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Guilt (emotion)
Guilt is an emotional experience that occurs when a person believes or realizes—accurately or not—that they have compromised their own standards of conduct or have violated universal moral standards and bear significant responsibility for that violation.
Guilt is closely related to the concept of remorse as well as shame.
Guilt is an important factor in perpetuating obsessive–compulsive disorder symptoms.
Guilt and its associated causes, merits, and demerits are common themes in psychology and psychiatry. Both in specialized and in ordinary language, guilt is an affective state in which one experiences conflict at having done something that one believes one should not have done (or conversely, having not done something one believes one should have done). It gives rise to a feeling which does not go away easily, driven by 'conscience'. Sigmund Freud described this as the result of a struggle between the ego and the superego – parental imprinting. Freud rejected the role of God as punisher in times of illness or rewarder in time of wellness. While removing one source of guilt from patients, he described another. This was the unconscious force within the individual that contributed to illness, Freud in fact coming to consider "the obstacle of an unconscious sense of guilt...as the most powerful of all obstacles to recovery." For his later explicator, Lacan, guilt was the inevitable companion of the signifying subject who acknowledged normality in the form of the Symbolic order.
Alice Miller claims that "many people suffer all their lives from this oppressive feeling of guilt, the sense of not having lived up to their parents' expectations...no argument can overcome these guilt feelings, for they have their beginnings in life's earliest period, and from that they derive their intensity." This may be linked to what Les Parrott has called "the disease of false guilt...At the root of false guilt is the idea that what you "feel" must be true." If you "feel" guilty, you must "be" guilty!
The philosopher Martin Buber underlined the difference between the Freudian notion of guilt, based on internal conflicts, and "existential guilt", based on actual harm done to others.
Guilt is often associated with anxiety. In mania, according to Otto Fenichel, the patient succeeds in applying to guilt "the defense mechanism of denial by overcompensation...re-enacts being a person without guilt feelings."
In psychological research, guilt can be measured by using questionnaires, such as the Differential Emotions Scale (Izard's DES), or the Dutch Guilt Measurement Instrument.
Defenses against feeling guilt can become an overriding aspect of one's personality. The methods that can be used to avoid guilt are multiple. They include:
Feelings of guilt can prompt subsequent virtuous behavior. People who feel guilty may be more likely to exercise restraint, avoid self-indulgence, and exhibit less prejudice. Guilt appears to prompt reparatory behaviors to alleviate the negative emotions that it engenders. People appear to engage in targeted and specific reparatory behaviors toward the persons they wronged or offended.
Individuals high in psychopathy lack any true sense of guilt or remorse for harm they may have caused others. Instead, they rationalize their behavior, blame someone else, or deny it outright. A person with psychopathy has a tendency to be harmful to himself or herself and to others. They have little ability to plan ahead for the future. An individual with psychopathy will never find themselves at fault because they will do whatever it takes to benefit themselves without reservation. A person that does not feel guilt or remorse would have no reason to find themselves at fault for something that they did with the intention of hurting another person. To a person high in psychopathy, their actions can always be rationalized to be the fault of another person. This is seen by psychologists as part of a lack of moral reasoning (in comparison with the majority of humans), an inability to evaluate situations in a moral framework, and an inability to develop emotional bonds with other people due to a lack of empathy.
Some evolutionary psychologists theorize that guilt and shame helped maintain beneficial relationships, such as reciprocal altruism. If a person feels guilty when he harms another, or even fails to reciprocate kindness, he is more likely not to harm others or become too selfish. In this way, he reduces the chances of retaliation by members of his tribe, and thereby increases his survival prospects, and those of the tribe or group. As with any other emotion, guilt can be manipulated to control or influence others. As highly social animals living in large, relatively stable groups, humans need ways to deal with conflicts and events in which they inadvertently or purposefully harm others. If someone causes harm to another, and then feels guilt and demonstrates regret and sorrow, the person harmed is likely to forgive. Thus, guilt makes it possible to forgive, and helps hold the social group together.
When we see another person suffering, it can also cause us pain. This constitutes our powerful system of empathy, which leads to our thinking that we should do something to relieve the suffering of others. If we cannot help another, or fail in our efforts, we experience feelings of guilt. From the perspective of group selection, groups that are made up of a high percentage of co-operators outdo groups with a low percentage of co-operators in between-group competition. People who are more prone to high levels of empathy-based guilt may be likely to suffer from anxiety and depression; however, they are also more likely to cooperate and behave altruistically. This suggests that guilt-proneness may not always be beneficial at the level of the individual, or within-group competition, but highly beneficial in between-group competition.
Another common notion is that guilt is assigned by social processes, such as a jury trial (i. e., that it is a strictly legal concept). Thus, the ruling of a jury that O. J. Simpson or Julius Rosenberg was "guilty" or "not innocent" is taken as an actual judgment by the whole society that they must act as if they were so. By corollary, the ruling that such a person is "not guilty" may not be so taken, due to the asymmetry in the assumption that one is assumed innocent until proven guilty, and prefers to take the risk of freeing a guilty party over convicting innocents. Still others—often, but not always, theists of one type or another—believe that the origin of guilt comes from violating universal principles of right and wrong. In most instances, people who believe this also acknowledge that even though there is proper guilt from doing 'wrong' instead of doing 'right', people endure all sorts of guilty feelings which do not stem from violating universal moral principles.
Collective guilt (or group guilt) is the unpleasant and often emotional reaction that results among a group of individuals when it is perceived that the group illegitimately harmed members of another group. It is often the result of “sharing a social identity with others whose actions represent a threat to the positivity of that identity.” For an individual to experience collective guilt, he must identify himself as a part of the in-group. “This produces a perceptual shift from thinking of oneself in terms of ‘I’ and ‘me’ to ‘us’ or ‘we’.”
Guilt and shame are two closely related concepts, but they have key differences that should not be overlooked. Cultural Anthropologist Ruth Benedict describes shame as the result of a violation of cultural or social values, while guilt is conjured up internally when one’s personal morals are violated. To put it more simply, the primary difference between shame and guilt is the source that creates the emotion. Shame arises from a real or imagined negative perception coming from others and guilt arises from a negative perception of one’s own thoughts or actions.
Psychoanalyst Helen B. Lewis stated that, "The experience of shame is directly about the self, which is the focus of evaluation. In guilt, the self is not the central object of negative evaluation, but rather the thing done is the focus." An individual can still possess a positive perception of themselves while also feeling guilt for certain actions or thoughts they took part in. Contrary to guilt, Shame has a more inclusive focus on the individual as a whole. Fossum and Mason's ideas clearly outline this idea in their book Facing Shame. They state that "While guilt is a painful feeling of regret and responsibility for one's actions, shame is a painful feeling about oneself as a person.”
Shame can almost be described as looking at yourself unfavorably through the eyes of others. Psychiatrist Judith Lewis Herman portrays this idea by stating that "Shame is an acutely self-conscious state in which the self is 'split,' imagining the self in the eyes of the other; by contrast, in guilt the self is unified.” Both shame and guilt are directly related to self-perception, only shame causes the individual to account for the cultural and social beliefs of others.
Paul Gilbert talks about the powerful hold that shame can take over someone in his article Evolution, Social Roles, and the Differences in Shame and Guilt. He says that “The fear of shame and ridicule can be so strong that people will risk serious physical injury or even death to avoid it. One of the reasons for this is because shame can indicate serious damage to social acceptance and a breakdown in a variety of social relationships. The evolutionary root of shame is in a self-focused, social threat system related to competitive behavior and the need to prove oneself acceptable/desirable to others” Guilt on the other hand evolved from a place of Care-Giving and avoidance of any act that harms others.
Traditional Japanese society, Korean society and Chinese culture are sometimes said to be "shame-based" rather than "guilt-based", in that the social consequences of "getting caught" are seen as more important than the individual feelings or experiences of the agent (see the work of Ruth Benedict). The same has been said of Ancient Greek society, a culture where, in Bruno Snell's words, if "honour is destroyed the moral existence of the loser collapses."
This may lead to more of a focus on etiquette than on ethics as understood in Western civilization, leading some in Western civilizations to question why the word "ethos" was adapted from Ancient Greek with such vast differences in cultural norms. Christianity and Islam inherit most notions of guilt from Judaism, Persian, and Roman ideas, mostly as interpreted through Augustine, who adapted Plato's ideas to Christianity. The Latin word for guilt is "culpa", a word sometimes seen in law literature, for instance in "mea culpa" meaning "my fault (guilt)".
Guilt, from O.E. "gylt" "crime, sin, fault, fine, debt", derived from O.E. "gieldan" "to pay for, debt". The mistaken use for "sense of guilt" is first recorded in 1690. "Guilt by association" is first recorded in 1941. "Guilty" is from O.E. "gyltig", from "gylt".
Guilt is a main theme in John Steinbeck's "East of Eden", Fyodor Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment", Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire", William Shakespeare's play "Macbeth", Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Black Cat", and many other works of literature. In Sartre's "The Flies", the Furies (in the form of flies) represent the morbid, strangling forces of neurotic guilt which bind us to authoritarian and totalitarian power.
Guilt is a major theme in many works by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and is an almost universal concern of novelists who explore inner life and secrets.
