .30-06 and 7.62 mm NATO rounds. While this was found to be possible, it required a new barrel (or relined barrels) and modification to the bolt and receiver. The resulting cost of the conversion was about the same as that of a new gun of a more modern design. The last Krag–Jørgensen rifles in production were the M/1948 Elgrifle (moose rifle), of which 500 were made in 1948–49 and the M/1951 Elgrifle (moose rifle), of which 1000 were made in 1950–51.
Before the Sauer 200 STR was approved as the new standard Scandinavian target rifle, rebarreled and re-stocked Krag–Jørgensen rifles were the standard Norwegian target rifle together with the Kongsberg-Mauser M59 and M67. The Krag was preferred for shooting on covered ranges and in fair weather, and dominated on the speed-shooting exercises due to its smooth action, and very fast loading with a spring speedloader, however it was known to change its point of impact under wet conditions due to the single front locking lug. Thus, many shooters had both a Krag and a "Mauser" for varying conditions.
The Krag–Jørgensen was manufactured for almost 60 years in Norway. During this time several special models and prototypes were designed and manufactured. Some of these special weapons were meant as an aid in production or to meet a specific demand, but there were also various attempts to increase the firepower of the weapon.
The so-called "model rifles" were used both when the various sub types were approved and as a guide for manufacturing. Basically, the model rifle or model carbine was a specially manufactured weapon that showed how the approved weapon should be. They were numbered and stored separately. Several model rifles and carbines were manufactured, since small things like a change in surface treatment or other seemingly minor things. There were especially many model rifles made for the M1894, since several were sent to Steyr in Austria to work as controls and models.
A small number of Krag–Jørgensen rifles were converted into harpoon guns, in the same fashion as Jarmann M1884s were converted to Jarmann harpoon rifles. It was realized that converting the Jarmann was more cost efficient than converting the Krag–Jørgensen, so further conversions was halted. It is not known how many were converted in this way.
In the factory museum at Kongsberg Weapon Factory, there is preserved an interesting prototype of a M1894 modified for belt feed. Although no documentation has been uncovered, it's clear that the rifle has been modified at an early stage in the manufacturing process to use the same feed belts that were used on the Hotchkiss heavy machine gun in use in the Norwegian Army at the time.
The backward and forward movement of the bolt operates a mechanism that moves the belt through the receiver, presenting fresh rounds for the weapon. While this may have been advantageous while fighting from fixed fortifications, it cannot have been very practical for the user of the rifle to carry a long feed belt with him in the field. Even so, it is an interesting and early attempt to increase the firepower of the Krag–Jørgensen.
In 1923 Lieutenant Tobiesen, working at Kongsberg Weapon Factory, designed what he called a "speed loader for repeating rifles". It can be seen as a new attempt to increase the firepower of the Krag–Jørgensen, just as the attempt to convert it to belt feed. Basically, the design consisted of a modified cover that let the user of the rifle attach a magazine from the Madsen light machine gun. The cover had a selector switch, allowing the user to select if he wanted to use the Krag–Jørgensen's internal magazine with its 5 rounds of ammunition, or if he wanted to use the external magazine with 25 rounds.
The design was considered promising enough that eight prototypes were manufactured and tested. However, in testing it was revealed that the heavy magazine mounted on the side of the weapon not only made the rifle more cumbersome to carry and use, but also made it twist sideways. It was decided that the "Speed Loader" was not a practical design for military use and no further manufacture took place.
In 1926, a group of seal hunters approached Kongsberg Weapon Factory and asked to purchase a number of speedloaders for use when hunting seals from small boats. They were turned down due to the high cost of manufacturing a limited number of the devices.
At the same time that the Hotchkiss heavy machine gun was introduced to the Norwegian Army, some people started considering modifying the Krag–Jørgensen to semi-automatic fire. Doing so would have multiplied the firepower of the infantry, allowing more weight of fire to be brought at a target. Most of the designs put forward were not very well thought out and few of the designers knew enough about firearms to be able to calculate the pressures and dimensions necessary. However, two designs were investigated further, and eventually one prototype was built.
In 1915 Sergeant Sunngaard proposed a design for making the Krag–Jørgensen into a selfloading rifle. The design was considered over a period of time before it was declared to be 'quite without value', primarily because the requisite pressure would not be attainable without major redesign of the rifle. For this reason, no prototype was made.