Guilt in the Christian Bible is not merely an emotional state but is a legal state of deserving punishment. The Hebrew Bible does not have a unique word for guilt, but uses a single word to signify: "sin, the guilt of it, the punishment due unto it, and a sacrifice for it." The Greek New Testament uses a word for guilt that means "standing exposed to judgment for sin" (e. g., Romans 3:19). In what Christians call the "Old Testament", Christians believe the Bible teaches that, through sacrifice, one's sins can be forgiven (Judaism categorically rejects this idea, holding that forgiveness of sin is exclusively through repentance, and the role of sacrifices was for atonement of sins committed by accident or ignorance ). The New Testament says that this forgiveness is given as written in 1 Corinthians 15:3–4: "3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, for that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures." Some believe that the Old and New Testaments have differing opinions on the expiation of guilt because the Old Testaments were subject to the Age of Law and the New Testaments replace the Age of Law with the now current Age of Grace. However, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament salvation was granted based on God's grace and forgiveness (Gen 6:8; 19:19; Exo 33:12–17; 34:6–7). Animal sacrifices were only a symbol of the future sacrifice of Jesus Christ (Heb 10:1–4; 9–12). The whole world is guilty before God for abandoning him and his ways (Rom 3:19). In Jesus Christ, God took upon himself the sins of the world and died on the cross to pay our debt (Rom 6:23). Those who repent and accept the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for their sins, will be redeemed by God and thus not guilty before him. They will be granted eternal life which will take effect when Jesus comes the second time (1 Thess 4:13–18). In contrast to surrounding nations which addressed their guilt with human sacrifice, the Israeli authors of the Bible called that an abomination (1 Kings 11:7, Jer 32:35). The Bible agrees with pagan cultures that guilt creates a cost that someone must pay (Heb 9:22). (This assumption was expressed in the previous section, "Defences": "Guilty people punish themselves if they have no opportunity to compensate the transgression that caused them to feel guilty. It was found that self-punishment did not occur if people had an opportunity to compensate the victim of their transgression.") But unlike pagan deities who demanded it be paid by humans, God, according to the Bible, loved us enough to pay it Himself, as a good father would, while calling us His "children" and calling Himself our "father" (Mat 5:45). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12239 |
Gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from ) and atomic number 79, making it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. In a pure form, it is a bright, slightly reddish yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal and a group 11 element. It is one of the least reactive chemical elements and is solid under standard conditions. Gold often occurs in free elemental (native) form, as nuggets or grains, in rocks, in veins, and in alluvial deposits. It occurs in a solid solution series with the native element silver (as electrum) and also naturally alloyed with copper and palladium. Less commonly, it occurs in minerals as gold compounds, often with tellurium (gold tellurides).
Gold is resistant to most acids, though it does dissolve in aqua regia, a mixture of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid, which forms a soluble tetrachloroaurate anion. Gold is insoluble in nitric acid, which dissolves silver and base metals, a property that has long been used to refine gold and to confirm the presence of gold in metallic objects, giving rise to the term "acid test". Gold also dissolves in alkaline solutions of cyanide, which are used in mining and electroplating. Gold dissolves in mercury, forming amalgam alloys, but this is not a chemical reaction.
A relatively rare element, gold is a precious metal that has been used as a neutron reflector in nuclear weapons (w71), and for coinage, jewelry, and other arts throughout recorded history. In the past, a gold standard was often implemented as a monetary policy, but gold coins ceased to be minted as a circulating currency in the 1930s, and the world gold standard was abandoned for a fiat currency system after 1971.
A total of 190,040 tonnes of gold exists above ground, . This is equal to a cube with each side measuring roughly 21.3 metres. The world consumption of new gold produced is about 50% in jewelry, 40% in investments, and 10% in industry. Gold's high malleability, ductility, resistance to corrosion and most other chemical reactions, and conductivity of electricity have led to its continued use in corrosion resistant electrical connectors in all types of computerized devices (its chief industrial use). Gold is also used in infrared shielding, colored-glass production, gold leafing, and tooth restoration. Certain gold salts are still used as anti-inflammatories in medicine. , the world's largest gold producer by far was China with 440 tonnes per year.
Gold is the most malleable of all metals. It can be drawn into a monoatomic wire, and then stretched about twice before it breaks. Such nanowires distort via formation, reorientation and migration of dislocations and crystal twins without noticeable hardening. A single gram of gold can be beaten into a sheet of 1 square meter, and an avoirdupois ounce into 300 square feet. Gold leaf can be beaten thin enough to become semi-transparent. The transmitted light appears greenish blue, because gold strongly reflects yellow and red. Such semi-transparent sheets also strongly reflect infrared light, making them useful as infrared (radiant heat) shields in visors of heat-resistant suits, and in sun-visors for spacesuits. Gold is a good conductor of heat and electricity.
Gold has a density of 19.3 g/cm3, almost identical to that of tungsten at 19.25 g/cm3; as such, tungsten has been used in counterfeiting of gold bars, such as by plating a tungsten bar with gold, or taking an existing gold bar, drilling holes, and replacing the removed gold with tungsten rods. By comparison, the density of lead is 11.34 g/cm3, and that of the densest element, osmium, is .
Whereas most metals are gray or silvery white, gold is slightly reddish-yellow. This color is determined by the frequency of plasma oscillations among the metal's valence electrons, in the ultraviolet range for most metals but in the visible range for gold due to relativistic effects affecting the orbitals around gold atoms. Similar effects impart a golden hue to metallic caesium.
Common colored gold alloys include the distinctive eighteen-karat rose gold created by the addition of copper. Alloys containing palladium or nickel are also important in commercial jewelry as these produce white gold alloys. Fourteen-karat gold-copper alloy is nearly identical in color to certain bronze alloys, and both may be used to produce police and other badges. Fourteen- and eighteen-karat gold alloys with silver alone appear greenish-yellow and are referred to as green gold. Blue gold can be made by alloying with iron, and purple gold can be made by alloying with aluminium. Less commonly, addition of manganese, indium, and other elements can produce more unusual colors of gold for various applications.
Colloidal gold, used by electron-microscopists, is red if the particles are small; larger particles of colloidal gold are blue.
Gold has only one stable isotope, , which is also its only naturally occurring isotope, so gold is both a mononuclidic and monoisotopic element. Thirty-six radioisotopes have been synthesized, ranging in atomic mass from 169 to 205. The most stable of these is with a half-life of 186.1 days. The least stable is , which decays by proton emission with a half-life of 30 µs. Most of gold's radioisotopes with atomic masses below 197 decay by some combination of proton emission, α decay, and β+ decay. The exceptions are , which decays by electron capture, and , which decays most often by electron capture (93%) with a minor β− decay path (7%). All of gold's radioisotopes with atomic masses above 197 decay by β− decay.
At least 32 nuclear isomers have also been characterized, ranging in atomic mass from 170 to 200. Within that range, only , , , , and do not have isomers. Gold's most stable isomer is with a half-life of 2.27 days. Gold's least stable isomer is with a half-life of only 7 ns. has three decay paths: β+ decay, isomeric transition, and alpha decay. No other isomer or isotope of gold has three decay paths.
The production of gold from a more common element, such as lead, has long been a subject of human inquiry, and the ancient and medieval discipline of alchemy often focused on it; however, the transmutation of the chemical elements did not become possible until the understanding of nuclear physics in the 20th century. The first synthesis of gold was conducted by Japanese physicist Hantaro Nagaoka, who synthesized gold from mercury in 1924 by neutron bombardment. An American team, working without knowledge of Nagaoka's prior study, conducted the same experiment in 1941, achieving the same result and showing that the isotopes of gold produced by it were all radioactive.
Gold can currently be manufactured in a nuclear reactor by irradiation either of platinum or mercury.
Only the mercury isotope 196Hg, which occurs with a frequency of 0.15% in natural mercury, can be converted to gold by neutron capture, and following electron capture-decay into 197Au with slow neutrons. Other mercury isotopes are converted when irradiated with slow neutrons into one another, or formed mercury isotopes which beta decay into thallium.
Using fast neutrons, the mercury isotope 198Hg, which composes 9.97% of natural mercury, can be converted by splitting off a neutron and becoming 197Hg, which then disintegrates to stable gold. This reaction, however, possesses a smaller activation cross-section and is feasible only with un-moderated reactors.
It is also possible to eject several neutrons with very high energy into the other mercury isotopes in order to form 197Hg. However, such high-energy neutrons can be produced only by particle accelerators.
Although gold is the most noble of the noble metals, it still forms many diverse compounds. The oxidation state of gold in its compounds ranges from −1 to +5, but Au(I) and Au(III) dominate its chemistry. Au(I), referred to as the aurous ion, is the most common oxidation state with soft ligands such as thioethers, thiolates, and tertiary phosphines. Au(I) compounds are typically linear. A good example is Au(CN)2−, which is the soluble form of gold encountered in mining. The binary gold halides, such as AuCl, form zigzag polymeric chains, again featuring linear coordination at Au. Most drugs based on gold are Au(I) derivatives.
Au(III) (referred to as the auric) is a common oxidation state, and is illustrated by gold(III) chloride, Au2Cl6. The gold atom centers in Au(III) complexes, like other d8 compounds, are typically square planar, with chemical bonds that have both covalent and ionic character.
Gold does not react with oxygen at any temperature and, up to 100 °C, is resistant to attack from ozone.
Some free halogens react with gold. Gold is strongly attacked by fluorine at dull-red heat to form gold(III) fluoride. Powdered gold reacts with chlorine at 180 °C to form AuCl3. Gold reacts with bromine at 140 °C to form gold(III) bromide, but reacts only very slowly with iodine to form the monoiodide.
Gold does not react with sulfur directly, but gold(III) sulfide can be made by passing hydrogen sulfide through a dilute solution of gold(III) chloride or chlorauric acid.
Gold readily dissolves in mercury at room temperature to form an amalgam, and forms alloys with many other metals at higher temperatures. These alloys can be produced to modify the hardness and other metallurgical properties, to control melting point or to create exotic colors.
Gold is unaffected by most acids. It does not react with hydrofluoric, hydrochloric, hydrobromic, hydriodic, sulfuric, or nitric acid. It does react with selenic acid, and is dissolved by aqua regia, a 1:3 mixture of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid. Nitric acid oxidizes the metal to +3 ions, but only in minute amounts, typically undetectable in the pure acid because of the chemical equilibrium of the reaction. However, the ions are removed from the equilibrium by hydrochloric acid, forming AuCl4− ions, or chloroauric acid, thereby enabling further oxidation.
Gold is similarly unaffected by most bases. It does not react with aqueous, solid, or molten sodium or potassium hydroxide. It does however, react with sodium or potassium cyanide under alkaline conditions when oxygen is present to form soluble complexes.
Common oxidation states of gold include +1 (gold(I) or aurous compounds) and +3 (gold(III) or auric compounds). Gold ions in solution are readily reduced and precipitated as metal by adding any other metal as the reducing agent. The added metal is oxidized and dissolves, allowing the gold to be displaced from solution and be recovered as a solid precipitate.
Less common oxidation states of gold include −1, +2, and +5.
The −1 oxidation state occurs in aurides, compounds containing the Au− anion. Caesium auride (CsAu), for example, crystallizes in the caesium chloride motif; rubidium, potassium, and tetramethylammonium aurides are also known. Gold has the highest electron affinity of any metal, at 222.8 kJ/mol, making Au− a stable species.
Gold(II) compounds are usually diamagnetic with Au–Au bonds such as [Au(CH2)2P(C6H5)2]2Cl2. The evaporation of a solution of in concentrated produces red crystals of gold(II) sulfate, Au2(SO4)2. Originally thought to be a mixed-valence compound, it has been shown to contain cations, analogous to the better-known mercury(I) ion, . A gold(II) complex, the tetraxenonogold(II) cation, which contains xenon as a ligand, occurs in [AuXe4](Sb2F11)2.
Gold pentafluoride, along with its derivative anion, , and its difluorine complex, gold heptafluoride, is the sole example of gold(V), the highest verified oxidation state.
Some gold compounds exhibit "aurophilic bonding", which describes the tendency of gold ions to interact at distances that are too long to be a conventional Au–Au bond but shorter than van der Waals bonding. The interaction is estimated to be comparable in strength to that of a hydrogen bond.
Well-defined cluster compounds are numerous. In such cases, gold has a fractional oxidation state. A representative example is the octahedral species {Au(P(C6H5)3)}62+. Gold chalcogenides, such as gold sulfide, feature equal amounts of Au(I) and Au(III).
Medicinal applications of gold and its complexes have a long history dating back thousands of years. Several gold complexes have been applied to treat rheumatoid arthritis, the most frequently used being aurothiomalate, aurothioglucose, and auranofin. Both gold(I) and gold(III) compounds have been investigated as possible anti-cancer drugs. For gold(III) complexes, reduction to gold(0/I) under physiological conditions has to be considered. Stable complexes can be generated using different types of bi-, tri-, and tetradentate ligand systems, and their efficacy has been demonstrated in vitro and in vivo.
Gold is thought to have been produced in supernova nucleosynthesis, and from the collision of neutron stars, and to have been present in the dust from which the Solar System formed.
Traditionally, gold in the universe is thought to have formed by the r-process (rapid neutron capture) in supernova nucleosynthesis, but more recently it has been suggested that gold and other elements heavier than iron may also be produced in quantity by the r-process in the collision of neutron stars. In both cases, satellite spectrometers at first only indirectly detected the resulting gold. However, in August 2017, the spectrascopic signatures of heavy elements, including gold, were observed by electromagnetic observatories in the GW170817 neutron star merger event, after gravitational wave detectors confirmed the event as a neutron star merger. Current astrophysical models suggest that this single neutron star merger event generated between 3 and 13 Earth masses of gold. This amount, along with estimations of the rate of occurrence of these neutron star merger events, suggests that such mergers may produce enough gold to account for most of the abundance of this element in the universe.
Because the Earth was molten when it was formed, almost all of the gold present in the early Earth probably sank into the planetary core. Therefore, most of the gold that is in the Earth's crust and mantle has in one model thought to have been delivered to Earth later, by asteroid impacts during the Late Heavy Bombardment, about 4 billion years ago.
Gold which is reachable by humans has, in one case, been associated with a particular asteroid impact. The asteroid that formed Vredefort crater 2.020 billion years ago is often credited with seeding the Witwatersrand basin in South Africa with the richest gold deposits on earth. However, this scenario is now questioned. The gold-bearing Witwatersrand rocks were laid down between 700 and 950 million years before the Vredefort impact. These gold-bearing rocks had furthermore been covered by a thick layer of Ventersdorp lavas and the Transvaal Supergroup of rocks before the meteor struck, and thus the gold did not actually arrive in the asteroid/meteorite. What the Vredefort impact achieved, however, was to distort the Witwatersrand basin in such a way that the gold-bearing rocks were brought to the present erosion surface in Johannesburg, on the Witwatersrand, just inside the rim of the original 300 km diameter crater caused by the meteor strike. The discovery of the deposit in 1886 launched the Witwatersrand Gold Rush. Some 22% of all the gold that is ascertained to exist today on Earth has been extracted from these Witwatersrand rocks.
Notwithstanding the impact above, much of the rest of the gold on Earth is thought to have been incorporated into the planet since its very beginning, as planetesimals formed the planet's mantle, early in Earth's creation. In 2017, an international group of scientists, established that gold "came to the Earth's surface from the deepest regions of our planet", the mantle, evidenced by their findings at Deseado Massif in the Argentinian Patagonia.
On Earth, gold is found in ores in rock formed from the Precambrian time onward. It most often occurs as a native metal, typically in a metal solid solution with silver (i.e. as a gold silver alloy). Such alloys usually have a silver content of 8–10%. Electrum is elemental gold with more than 20% silver. Electrum's color runs from golden-silvery to silvery, dependent upon the silver content. The more silver, the lower the specific gravity.
Native gold occurs as very small to microscopic particles embedded in rock, often together with quartz or sulfide minerals such as "fool's gold", which is a pyrite. These are called lode deposits. The metal in a native state is also found in the form of free flakes, grains or larger nuggets that have been eroded from rocks and end up in alluvial deposits called placer deposits. Such free gold is always richer at the surface of gold-bearing veins owing to the oxidation of accompanying minerals followed by weathering, and washing of the dust into streams and rivers, where it collects and can be welded by water action to form nuggets.
Gold sometimes occurs combined with tellurium as the minerals calaverite, krennerite, nagyagite, petzite and sylvanite (see telluride minerals), and as the rare bismuthide maldonite (Au2Bi) and antimonide aurostibite (AuSb2). Gold also occurs in rare alloys with copper, lead, and mercury: the minerals auricupride (Cu3Au), novodneprite (AuPb3) and weishanite ((Au, Ag)3Hg2).
Recent research suggests that microbes can sometimes play an important role in forming gold deposits, transporting and precipitating gold to form grains and nuggets that collect in alluvial deposits.
Another recent study has claimed water in faults vaporizes during an earthquake, depositing gold. When an earthquake strikes, it moves along a fault. Water often lubricates faults, filling in fractures and jogs. About 6 miles (10 kilometers) below the surface, under incredible temperatures and pressures, the water carries high concentrations of carbon dioxide, silica, and gold. During an earthquake, the fault jog suddenly opens wider. The water inside the void instantly vaporizes, flashing to steam and forcing silica, which forms the mineral quartz, and gold out of the fluids and onto nearby surfaces.
The world's oceans contain gold. Measured concentrations of gold in the Atlantic and Northeast Pacific are 50–150 femtomol/L or 10–30 parts per quadrillion (about 10–30 g/km3). In general, gold concentrations for south Atlantic and central Pacific samples are the same (~50 femtomol/L) but less certain. Mediterranean deep waters contain slightly higher concentrations of gold (100–150 femtomol/L) attributed to wind-blown dust and/or rivers. At 10 parts per quadrillion the Earth's oceans would hold 15,000 tonnes of gold. These figures are three orders of magnitude less than reported in the literature prior to 1988, indicating contamination problems with the earlier data.
A number of people have claimed to be able to economically recover gold from sea water, but they were either mistaken or acted in an intentional deception. Prescott Jernegan ran a gold-from-seawater swindle in the United States in the 1890s, as did an English fraudster in the early 1900s. Fritz Haber did research on the extraction of gold from sea water in an effort to help pay Germany's reparations following World War I. Based on the published values of 2 to 64 ppb of gold in seawater a commercially successful extraction seemed possible. After analysis of 4,000 water samples yielding an average of 0.004 ppb it became clear that extraction would not be possible and he stopped the project.
The earliest recorded metal employed by humans appears to be gold, which can be found free or "native". Small amounts of natural gold have been found in Spanish caves used during the late Paleolithic period, c. 40,000 BC. Gold artifacts made their first appearance at the very beginning of the pre-dynastic period in Egypt, at the end of the fifth millennium BC and the start of the fourth, and smelting was developed during the course of the 4th millennium; gold artifacts appear in the archeology of Lower Mesopotamia during the early 4th millennium. Gold artifacts in the Balkans appear from the 4th millennium BC, such as those found in the Varna Necropolis near Lake Varna in Bulgaria, thought by one source (La Niece 2009) to be the earliest "well-dated" find of gold artifacts. As of 1990, gold artifacts found at the Wadi Qana cave cemetery of the 4th millennium BC in West Bank were the earliest from the Levant. Gold artifacts such as the golden hats and the Nebra disk appeared in Central Europe from the 2nd millennium BC Bronze Age.
The oldest known map of a gold mine was drawn in the 19th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt (1320–1200 BC), whereas the first written reference to gold was recorded in the 12th Dynasty around 1900 BC. Egyptian hieroglyphs from as early as 2600 BC describe gold, which King Tushratta of the Mitanni claimed was "more plentiful than dirt" in Egypt. Egypt and especially Nubia had the resources to make them major gold-producing areas for much of history. One of the earliest known maps, known as the Turin Papyrus Map, shows the plan of a gold mine in Nubia together with indications of the local geology. The primitive working methods are described by both Strabo and Diodorus Siculus, and included fire-setting. Large mines were also present across the Red Sea in what is now Saudi Arabia.
Gold is mentioned in the Amarna letters numbered 19 and 26 from around the 14th century BC.
Gold is mentioned frequently in the Old Testament, starting with Genesis 2:11 (at Havilah), the story of the golden calf, and many parts of the temple including the Menorah and the golden altar. In the New Testament, it is included with the gifts of the magi in the first chapters of Matthew. The Book of Revelation 21:21 describes the city of New Jerusalem as having streets "made of pure gold, clear as crystal". Exploitation of gold in the south-east corner of the Black Sea is said to date from the time of Midas, and this gold was important in the establishment of what is probably the world's earliest coinage in Lydia around 610 BC. The legend of the golden fleece dating from eighth century BCE may refer to the use of fleeces to trap gold dust from placer deposits in the ancient world. From the 6th or 5th century BC, the Chu (state) circulated the Ying Yuan, one kind of square gold coin.
In Roman metallurgy, new methods for extracting gold on a large scale were developed by introducing hydraulic mining methods, especially in Hispania from 25 BC onwards and in Dacia from 106 AD onwards. One of their largest mines was at Las Medulas in León, where seven long aqueducts enabled them to sluice most of a large alluvial deposit. The mines at Roşia Montană in Transylvania were also very large, and until very recently, still mined by opencast methods. They also exploited smaller deposits in Britain, such as placer and hard-rock deposits at Dolaucothi. The various methods they used are well described by Pliny the Elder in his encyclopedia "Naturalis Historia" written towards the end of the first century AD.