In 1938 a Swedish design surfaced that seemed interesting. The SNABB was a modification that could be made to virtually any bolt-action rifle allowing it to be converted into a self-loading weapon, thus saving money as compared to manufacturing new weapons from scratch. The device used gas pressure to operate the bolt handle with the help of a runner. The modification seems, in hindsight, to be unnecessarily complicated. A separate pistolgrip was needed, and the receiver needed major modifications.
A prototype was manufactured in the autumn of 1938 and tested for several months. While moderately successful, the modification would cost about three times as much as originally thought, and the project was dropped due to lack of money.
The various Krag–Jørgensens were manufactured for a wide variety of ammunition. Apart from various civilian calibres, the rifle was manufactured for the following service ammunition:
Contrary to some rumors, the Krag–Jørgensen action can be modified to fire modern, high-power cartridges. During World War II, and also in the early 1950s, several were produced in 7.92×57mm, which can hardly be considered a low-power cartridge. A number of Krag–Jørgensens have also been converted to .30-06 and 7.62×51mm NATO for target shooting and hunting. However, it must be stressed that these were all late-production Norwegian Krag–Jørgensen rifles, made in an era when metallurgy was vastly more advanced than when the American Krag–Jørgensen rifles were made. The American Krag–Jørgensen also has only a single locking lug, whereas the Norwegian and Danish versions effectively had two lugs.
Nonetheless, older rifles may benefit from milder loads. Modern European 6.5×55mm rounds are sometimes loaded to a CIP maximum of 55000 PSI, but 6.5×55mm rounds marked "safe for the Krag" are loaded to a milder 40600 PSI. SAAMI specifications call for maximum average pressure of 46000 PSI, sufficient for with a 160 grain bullet.
What follows is a comparison between the Danish, American and Norwegian service weapons.
At the time of adoption in Denmark, the United States and Norway, the Krag–Jørgensen was seen as the best available rifle. Here it is compared with rifles of later decades. In the U.S. trials, the Krag competed against the Mauser Model 92 (as well as many other designs), not the improved Model 98. The Japanese Type 38 was adopted starting 1905, nearly two decades after the first Krag design.
In the 1939 movie "Gunga Din", the bayoneted rifle used by Douglas Fairbanks Jr. to free Cary Grant in the dungeon is a Krag Jorgensen. The Krag seems to be the longarm of choice for the Thugs in the film
In the 1953 movie "Stalag 17", the rifle carried by the German guard who played volleyball with the POWs was a Krag, presumably Danish. The explanation for this is that prison camp guards were considered fourth-line troops and had to use whatever rifles they could scrounge. Front line troops had first call on the Mauser 98k rifles produced for the Wehrmacht.
In the 1962 movie "To Kill a Mockingbird", the rifle Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck) used to shoot the mad dog was a Model 1896 carbine, presumably purchased by Sheriff Heck Tate (Frank Overton) from the Director of Civilian Marksmanship after the US Army declared them surplus following World War I.
Other Norwegian rifles:
Contemporary rifles
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17275
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Krakatoa
Krakatoa, or Krakatau (), is a caldera in the Sunda Strait between the islands of Java and Sumatra in the Indonesian province of Lampung. The caldera is part of a volcanic island group (Krakatoa Archipelago) comprising four islands: two of which, Lang and Verlaten, are remnants of a previous volcanic edifice destroyed in eruptions long before the famous 1883 eruption; another, Rakata, is the remnant of a much larger island destroyed in the 1883 eruption.
In 1927, a fourth island, Anak Krakatau, or "Child of Krakatoa", emerged from the caldera formed in 1883. There has been new eruptive activity since the late 20th century, with a large collapse causing a deadly tsunami in December 2018.
The most notable eruptions of Krakatoa culminated in a series of massive explosions over 26–27 August 1883, which were among the most violent volcanic events in recorded history.
With an estimated Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) of 6, the eruption was equivalent to —about 13,000 times the nuclear yield of the Little Boy bomb (13 to 16 kt) that devastated Hiroshima, Japan, during World War II, and four times the yield of Tsar Bomba, the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated at 50 Mt.