During Mansa Musa's (ruler of the Mali Empire from 1312 to 1337) hajj to Mecca in 1324, he passed through Cairo in July 1324, and was reportedly accompanied by a camel train that included thousands of people and nearly a hundred camels where he gave away so much gold that it depressed the price in Egypt for over a decade, causing high inflation. A contemporary Arab historian remarked:
The European exploration of the Americas was fueled in no small part by reports of the gold ornaments displayed in great profusion by Native American peoples, especially in Mesoamerica, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. The Aztecs regarded gold as the product of the gods, calling it literally "god excrement" ("teocuitlatl" in Nahuatl), and after Moctezuma II was killed, most of this gold was shipped to Spain. However, for the indigenous peoples of North America gold was considered useless and they saw much greater value in other minerals which were directly related to their utility, such as obsidian, flint, and slate. El Dorado is applied to a legendary story in which precious stones were found in fabulous abundance along with gold coins. The concept of El Dorado underwent several transformations, and eventually accounts of the previous myth were also combined with those of a legendary lost city. El Dorado, was the term used by the Spanish Empire to describe a mythical tribal chief (zipa) of the Muisca native people in Colombia, who, as an initiation rite, covered himself with gold dust and submerged in Lake Guatavita. The legends surrounding El Dorado changed over time, as it went from being a man, to a city, to a kingdom, and then finally to an empire.
Gold played a role in western culture, as a cause for desire and of corruption, as told in children's fables such as Rumpelstiltskin—where Rumpelstiltskin turns hay into gold for the peasant's daughter in return for her child when she becomes a princess—and the stealing of the hen that lays golden eggs in Jack and the Beanstalk.
The top prize at the Olympic Games and many other sports competitions is the gold medal.
75% of the presently accounted for gold has been extracted since 1910. It has been estimated that the currently known amount of gold internationally would form a single cube 20 m (66 ft) on a side (equivalent to 8,000 m3).
One main goal of the alchemists was to produce gold from other substances, such as lead — presumably by the interaction with a mythical substance called the philosopher's stone. Although they never succeeded in this attempt, the alchemists did promote an interest in systematically finding out what can be done with substances, and this laid the foundation for today's chemistry. Their symbol for gold was the circle with a point at its center (☉), which was also the astrological symbol and the ancient Chinese character for the Sun.
The Dome of the Rock is covered with an ultra-thin golden glassier. The Sikh Golden temple, the Harmandir Sahib, is a building covered with gold. Similarly the Wat Phra Kaew emerald Buddhist temple (wat) in Thailand has ornamental gold-leafed statues and roofs. Some European king and queen's crowns were made of gold, and gold was used for the bridal crown since antiquity. An ancient Talmudic text circa 100 AD describes Rachel, wife of Rabbi Akiva, receiving a "Jerusalem of Gold" (diadem). A Greek burial crown made of gold was found in a grave circa 370 BC.
"Gold" is cognate with similar words in many Germanic languages, deriving via Proto-Germanic *"gulþą" from Proto-Indo-European *"ǵʰelh₃-" ("to shine, to gleam; to be yellow or green").
The symbol "Au" is from the , the Latin word for "gold". The Proto-Indo-European ancestor of "aurum" was "*h₂é-h₂us-o-", meaning "glow". This word is derived from the same root (Proto-Indo-European "*h₂u̯es-" "to dawn") as "*h₂éu̯sōs", the ancestor of the Latin word Aurora, "dawn". This etymological relationship is presumably behind the frequent claim in scientific publications that "aurum" meant "shining dawn".
Outside chemistry, gold is mentioned in a variety of expressions, most often associated with intrinsic worth. Great human achievements are frequently rewarded with gold, in the form of gold medals, gold trophies and other decorations. Winners of athletic events and other graded competitions are usually awarded a gold medal. Many awards such as the Nobel Prize are made from gold as well. Other award statues and prizes are depicted in gold or are gold plated (such as the Academy Awards, the Golden Globe Awards, the Emmy Awards, the Palme d'Or, and the British Academy Film Awards).
Aristotle in his ethics used gold symbolism when referring to what is now known as the golden mean. Similarly, gold is associated with perfect or divine principles, such as in the case of the golden ratio and the golden rule.
Gold is further associated with the wisdom of aging and fruition. The fiftieth wedding anniversary is golden. A person's most valued or most successful latter years are sometimes considered "golden years". The height of a civilization is referred to as a golden age.
In some forms of Christianity and Judaism, gold has been associated both with holiness and evil. In the Book of Exodus, the Golden Calf is a symbol of idolatry, while in the Book of Genesis, Abraham was said to be rich in gold and silver, and Moses was instructed to cover the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant with pure gold. In Byzantine iconography the halos of Christ, Mary and the Christian saints are often golden.
In Islam, gold (along with silk) is often cited as being forbidden for men to wear. Abu Bakr al-Jazaeri, quoting a hadith, said that "[t]he wearing of silk and gold are forbidden on the males of my nation, and they are lawful to their women". This, however, has not been enforced consistently throughout history, e.g. in the Ottoman Empire. Further, small gold accents on clothing, such as in embroidery, may be permitted.
According to Christopher Columbus, those who had something of gold were in possession of something of great value on Earth and a substance to even help souls to paradise.
Wedding rings are typically made of gold. It is long lasting and unaffected by the passage of time and may aid in the ring symbolism of eternal vows before God and the perfection the marriage signifies. In Orthodox Christian wedding ceremonies, the wedded couple is adorned with a golden crown (though some opt for wreaths, instead) during the ceremony, an amalgamation of symbolic rites.
The World Gold Council states that as of the end of 2017, "there were 187,200 tonnes of stocks in existence above ground". This can be represented by a cube with an edge length of about 21 meters. At $1,349 per troy ounce, 187,200 metric tonnes of gold would have a value of $8.9 trillion. According to the United States Geological Survey in 2016, about of gold has been produced since the beginning of civilization, of which 85% remains in use.
In 2017, the world's largest gold producer by far was China with 440 tonnes. The second-largest producer, Australia, mined 300 tonnes in the same year, followed by Russia with 255 tonnes.
Since the 1880s, South Africa has been the source of a large proportion of the world's gold supply, and about 22% of the gold presently accounted is from South Africa. Production in 1970 accounted for 79% of the world supply, about 1,480 tonnes. In 2007 China (with 276 tonnes) overtook South Africa as the world's largest gold producer, the first time since 1905 that South Africa has not been the largest.
, China was the world's leading gold-mining country, followed in order by Australia, Russia, the United States, Canada, and Peru. South Africa, which had dominated world gold production for most of the 20th century, had declined to sixth place. Other major producers are the Ghana, Burkina Faso, Mali, Indonesia and Uzbekistan.
In South America, the controversial project Pascua Lama aims at exploitation of rich fields in the high mountains of Atacama Desert, at the border between Chile and Argentina.
Today about one-quarter of the world gold output is estimated to originate from artisanal or small scale mining.
The city of Johannesburg located in South Africa was founded as a result of the Witwatersrand Gold Rush which resulted in the discovery of some of the largest natural gold deposits in recorded history. The gold fields are confined to the northern and north-western edges of the Witwatersrand basin, which is a 5–7 km thick layer of archean rocks located, in most places, deep under the Free State, Gauteng and surrounding provinces. These Witwatersrand rocks are exposed at the surface on the Witwatersrand, in and around Johannesburg, but also in isolated patches to the south-east and south-west of Johannesburg, as well as in an arc around the Vredefort Dome which lies close to the center of the Witwatersrand basin. From these surface exposures the basin dips extensively, requiring some of the mining to occur at depths of nearly 4000 m, making them, especially the Savuka and TauTona mines to the south-west of Johannesburg, the deepest mines on earth. The gold is found only in six areas where archean rivers from the north and north-west formed extensive pebbly Braided river deltas before draining into the "Witwatersrand sea" where the rest of the Witwatersrand sediments were deposited.
The Second Boer War of 1899–1901 between the British Empire and the Afrikaner Boers was at least partly over the rights of miners and possession of the gold wealth in South Africa.
During the 19th century, gold rushes occurred whenever large gold deposits were discovered. The first documented discovery of gold in the United States was at the Reed Gold Mine near Georgeville, North Carolina in 1803. The first major gold strike in the United States occurred in a small north Georgia town called Dahlonega. Further gold rushes occurred in California, Colorado, the Black Hills, Otago in New Zealand, Australia, Witwatersrand in South Africa, and the Klondike in Canada.
Gold extraction is most economical in large, easily mined deposits. Ore grades as little as 0.5 parts per million (ppm) can be economical. Typical ore grades in open-pit mines are 1–5 ppm; ore grades in underground or hard rock mines are usually at least 3 ppm. Because ore grades of 30 ppm are usually needed before gold is visible to the naked eye, in most gold mines the gold is invisible.
The average gold mining and extraction costs were about $317 per troy ounce in 2007, but these can vary widely depending on mining type and ore quality; global mine production amounted to 2,471.1 tonnes.
After initial production, gold is often subsequently refined industrially by the Wohlwill process which is based on electrolysis or by the Miller process, that is chlorination in the melt. The Wohlwill process results in higher purity, but is more complex and is only applied in small-scale installations. Other methods of assaying and purifying smaller amounts of gold include parting and inquartation as well as cupellation, or refining methods based on the dissolution of gold in aqua regia.
The consumption of gold produced in the world is about 50% in jewelry, 40% in investments, and 10% in industry.
According to World Gold Council, China is the world's largest single consumer of gold in 2013 and toppled India for the first time with Chinese consumption increasing by 32 percent in a year, while that of India only rose by 13 percent and world consumption rose by 21 percent. Unlike India where gold is mainly used for jewelry, China uses gold for manufacturing and retail.
Gold production is associated with contribution to hazardous pollution.