The 1883 eruption ejected approximately of rock. The cataclysmic explosion was heard away in Alice Springs, Australia, and on the island of Rodrigues near Mauritius, to the west.
According to the official records of the Dutch East Indies colony, 165 villages and towns were destroyed near Krakatoa, and 132 were seriously damaged. At least 36,417 people died, and many more thousands were injured, mostly from the tsunamis that followed the explosion. The eruption destroyed two-thirds of the island of Krakatoa.
Eruptions in the area since 1927 have built a new island at the same location, named "Anak Krakatau" (which is Indonesian for "Child of Krakatoa"). Periodic eruptions have continued since, with recent eruptions in 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012, and a major collapse in 2018. In late 2011, this island had a radius of roughly , and a highest point of about above sea level, growing each year.
In 2017, the height of Anak Krakatau was reported as over above sea level; following a collapse in December 2018, the height was reduced to 110 meters (361 ft).
Although there are earlier descriptions of an island in the Sunda Strait with a "pointed mountain," the earliest mention of Krakatoa by name in the western world was on a 1611 map by Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer, who labelled the island "Pulo Carcata" ("pulo" is the Sundanese word for "island"). About two dozen variants have been found, including "Crackatouw," "Cracatoa," and "Krakatao" (in an older Portuguese-based spelling). The first known appearance of the spelling "Krakatau" was by Wouter Schouten, who passed by "the high tree-covered island of Krakatau" in October 1658.
The origin of the Indonesian name "Krakatau" is uncertain.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17276
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Kondratiev wave
In economics, Kondratiev waves (also called supercycles, great surges, long waves, K-waves or the long economic cycle) are hypothesized cycle-like phenomena in the modern world economy.
It is stated that the period of a wave ranges from forty to sixty years, the cycles consist of alternating intervals of high sectoral growth and intervals of relatively slow growth.
Long wave theory is not accepted by most academic economists. Among economists who accept it, there is a lack of agreement about both the cause of the waves and the start and end years of particular waves. Among critics of the theory, the general consensus is that it involves recognizing patterns that may not exist.
The Soviet economist Nikolai Kondratiev (also written Kondratieff or Kondratyev) was the first to bring these observations to international attention in his book "The Major Economic Cycles" (1925) alongside other works written in the same decade. In 1939, Joseph Schumpeter suggested naming the cycles "Kondratieff waves" in his honor.
Two Dutch economists, Jacob van Gelderen and Salomon de Wolff, had previously argued for the existence of 50- to 60-year cycles in 1913 and 1924, respectively.
Since the inception of the theory, various studies have expanded the range of possible cycles, finding longer or shorter cycles in the data. The Marxist scholar Ernest Mandel revived interest in long-wave theory with his 1964 essay predicting the end of the long boom after five years and in his Alfred Marshall lectures in 1979. However, in Mandel's theory there are no long "cycles", only distinct epochs of faster and slower growth spanning 20–25 years.
In 1990, William Thompson at Indiana University has published influential papers and books documenting eighteen K-Waves dating back to 930 AD in China's Song Province; and Michael Snyder wrote: "economic cycle theories have enabled some analysts to correctly predict the timing of recessions, stock market peaks and stock market crashes over the past couple of decades".
The historian Eric Hobsbawm also wrote of the theory: "That good predictions have proved possible on the basis of Kondratiev Long Waves—this is not very common in economics—has convinced many historians and even some economists that there is something in them, even if we don't know what".
Kondratiev identified three phases in the cycle, namely expansion, stagnation and recession. More common today is the division into four periods with a turning point (collapse) between the first and second phases.
Writing in the 1920s, Kondratiev proposed to apply the theory to the 19th century:
The long cycle supposedly affects all sectors of an economy. Kondratiev focused on prices and interest rates, seeing the ascendant phase as characterized by an increase in prices and low interest rates while the other phase consists of a decrease in prices and high interest rates. Subsequent analysis concentrated on output.
Understanding the cause and effect of Kondratiev waves is a useful academic discussion and tool. Kondratiev Waves present both causes and effects of common recurring events in capitalistic economies throughout history. Although Kondratiev himself made little differentiation between cause and effect, obvious points emerge intuitively.