Low-grade gold ore may contain less than one ppm gold metal; such ore is ground and mixed with sodium cyanide to dissolve the gold. Cyanide is a highly poisonous chemical, which can kill living creatures when exposed in minute quantities. Many cyanide spills from gold mines have occurred in both developed and developing countries which killed aquatic life in long stretches of affected rivers. Environmentalists consider these events major environmental disasters. Thirty tons of used ore is dumped as waste for producing one troy ounce of gold. Gold ore dumps are the source of many heavy elements such as cadmium, lead, zinc, copper, arsenic, selenium and mercury. When sulfide-bearing minerals in these ore dumps are exposed to air and water, the sulfide transforms into sulfuric acid which in turn dissolves these heavy metals facilitating their passage into surface water and ground water. This process is called acid mine drainage. These gold ore dumps are long term, highly hazardous wastes second only to nuclear waste dumps.
It was once common to use mercury to recover gold from ore, but today the use of mercury is largely limited to small-scale individual miners. Minute quantities of mercury compounds can reach water bodies, causing heavy metal contamination. Mercury can then enter into the human food chain in the form of methylmercury. Mercury poisoning in humans causes incurable brain function damage and severe retardation.
Gold extraction is also a highly energy intensive industry, extracting ore from deep mines and grinding the large quantity of ore for further chemical extraction requires nearly 25 kWh of electricity per gram of gold produced.
Gold has been widely used throughout the world as money, for efficient indirect exchange (versus barter), and to store wealth in hoards. For exchange purposes, mints produce standardized gold bullion coins, bars and other units of fixed weight and purity.
The first known coins containing gold were struck in Lydia, Asia Minor, around 600 BC. The "talent" coin of gold in use during the periods of Grecian history both before and during the time of the life of Homer weighed between 8.42 and 8.75 grams. From an earlier preference in using silver, European economies re-established the minting of gold as coinage during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
Bills (that mature into gold coin) and gold certificates (convertible into gold coin at the issuing bank) added to the circulating stock of gold standard money in most 19th century industrial economies.
In preparation for World War I the warring nations moved to fractional gold standards, inflating their currencies to finance the war effort.
Post-war, the victorious countries, most notably Britain, gradually restored gold-convertibility, but international flows of gold via bills of exchange remained embargoed; international shipments were made exclusively for bilateral trades or to pay war reparations.
After World War II gold was replaced by a system of nominally convertible currencies related by fixed exchange rates following the Bretton Woods system. Gold standards and the direct convertibility of currencies to gold have been abandoned by world governments, led in 1971 by the United States' refusal to redeem its dollars in gold. Fiat currency now fills most monetary roles. Switzerland was the last country to tie its currency to gold; it backed 40% of its value until the Swiss joined the International Monetary Fund in 1999.
Central banks continue to keep a portion of their liquid reserves as gold in some form, and metals exchanges such as the London Bullion Market Association still clear transactions denominated in gold, including future delivery contracts.
Today, gold mining output is declining.
With the sharp growth of economies in the 20th century, and increasing foreign exchange, the world's gold reserves and their trading market have become a small fraction of all markets and fixed exchange rates of currencies to gold have been replaced by floating prices for gold and gold future contract.
Though the gold stock grows by only 1 or 2% per year, very little metal is irretrievably consumed. Inventory above ground would satisfy many decades of industrial and even artisan uses at current prices.
The gold proportion (fineness) of alloys is measured by karat (k). Pure gold (commercially termed "fine" gold) is designated as 24 karat, abbreviated 24k. English gold coins intended for circulation from 1526 into the 1930s were typically a standard 22k alloy called crown gold, for hardness (American gold coins for circulation after 1837 contain an alloy of 0.900 fine gold, or 21.6 kt).
Although the prices of some platinum group metals can be much higher, gold has long been considered the most desirable of precious metals, and its value has been used as the standard for many currencies. Gold has been used as a symbol for purity, value, royalty, and particularly roles that combine these properties. Gold as a sign of wealth and prestige was ridiculed by Thomas More in his treatise "Utopia". On that imaginary island, gold is so abundant that it is used to make chains for slaves, tableware, and lavatory seats. When ambassadors from other countries arrive, dressed in ostentatious gold jewels and badges, the Utopians mistake them for menial servants, paying homage instead to the most modestly dressed of their party.
The ISO 4217 currency code of gold is XAU. Many holders of gold store it in form of bullion coins or bars as a hedge against inflation or other economic disruptions, though its efficacy as such has been questioned; historically, it has not proven itself reliable as a hedging instrument. Modern bullion coins for investment or collector purposes do not require good mechanical wear properties; they are typically fine gold at 24k, although the American Gold Eagle and the British gold sovereign continue to be minted in 22k (0.92) metal in historical tradition, and the South African Krugerrand, first released in 1967, is also 22k (0.92).
The "special issue" Canadian Gold Maple Leaf coin contains the highest purity gold of any bullion coin, at 99.999% or 0.99999, while the "popular issue" Canadian Gold Maple Leaf coin has a purity of 99.99%. In 2006, the United States Mint began producing the American Buffalo gold bullion coin with a purity of 99.99%. The Australian Gold Kangaroos were first coined in 1986 as the Australian Gold Nugget but changed the reverse design in 1989. Other modern coins include the Austrian Vienna Philharmonic bullion coin and the Chinese Gold Panda.
, gold is valued at around $42 per gram ($1,300 per troy ounce).
Like other precious metals, gold is measured by troy weight and by grams. The proportion of gold in the alloy is measured by "karat" (k), with 24 karat (24k) being pure gold, and lower karat numbers proportionally less. The purity of a gold bar or coin can also be expressed as a decimal figure ranging from 0 to 1, known as the millesimal fineness, such as 0.995 being nearly pure.
The price of gold is determined through trading in the gold and derivatives markets, but a procedure known as the Gold Fixing in London, originating in September 1919, provides a daily benchmark price to the industry. The afternoon fixing was introduced in 1968 to provide a price when US markets are open.
Historically gold coinage was widely used as currency; when paper money was introduced, it typically was a receipt redeemable for gold coin or bullion. In a monetary system known as the gold standard, a certain weight of gold was given the name of a unit of currency. For a long period, the United States government set the value of the US dollar so that one troy ounce was equal to $20.67 ($0.665 per gram), but in 1934 the dollar was devalued to $35.00 per troy ounce ($0.889/g). By 1961, it was becoming hard to maintain this price, and a pool of US and European banks agreed to manipulate the market to prevent further currency devaluation against increased gold demand.
On 17 March 1968, economic circumstances caused the collapse of the gold pool, and a two-tiered pricing scheme was established whereby gold was still used to settle international accounts at the old $35.00 per troy ounce ($1.13/g) but the price of gold on the private market was allowed to fluctuate; this two-tiered pricing system was abandoned in 1975 when the price of gold was left to find its free-market level. Central banks still hold historical gold reserves as a store of value although the level has generally been declining. The largest gold depository in the world is that of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank in New York, which holds about 3% of the gold known to exist and accounted for today, as does the similarly laden U.S. Bullion Depository at Fort Knox.
In 2005 the World Gold Council estimated total global gold supply to be 3,859 tonnes and demand to be 3,754 tonnes, giving a surplus of 105 tonnes.
After 15 August 1971 Nixon shock, the price began to greatly increase, and between 1968 and 2000 the price of gold ranged widely, from a high of $850 per troy ounce ($27.33/g) on 21 January 1980, to a low of $252.90 per troy ounce ($8.13/g) on 21 June 1999 (London Gold Fixing). Prices increased rapidly from 2001, but the 1980 high was not exceeded until 3 January 2008, when a new maximum of $865.35 per troy ounce was set. Another record price was set on 17 March 2008, at $1023.50 per troy ounce ($32.91/g).
In late 2009, gold markets experienced renewed momentum upwards due to increased demand and a weakening US dollar. On 2 December 2009, gold reached a new high closing at $1,217.23. Gold further rallied hitting new highs in May 2010 after the European Union debt crisis prompted further purchase of gold as a safe asset. On 1 March 2011, gold hit a new all-time high of $1432.57, based on investor concerns regarding ongoing unrest in North Africa as well as in the Middle East.
From April 2001 to August 2011, spot gold prices more than quintupled in value against the US dollar, hitting a new all-time high of $1,913.50 on 23 August 2011, prompting speculation that the long secular bear market had ended and a bull market had returned. However, the price then began a slow decline towards $1200 per troy ounce in late 2014 and 2015.
Because of the softness of pure (24k) gold, it is usually alloyed with base metals for use in jewelry, altering its hardness and ductility, melting point, color and other properties. Alloys with lower karat rating, typically 22k, 18k, 14k or 10k, contain higher percentages of copper or other base metals or silver or palladium in the alloy. Nickel is toxic, and its release from nickel white gold is controlled by legislation in Europe. Palladium-gold alloys are more expensive than those using nickel. High-karat white gold alloys are more resistant to corrosion than are either pure silver or sterling silver. The Japanese craft of Mokume-gane exploits the color contrasts between laminated colored gold alloys to produce decorative wood-grain effects.
By 2014, the gold jewelry industry was escalating despite a dip in gold prices. Demand in the first quarter of 2014 pushed turnover to $23.7 billion according to a World Gold Council report.
Gold solder is used for joining the components of gold jewelry by high-temperature hard soldering or brazing. If the work is to be of hallmarking quality, the gold solder alloy must match the fineness (purity) of the work, and alloy formulas are manufactured to color-match yellow and white gold. Gold solder is usually made in at least three melting-point ranges referred to as Easy, Medium and Hard. By using the hard, high-melting point solder first, followed by solders with progressively lower melting points, goldsmiths can assemble complex items with several separate soldered joints. Gold can also be made into thread and used in embroidery.
Only 10% of the world consumption of new gold produced goes to industry, but by far the most important industrial use for new gold is in fabrication of corrosion-free electrical connectors in computers and other electrical devices. For example, according to the World Gold Council, a typical cell phone may contain 50 mg of gold, worth about 50 cents. But since nearly one billion cell phones are produced each year, a gold value of 50 cents in each phone adds to $500 million in gold from just this application.
Though gold is attacked by free chlorine, its good conductivity and general resistance to oxidation and corrosion in other environments (including resistance to non-chlorinated acids) has led to its widespread industrial use in the electronic era as a thin-layer coating on electrical connectors, thereby ensuring good connection. For example, gold is used in the connectors of the more expensive electronics cables, such as audio, video and USB cables. The benefit of using gold over other connector metals such as tin in these applications has been debated; gold connectors are often criticized by audio-visual experts as unnecessary for most consumers and seen as simply a marketing ploy. However, the use of gold in other applications in electronic sliding contacts in highly humid or corrosive atmospheres, and in use for contacts with a very high failure cost (certain computers, communications equipment, spacecraft, jet aircraft engines) remains very common.
Besides sliding electrical contacts, gold is also used in electrical contacts because of its resistance to corrosion, electrical conductivity, ductility and lack of toxicity. Switch contacts are generally subjected to more intense corrosion stress than are sliding contacts. Fine gold wires are used to connect semiconductor devices to their packages through a process known as wire bonding.
The concentration of free electrons in gold metal is 5.91×1022 cm−3. Gold is highly conductive to electricity, and has been used for electrical wiring in some high-energy applications (only silver and copper are more conductive per volume, but gold has the advantage of corrosion resistance). For example, gold electrical wires were used during some of the Manhattan Project's atomic experiments, but large high-current silver wires were used in the calutron isotope separator magnets in the project.
It is estimated that 16% of the world's presently-accounted-for gold and 22% of the world's silver is contained in electronic technology in Japan.
Metallic and gold compounds have long been used for medicinal purposes. Gold, usually as the metal, is perhaps the most anciently administered medicine (apparently by shamanic practitioners) and known to Dioscorides. In medieval times, gold was often seen as beneficial for the health, in the belief that something so rare and beautiful could not be anything but healthy. Even some modern esotericists and forms of alternative medicine assign metallic gold a healing power.
In the 19th century gold had a reputation as a "nervine", a therapy for nervous disorders. Depression, epilepsy, migraine, and glandular problems such as amenorrhea and impotence were treated, and most notably alcoholism (Keeley, 1897).
The apparent paradox of the actual toxicology of the substance suggests the possibility of serious gaps in the understanding of the action of gold in physiology. Only salts and radioisotopes of gold are of pharmacological value, since elemental (metallic) gold is inert to all chemicals it encounters inside the body (i.e., ingested gold cannot be attacked by stomach acid). Some gold salts do have anti-inflammatory properties and at present two are still used as pharmaceuticals in the treatment of arthritis and other similar conditions in the US (sodium aurothiomalate and auranofin). These drugs have been explored as a means to help to reduce the pain and swelling of rheumatoid arthritis, and also (historically) against tuberculosis and some parasites.
Gold alloys are used in restorative dentistry, especially in tooth restorations, such as crowns and permanent bridges. The gold alloys' slight malleability facilitates the creation of a superior molar mating surface with other teeth and produces results that are generally more satisfactory than those produced by the creation of porcelain crowns. The use of gold crowns in more prominent teeth such as incisors is favored in some cultures and discouraged in others.
Colloidal gold preparations (suspensions of gold nanoparticles) in water are intensely red-colored, and can be made with tightly controlled particle sizes up to a few tens of nanometers across by reduction of gold chloride with citrate or ascorbate ions. Colloidal gold is used in research applications in medicine, biology and materials science. The technique of immunogold labeling exploits the ability of the gold particles to adsorb protein molecules onto their surfaces. Colloidal gold particles coated with specific antibodies can be used as probes for the presence and position of antigens on the surfaces of cells. In ultrathin sections of tissues viewed by electron microscopy, the immunogold labels appear as extremely dense round spots at the position of the antigen.
Gold, or alloys of gold and palladium, are applied as conductive coating to biological specimens and other non-conducting materials such as plastics and glass to be viewed in a scanning electron microscope. The coating, which is usually applied by sputtering with an argon plasma, has a triple role in this application. Gold's very high electrical conductivity drains electrical charge to earth, and its very high density provides stopping power for electrons in the electron beam, helping to limit the depth to which the electron beam penetrates the specimen. This improves definition of the position and topography of the specimen surface and increases the spatial resolution of the image. Gold also produces a high output of secondary electrons when irradiated by an electron beam, and these low-energy electrons are the most commonly used signal source used in the scanning electron microscope.
The isotope gold-198 (half-life 2.7 days) is used in nuclear medicine, in some cancer treatments and for treating other diseases.
Pure metallic (elemental) gold is non-toxic and non-irritating when ingested and is sometimes used as a food decoration in the form of gold leaf. Metallic gold is also a component of the alcoholic drinks Goldschläger, Gold Strike, and Goldwasser. Metallic gold is approved as a food additive in the EU (E175 in the Codex Alimentarius). Although the gold ion is toxic, the acceptance of metallic gold as a food additive is due to its relative chemical inertness, and resistance to being corroded or transformed into soluble salts (gold compounds) by any known chemical process which would be encountered in the human body.
Soluble compounds (gold salts) such as gold chloride are toxic to the liver and kidneys. Common cyanide salts of gold such as potassium gold cyanide, used in gold electroplating, are toxic by virtue of both their cyanide and gold content. There are rare cases of lethal gold poisoning from potassium gold cyanide. Gold toxicity can be ameliorated with chelation therapy with an agent such as dimercaprol.
Gold metal was voted Allergen of the Year in 2001 by the American Contact Dermatitis Society; gold contact allergies affect mostly women. Despite this, gold is a relatively non-potent contact allergen, in comparison with metals like nickel.
A sample of the fungus "Aspergillus niger" was found growing from gold mining solution; and was found to contain cyano metal complexes, such as gold, silver, copper, iron and zinc. The fungus also plays a role in the solubilization of heavy metal sulfides. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12240 |
Gallium
Gallium is a chemical element with the symbol Ga and atomic number 31. Elemental gallium is a soft, silvery blue metal at standard temperature and pressure; however in its liquid state it becomes silvery white. If too much force is applied, the gallium may fracture conchoidally. It is in group 13 of the periodic table, and thus has similarities to the other metals of the group, aluminium, indium, and thallium. Gallium does not occur as a free element in nature, but as gallium(III) compounds in trace amounts in zinc ores and in bauxite. Elemental gallium is a liquid at temperatures greater than , above room temperature, but below the normal human body temperature of . Hence, the metal will melt in a person's hands.
The melting point of gallium is used as a temperature reference point. Gallium alloys are used in thermometers as a non-toxic and environmentally friendly alternative to mercury, and can withstand higher temperatures than mercury. An even lower melting point of , well below the freezing point of water, is claimed for the alloy galinstan (62–95% gallium, 5–22% indium, and 0–16% tin by weight), but that may be the freezing point with the effect of supercooling.
Since its discovery in 1875, gallium has been used to make alloys with low melting points. It is also used in semiconductors as a dopant in semiconductor substrates.
Gallium is predominantly used in electronics. Gallium arsenide, the primary chemical compound of gallium in electronics, is used in microwave circuits, high-speed switching circuits, and infrared circuits. Semiconducting gallium nitride and indium gallium nitride produce blue and violet light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and diode lasers. Gallium is also used in the production of artificial gadolinium gallium garnet for jewelry. Gallium is considered a technology-critical element.
Gallium has no known natural role in biology. Gallium(III) behaves in a similar manner to ferric salts in biological systems and has been used in some medical applications, including pharmaceuticals and radiopharmaceuticals.
Elemental gallium is not found in nature, but it is easily obtained by smelting. Very pure gallium is a silvery blue metal that fractures conchoidally like glass. Gallium liquid expands by 3.10% when it solidifies; therefore, it should not be stored in glass or metal containers because the container may rupture when the gallium changes state. Gallium shares the higher-density liquid state with a shortlist of other materials that includes water, silicon, germanium, bismuth, and plutonium.
Gallium attacks most other metals by diffusing into the metal lattice. For example, it diffuses into the grain boundaries of aluminium-zinc alloys and steel, making them very brittle. Gallium easily alloys with many metals, and is used in small quantities in the plutonium-gallium alloy in the plutonium cores of nuclear bombs to stabilize the plutonium crystal structure.
The melting point of gallium, at 302.9146 K (29.7646 °C, 85.5763 °F), is just above room temperature, and is approximately the same as the average summer daytime temperatures in Earth's mid-latitudes. This melting point (mp) is one of the formal temperature reference points in the International Temperature Scale of 1990 (ITS-90) established by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM). The triple point of gallium, 302.9166 K (29.7666 °C, 85.5799 °F), is used by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in preference to the melting point.
The melting point of gallium allows it to melt in the human hand, and then refreeze if removed. The liquid metal has a strong tendency to supercool below its melting point/freezing point: Ga nanoparticles can be kept in the liquid state below 90 K. Seeding with a crystal helps to initiate freezing. Gallium is one of the four non-radioactive metals (with caesium, rubidium, and mercury) that are known to be liquid at, or near, normal room temperature. Of the four, gallium is the only one that is neither highly reactive (rubidium and caesium) nor highly toxic (mercury) and can, therefore, be used in metal-in-glass high-temperature thermometers. It is also notable for having one of the largest liquid ranges for a metal, and for having (unlike mercury) a low vapor pressure at high temperatures. Gallium's boiling point, 2673 K, is more than eight times higher than its melting point on the absolute scale, the greatest ratio between melting point and boiling point of any element. Unlike mercury, liquid gallium metal wets glass and skin, along with most other materials (with the exceptions of quartz, graphite, and Teflon), making it mechanically more difficult to handle even though it is substantially less toxic and requires far fewer precautions. Gallium painted onto glass is a brilliant mirror. For this reason as well as the metal contamination and freezing-expansion problems, samples of gallium metal are usually supplied in polyethylene packets within other containers.
Gallium does not crystallize in any of the simple crystal structures. The stable phase under normal conditions is orthorhombic with 8 atoms in the conventional unit cell. Within a unit cell, each atom has only one nearest neighbor (at a distance of 244 pm). The remaining six unit cell neighbors are spaced 27, 30 and 39 pm farther away, and they are grouped in pairs with the same distance. Many stable and metastable phases are found as function of temperature and pressure.
The bonding between the two nearest neighbors is covalent; hence Ga2 dimers are seen as the fundamental building blocks of the crystal. This explains the low melting point relative to the neighbor elements, aluminium and indium. This structure is strikingly similar to that of iodine and forms because of interactions between the single 4p electrons of gallium atoms, further away from the nucleus than the 4s electrons and the [Ar]3d10 core. This phenomenon recurs with mercury with its "pseudo-noble-gas" [Xe]4f145d106s2 electron configuration, which is liquid at room temperature. The 3d10 electrons do not shield the outer electrons very well from the nucleus and hence the first ionisation energy of gallium is greater than that of aluminium.