The causes documented by Kondratiev waves, primarily include inequity, opportunity and social freedoms; although very often, much more discussion is made of the notable effects of these causes as well. Effects are both good and bad and include, to name just a few, technological advance, birthrates and revolutions/populism—and revolution's contributing causes which can include racism, religious or political intolerance, failed-freedoms and opportunity, incarceration rates, terrorism and similar.
When inequity is low and opportunity is easily available, peaceful, moral decisions are preferred and Aristotle's "Good Life" is possible (Americans call the good life "the American Dream"). Opportunity created the simple inspiration and genius for the Mayflower Compact for one example. Post-World War II and the 1850s post-California gold rush bonanza were times of great opportunity, low inequity and this resulted in unprecedented technological industrial advance too. Alternatively, when 1893's global economic panics were not met with sufficient wealth-distributing government policies internationally, a dozen major revolutions resulted–perhaps also creating an effect we now call World War I. Few would argue that World War II also began in response to failed attempts at creating economic opportunity-supporting government policy during the Great Depression of 1929 and the World War I's Treaty of Versailles.
According to the innovation theory, these waves arise from the bunching of basic innovations that launch technological revolutions that in turn create leading industrial or commercial sectors. Kondratiev's ideas were taken up by Joseph Schumpeter in the 1930s. The theory hypothesized the existence of very long-run macroeconomic and price cycles, originally estimated to last 50–54 years.
In recent decades there has been considerable progress in historical economics and the history of technology, and numerous investigations of the relationship between technological innovation and economic cycles. Some of the works involving long cycle research and technology include Mensch (1979), Tylecote (1991), the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) (Marchetti, Ayres), Freeman and Louçã (2001), Andrey Korotayev and Carlota Perez.
Perez (2002) places the phases on a logistic or "S" curve, with the following labels: the beginning of a technological era as irruption, the ascent as frenzy, the rapid build out as synergy and the completion as maturity.
Because people have fairly typical spending patterns through their life cycle, such as spending on schooling, marriage, first car purchase, first home purchase, upgrade home purchase, maximum earnings period, maximum retirement savings and retirement, demographic anomalies such as baby booms and busts exert a rather predictable influence on the economy over a long time period. Harry Dent has written extensively on demographics and economic cycles. Tylecote (1991) devoted a chapter to demographics and the long cycle.
Georgists such as Mason Gaffney, Fred Foldvary and Fred Harrison argue that land speculation is the driving force behind the boom and bust cycle. Land is a finite resource which is necessary for all production and they claim that because exclusive usage rights are traded around, this creates speculative bubbles which can be exacerbated by overzealous borrowing and lending. As early as 1997, a number of Georgists predicted that the next crash would come in 2008.
Debt deflation is a theory of economic cycles which holds that recessions and depressions are due to the overall level of debt shrinking (deflating). Hence, the credit cycle is the cause of the economic cycle.
The theory was developed by Irving Fisher following the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression. Debt deflation was largely ignored in favor of the ideas of John Maynard Keynes in Keynesian economics, but it has enjoyed a resurgence of interest since the 1980s, both in mainstream economics and in the heterodox school of post-Keynesian economics and has subsequently been developed by such post-Keynesian economists as Hyman Minsky and Steve Keen.
Inequity appears to be the most obvious driver of Kondratiev waves, and yet some researches have presented a technological and credit cycle explanation as well.
There are several modern timing versions of the cycle although most are based on either of two causes: one on technology and the other on the credit cycle.
Additionally, there are several versions of the technological cycles and they are best interpreted using diffusion curves of leading industries. For example, railways only started in the 1830s, with steady growth for the next 45 years. It was after Bessemer steel was introduced that railroads had their highest growth rates. However, this period is usually labeled the age of steel. Measured by value added, the leading industry in the U.S. from 1880 to 1920 was machinery, followed by iron and steel.
The technological cycles can be labeled as follows:
Any influence of technology during the cycle that began in the Industrial Revolution pertains mainly to England. The U.S. was a commodity producer and was more influenced by agricultural commodity prices. There was a commodity price cycle based on increasing consumption causing tight supplies and rising prices. That allowed new land to the west to be purchased and after four or five years to be cleared and be in production, driving down prices and causing a depression as in 1819 and 1839. By the 1850s, the U.S. was becoming industrialized.