The physical properties of gallium are highly anisotropic, i.e. have different values along the three major crystallographical axes "a", "b", and "c" (see table), producing a significant difference between the linear (α) and volume thermal expansion coefficients. The properties of gallium are strongly temperature-dependent, particularly near the melting point. For example, the coefficient of thermal expansion increases by several hundred percents upon melting.
Gallium has 31 known isotopes, ranging in mass number from 56 to 86. Only two isotopes are stable and occur naturally, gallium-69 and gallium-71. Gallium-69 is more abundant: it makes up about 60.1% of natural gallium, while gallium-71 makes up the remaining 39.9%. All the other isotopes are radioactive, with gallium-67 being the longest-lived (half-life 3.261 days). Isotopes lighter than gallium-69 usually decay through beta plus decay (positron emission) or electron capture to isotopes of zinc, although the lightest few (with mass numbers 56 through 59) decay through prompt proton emission. Isotopes heavier than gallium-71 decay through beta minus decay (electron emission), possibly with delayed neutron emission, to isotopes of germanium, while gallium-70 can decay through both beta minus decay and electron capture. Gallium-67 is unique among the light isotopes in having only electron capture as a decay mode, as its decay energy is not sufficient to allow positron emission. Gallium-67 and gallium-68 (half-life 67.7 min) are both used in nuclear medicine.
Gallium is found primarily in the +3 oxidation state. The +1 oxidation state is also found in some compounds, although it is less common than it is for gallium's heavier congeners indium and thallium. For example, the very stable GaCl2 contains both gallium(I) and gallium(III) and can be formulated as GaIGaIIICl4; in contrast, the monochloride is unstable above 0 °C, disproportionating into elemental gallium and gallium(III) chloride. Compounds containing Ga–Ga bonds are true gallium(II) compounds, such as GaS (which can be formulated as Ga24+(S2−)2) and the dioxan complex Ga2Cl4(C4H8O2)2.
Strong acids dissolve gallium, forming gallium(III) salts such as (gallium sulfate) and (gallium nitrate). Aqueous solutions of gallium(III) salts contain the hydrated gallium ion, . Gallium(III) hydroxide, , may be precipitated from gallium(III) solutions by adding ammonia. Dehydrating at 100 °C produces gallium oxide hydroxide, GaO(OH).
Alkaline hydroxide solutions dissolve gallium, forming "gallate" salts (not to be confused with identically-named gallic acid salts) containing the anion. Gallium hydroxide, which is amphoteric, also dissolves in alkali to form gallate salts. Although earlier work suggested as another possible gallate anion, it was not found in later work.
Gallium reacts with the chalcogens only at relatively high temperatures. At room temperature, gallium metal is not reactive with air and water because it forms a passive, protective oxide layer. At higher temperatures, however, it reacts with atmospheric oxygen to form gallium(III) oxide, . Reducing with elemental gallium in vacuum at 500 °C to 700 °C yields the dark brown gallium(I) oxide, . is a very strong reducing agent, capable of reducing to . It disproportionates at 800 °C back to gallium and .
Gallium(III) sulfide, , has 3 possible crystal modifications. It can be made by the reaction of gallium with hydrogen sulfide () at 950 °C. Alternatively, can be used at 747 °C:
Reacting a mixture of alkali metal carbonates and with leads to the formation of "thiogallates" containing the anion. Strong acids decompose these salts, releasing in the process. The mercury salt, , can be used as a phosphor.
Gallium also forms sulfides in lower oxidation states, such as gallium(II) sulfide and the green gallium(I) sulfide, the latter of which is produced from the former by heating to 1000 °C under a stream of nitrogen.
The other binary chalcogenides, and , have the zincblende structure. They are all semiconductors but are easily hydrolysed and have limited utility.
Gallium reacts with ammonia at 1050 °C to form gallium nitride, GaN. Gallium also forms binary compounds with phosphorus, arsenic, and antimony: gallium phosphide (GaP), gallium arsenide (GaAs), and gallium antimonide (GaSb). These compounds have the same structure as ZnS, and have important semiconducting properties. GaP, GaAs, and GaSb can be synthesized by the direct reaction of gallium with elemental phosphorus, arsenic, or antimony. They exhibit higher electrical conductivity than GaN. GaP can also be synthesized by reacting with phosphorus at low temperatures.
Gallium forms ternary nitrides; for example:
Similar compounds with phosphorus and arsenic are possible: and . These compounds are easily hydrolyzed by dilute acids and water.
Gallium(III) oxide reacts with fluorinating agents such as HF or to form gallium(III) fluoride, . It is an ionic compound strongly insoluble in water. However, it dissolves in hydrofluoric acid, in which it forms an adduct with water, . Attempting to dehydrate this adduct forms . The adduct reacts with ammonia to form , which can then be heated to form anhydrous .
Gallium trichloride is formed by the reaction of gallium metal with chlorine gas. Unlike the trifluoride, gallium(III) chloride exists as dimeric molecules, , with a melting point of 78 °C. Eqivalent compounds are formed with bromine and iodine, and .
Like the other group 13 trihalides, gallium(III) halides are Lewis acids, reacting as halide acceptors with alkali metal halides to form salts containing anions, where X is a halogen. They also react with alkyl halides to form carbocations and .
When heated to a high temperature, gallium(III) halides react with elemental gallium to form the respective gallium(I) halides. For example, reacts with Ga to form :
At lower temperatures, the equilibrium shifts toward the left and GaCl disproportionates back to elemental gallium and . GaCl can also be produced by reacting Ga with HCl at 950 °C; the product can be condensed as a red solid.
Gallium(I) compounds can be stabilized by forming adducts with Lewis acids. For example:
The so-called "gallium(II) halides", , are actually adducts of gallium(I) halides with the respective gallium(III) halides, having the structure . For example:
Like aluminium, gallium also forms a hydride, , known as "gallane", which may be produced by reacting lithium gallanate () with gallium(III) chloride at −30 °C:
In the presence of dimethyl ether as solvent, polymerizes to . If no solvent is used, the dimer ("digallane") is formed as a gas. Its structure is similar to diborane, having two hydrogen atoms bridging the two gallium centers, unlike α- in which aluminium has a coordination number of 6.
Gallane is unstable above −10 °C, decomposing to elemental gallium and hydrogen.
Organogallium compounds are of similar reactivity to organoindium compounds, less reactive than organoaluminium compounds, but more reactive than organothallium compounds. Alkylgalliums are monomeric. Lewis acidity decreases in the order Al > Ga > In and as a result organogallium compounds do not form bridged dimers as organoaluminum compounds do. Organogallium compounds are also less reactive than organoaluminum compounds. They do form stable peroxides. These alkylgalliums are liquids at room temperature, having low melting points, and are quite mobile and flammable. Triphenylgallium is monomeric in solution, but its crystals form chain structures due to weak intermolecluar Ga···C interactions.
Gallium trichloride is a common starting reagent for the formation of organogallium compounds, such as in carbogallation reactions. Gallium trichloride reacts with lithium cyclopentadienide in diethyl ether to form the trigonal planar gallium cyclopentadienyl complex GaCp3. Gallium(I) forms complexes with arene ligands such as hexamethylbenzene. Because this ligand is quite bulky, the structure of the [Ga(η6-C6Me6)]+ is that of a half-sandwich. Less bulky ligands such as mesitylene allow two ligands to be attached to the central gallium atom in a bent sandwich structure. Benzene is even less bulky and allows the formation of dimers: an example is [Ga(η6-C6H6)2] [GaCl4]·3C6H6.
In 1871, the existence of gallium was first predicted by Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev, who named it "eka-aluminium" from its position in his periodic table. He also predicted several properties of eka-aluminium that correspond closely to the real properties of gallium, such as its density, melting point, oxide character, and bonding in chloride.
Mendeleev further predicted that eka-aluminium would be discovered by means of the spectroscope, and that metallic eka-aluminium would dissolve slowly in both acids and alkalis and would not react with air. He also predicted that M2O3 would dissolve in acids to give MX3 salts, that eka-aluminium salts would form basic salts, that eka-aluminium sulfate should form alums, and that anhydrous MCl3 should have a greater volatility than ZnCl2: all of these predictions turned out to be true.
Gallium was discovered using spectroscopy by French chemist Paul Emile Lecoq de Boisbaudran in 1875 from its characteristic spectrum (two violet lines) in a sample of sphalerite. Later that year, Lecoq obtained the free metal by electrolysis of the hydroxide in potassium hydroxide solution.
He named the element "gallia", from Latin "Gallia" meaning Gaul, after his native land of France. It was later claimed that, in one of those multilingual puns so beloved by men of science in the 19th century, he had also named gallium after himself: "Le coq" is French for "the rooster" and the Latin word for "rooster" is ""gallus"". In an 1877 article, Lecoq denied this conjecture.
Originally, de Boisbaudran determined the density of gallium as 4.7 g/cm3, the only property that failed to match Mendeleev's predictions; Mendeleev then wrote to him and suggested that he should remeasure the density, and de Boisbaudran then obtained the correct value of 5.9 g/cm3, that Mendeleev had predicted exactly.
From its discovery in 1875 until the era of semiconductors, the primary uses of gallium were high-temperature thermometrics and metal alloys with unusual properties of stability or ease of melting (some such being liquid at room temperature). The development of gallium arsenide as a direct bandgap semiconductor in the 1960s ushered in the most important stage in the applications of gallium.
Gallium does not exist as a free element in the Earth's crust, and the few high-content minerals, such as gallite (CuGaS2), are too rare to serve as a primary source. The abundance in the Earth's crust is approximately 16.9 ppm. This is comparable to the crustal abundances of lead, cobalt, and niobium. Yet unlike these elements, gallium does not form its own ore deposits with concentrations of > 0.1 wt.% in ore. Rather it occurs at trace concentrations similar to the crustal value in zinc ores, and at somewhat higher values (~ 50 ppm) in aluminium ores, from both of which it is extracted as a by-product. This lack of independent deposits is due to gallium's geochemical behaviour, showing no strong enrichment in the processes relevant to the formation of most ore deposits.