Several papers on the relationship between technology and the economy were written by researchers at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). A concise version of Kondratiev cycles can be found in the work of Robert Ayres (1989) in which he gives a historical overview of the relationships of the most significant technologies. Cesare Marchetti published on Kondretiev waves and on the diffusion of innovations. Arnulf Grübler's book (1990) gives a detailed account of the diffusion of infrastructures including canals, railroads, highways and airlines, with findings that the principal infrastructures have midpoints spaced in time corresponding to 55-year K wavelengths, with railroads and highways taking almost a century to complete. Grübler devotes a chapter to the long economic wave. In 1996, Giancarlo Pallavicini published the ratio between the long Kondratiev wave and information technology and communication.
Korotayev et al. recently employed spectral analysis and claimed that it confirmed the presence of Kondratiev waves in the world GDP dynamics at an acceptable level of statistical significance. Korotayev et al. also detected shorter business cycles, dating the Kuznets to about 17 years and calling it the third harmonic of the Kondratiev, meaning that there are three Kuznets cycles per Kondratiev.
Leo A. Nefiodow shows that the fifth Kondratieff ended with the global economic crisis of 2000–2003 while the new, sixth Kondratieff started simultaneously. According to Leo A. Nefiodow, the carrier of this new long cycle will be health in a holistic sense—including its physical, psychological, mental, social, ecological and spiritual aspects; the basic innovations of the sixth Kondratieff are "psychosocial health" and "biotechnology".
More recently, the physicist and systems scientist Tessaleno Devezas advanced a causal model for the long wave phenomenon based on a generation-learning model and a nonlinear dynamic behaviour of information systems. In both works, a complete theory is presented containing not only the explanation for the existence of K-Waves, but also and for the first time an explanation for the timing of a K-Wave (≈60 years = two generations).
A specific modification of the theory of Kondratieff cycles was developed by Daniel Šmihula. Šmihula identified six long-waves within modern society and the capitalist economy, each of which was initiated by a specific technological revolution:
Unlike Kondratieff and Schumpeter, Šmihula believed that each new cycle is shorter than its predecessor. His main stress is put on technological progress and new technologies as decisive factors of any long-time economic development. Each of these waves has its innovation phase which is described as a technological revolution and an application phase in which the number of revolutionary innovations falls and attention focuses on exploiting and extending existing innovations. As soon as an innovation or a series of innovations becomes available, it becomes more efficient to invest in its adoption, extension and use than in creating new innovations. Each wave of technological innovations can be characterized by the area in which the most revolutionary changes took place ("leading sectors").
Every wave of innovations lasts approximately until the profits from the new innovation or sector fall to the level of other, older, more traditional sectors. It is a situation when the new technology, which originally increased a capacity to utilize new sources from nature, reached its limits and it is not possible to overcome this limit without an application of another new technology.
For the end of an application phase of any wave there are typical an economic crisis and economic stagnation. The financial crisis of 2007–2008 is a result of the coming end of the "wave of the Information and telecommunications technological revolution". Some authors have started to predict what the sixth wave might be, such as James Bradfield Moody and Bianca Nogrady who forecast that it will be driven by resource efficiency and clean technology. On the other hand, Šmihula himself considers the waves of technological innovations during the modern age (after 1600 AD) only as a part of a much longer "chain" of technological revolutions going back to the pre-modern era. It means he believes that we can find long economic cycles (analogical to Kondratiev cycles in modern economy) dependent on technological revolutions even in the Middle Ages and the Ancient era.
Long wave theory is not accepted by many academic economists. However, is important for innovation-based, development and evolutionary economics. Yet, among economists who accept it there has been no formal universal agreement about the standards that should be used universally to place start and the end years for each wave. Agreement of start and end years can be +1 to 3 years for each 40- to 65-year cycle.
Health economist and biostatistician Andreas J. W. Goldschmidt searched for patterns and proposed that there is a phase shift and overlap of the so-called Kondratiev cycles of IT and health (shown in the figure). He argued that historical growth phases in combination with key technologies does not necessarily imply the existence of regular cycles in general. Goldschmidt is of the opinion that different fundamental innovations and their economic stimuli do not exclude each other as they mostly vary in length and their benefit is not applicable to all participants in a market.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=17282
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