The United States Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that more than 1 million tons of gallium is contained in known reserves of bauxite and zinc ores. Some coal flue dusts contain small quantities of gallium, typically less than 1% by weight. However, these amounts are not extractable without mining of the host materials (see below). Thus, the availability of gallium is fundamentally determined by the rate at which bauxite, zinc ores (and coal) are extracted.
Gallium is produced exclusively as a by-product during the processing of the ores of other metals. Its main source material is bauxite, the chief ore of aluminium, but minor amounts are also extracted from sulfidic zinc ores (sphalerite being the main host mineral). In the past, certain coals were an important source.
During the processing of bauxite to alumina in the Bayer process, gallium accumulates in the sodium hydroxide liquor. From this it can be extracted by a variety of methods. The most recent is the use of ion-exchange resin. Achievable extraction efficiencies critically depend on the original concentration in the feed bauxite. At a typical feed concentration of 50 ppm, about 15% of the contained gallium is extractable. The remainder reports to the red mud and aluminium hydroxide streams. Gallium is removed from the ion-exchange resin in solution. Electrolysis then gives gallium metal. For semiconductor use, it is further purified with zone melting or single-crystal extraction from a melt (Czochralski process). Purities of 99.9999% are routinely achieved and commercially available.
Its by-product status means that gallium production is constrained by the amount of bauxite, sulfidic zinc ores (and coal) extracted per year. Therefore, its availability needs to be discussed in terms of supply potential. The supply potential of a by-product is defined as that amount which is economically extractable from its host materials "per year" under current market conditions (i.e. technology and price). Reserves and resources are not relevant for by-products, since they "cannot" be extracted independently from the main-products. Recent estimates put the supply potential of gallium at a minimum of 2,100 t/yr from bauxite, 85 t/yr from sulfidic zinc ores, and potentially 590 t/yr from coal. These figures are significantly greater than current production (375 t in 2016). Thus, major future increases in the by-product production of gallium will be possible without significant increases in production costs or price. The average price in for low-grade gallium was $120 per kilogram in 2016 and $135–140 per kilogram in 2017.
In 2017, the world's production of low-grade gallium was ca. 315 tons — an increase of 15% from 2016. China, Japan, South Korea, Russia, and Ukraine were the leading producers, while Germany ceased primary production of gallium in 2016. The yield of high-purity gallium was ca. 180 tons, mostly originating from China, Japan, Slovakia, UK and U.S. The 2017 world annual production capacity was estimated at 730 tons for low-grade and 320 tons for refined gallium.
China produced ca. 250 tons of low-grade gallium in 2016 and ca. 300 tons in 2017. It also accounted for more than half of global LED production.
Semiconductor applications dominate the commercial demand for gallium, accounting for 98% of the total. The next major application is for gadolinium gallium garnets.
Extremely high-purity (>99.9999%) gallium is commercially available to serve the semiconductor industry. Gallium arsenide (GaAs) and gallium nitride (GaN) used in electronic components represented about 98% of the gallium consumption in the United States in 2007. About 66% of semiconductor gallium is used in the U.S. in integrated circuits (mostly gallium arsenide), such as the manufacture of ultra-high-speed logic chips and MESFETs for low-noise microwave preamplifiers in cell phones. About 20% of this gallium is used in optoelectronics.
Worldwide, gallium arsenide makes up 95% of the annual global gallium consumption. It amounted $7.5 billion in 2016, with 53% originating from cell phones, 27% from wireless communications, and the rest from automotive, consumer, fiber-optic, and military applications. The recent increase in GaAs consumption is mostly related to the emergence of 3G and 4G smartphones, which use 10 times more GaAs than older models.
Gallium arsenide and gallium nitride can also be found in a variety of optoelectronic devices which had a market share of $15.3 billion in 2015 and $18.5 billion in 2016. Aluminium gallium arsenide (AlGaAs) is used in high-power infrared laser diodes. The semiconductors gallium nitride and indium gallium nitride are used in blue and violet optoelectronic devices, mostly laser diodes and light-emitting diodes. For example, gallium nitride 405 nm diode lasers are used as a violet light source for higher-density Blu-ray Disc compact data disc drives.
Other major application of gallium nitride are cable television transmission, commercial wireless infrastructure, power electronics, and satellites. The GaN radio frequency device market alone was estimated at $370 million in 2016 and $420 million in 2016.
Multijunction photovoltaic cells, developed for satellite power applications, are made by molecular-beam epitaxy or metalorganic vapour-phase epitaxy of thin films of gallium arsenide, indium gallium phosphide, or indium gallium arsenide. The Mars Exploration Rovers and several satellites use triple-junction gallium arsenide on germanium cells. Gallium is also a component in photovoltaic compounds (such as copper indium gallium selenium sulfide Cu(In,Ga)(Se,S)2) used in solar panels as a cost-efficient alternative to crystalline silicon.
Gallium readily alloys with most metals, and is used as an ingredient in low-melting alloys. The nearly eutectic alloy of gallium, indium, and tin is a room temperature liquid used in medical thermometers. This alloy, with the trade-name "Galinstan" (with the "-stan" referring to the tin, "stannum" in Latin), has a low freezing point of −19 °C (−2.2 °F). It has been suggested that this family of alloys could also be used to cool computer chips in place of water, and is often used as a replacement for thermal paste in high-performance computing. Gallium alloys have been evaluated as substitutes for mercury dental amalgams, but these materials have yet to see wide acceptance.
Because gallium wets glass or porcelain, gallium can be used to create brilliant mirrors. When the wetting action of gallium-alloys is not desired (as in Galinstan glass thermometers), the glass must be protected with a transparent layer of gallium(III) oxide.
The plutonium used in nuclear weapon pits is stabilized in the δ phase and made machinable by alloying with gallium.
Although gallium has no natural function in biology, gallium ions interact with processes in the body in a manner similar to iron(III). Because these processes include inflammation, a marker for many disease states, several gallium salts are used (or are in development) as pharmaceuticals and radiopharmaceuticals in medicine. Interest in the anticancer properties of gallium emerged when it was discovered that 67Ga(III) citrate injected in tumor-bearing animals localized to sites of tumor. Clinical trials have shown gallium nitrate to have antineoplastic activity against non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and urothelial cancers. A new generation of gallium-ligand complexes such as tris(8-quinolinolato)gallium(III) (KP46) and gallium maltolate has emerged. Gallium nitrate (brand name Ganite) has been used as an intravenous pharmaceutical to treat hypercalcemia associated with tumor metastasis to bones. Gallium is thought to interfere with osteoclast function, and the therapy may be effective when other treatments have failed. Gallium maltolate, an oral, highly absorbable form of gallium(III) ion, is an anti-proliferative to pathologically proliferating cells, particularly cancer cells and some bacteria that accept it in place of ferric iron (Fe3+). Researchers are conducting clinical and preclinical trials on this compound as a potential treatment for a number of cancers, infectious diseases, and inflammatory diseases.
When gallium ions are mistakenly taken up in place of iron(III) by bacteria such as "Pseudomonas", the ions interfere with respiration, and the bacteria die. This happens because iron is redox-active, allowing the transfer of electrons during respiration, while gallium is redox-inactive.
A complex amine-phenol Ga(III) compound MR045 is selectively toxic to parasites resistant to chloroquine, a common drug against malaria. Both the Ga(III) complex and chloroquine act by inhibiting crystallization of hemozoin, a disposal product formed from the digestion of blood by the parasites.
Gallium-67 salts such as gallium citrate and gallium nitrate are used as radiopharmaceutical agents in the nuclear medicine imaging known as gallium scan. The radioactive isotope 67Ga is used, and the compound or salt of gallium is unimportant. The body handles Ga3+ in many ways as though it were Fe3+, and the ion is bound (and concentrates) in areas of inflammation, such as infection, and in areas of rapid cell division. This allows such sites to be imaged by nuclear scan techniques.
Gallium-68, a positron emitter with a half-life of 68 min, is now used as a diagnostic radionuclide in PET-CT when linked to pharmaceutical preparations such as DOTATOC, a somatostatin analogue used for neuroendocrine tumors investigation, and DOTA-TATE, a newer one, used for neuroendocrine metastasis and lung neuroendocrine cancer, such as certain types of "microcytoma". Gallium-68's preparation as a pharmaceutical is chemical, and the radionuclide is extracted by elution from germanium-68, a synthetic radioisotope of germanium, in gallium-68 generators.
Gallium is used for neutrino detection. Possibly the largest amount of pure gallium ever collected in a single spot is the Gallium-Germanium Neutrino Telescope used by the SAGE experiment at the Baksan Neutrino Observatory in Russia. This detector contains 55–57 tonnes (~9 cubic metres) of liquid gallium. Another experiment was the GALLEX neutrino detector operated in the early 1990s in an Italian mountain tunnel. The detector contained 12.2 tons of watered gallium-71. Solar neutrinos caused a few atoms of 71Ga to become radioactive 71Ge, which were detected. This experiment showed that the solar neutrino flux is 40% less than theory predicted. This deficit was not explained until better solar neutrino detectors and theories were constructed (see SNO).
Gallium is also used as a liquid metal ion source for a focused ion beam. For example, a focused gallium-ion beam was used to create the world's smallest book, "Teeny Ted from Turnip Town". Another use of gallium is as an additive in glide wax for skis, and other low-friction surface materials.
A well-known practical joke among chemists is to fashion gallium spoons and use them to serve tea to unsuspecting guests, since gallium has a similar appearance to its lighter homolog aluminium. The spoons then melt in the hot tea.
Metallic gallium is not toxic. However, exposure to gallium halide complexes can result in acute toxicity. The Ga3+ ion of soluble gallium salts tends to form the insoluble hydroxide when injected in large doses; precipitation of this hydroxide resulted in nephrotoxicity in animals. In lower doses, soluble gallium is tolerated well and does not accumulate as a poison, instead being excreted mostly through urine. Excretion of gallium occurs in two phases: the first phase has a biological half-life of 1 hour, while the second has a biological half-life of 25 hours. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12241 |
Germanium
Germanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ge and atomic number 32. It is a lustrous, hard-brittle, grayish-white metalloid in the carbon group, chemically similar to its group neighbours silicon and tin. Pure germanium is a semiconductor with an appearance similar to elemental silicon. Like silicon, germanium naturally reacts and forms complexes with oxygen in nature.
Because it seldom appears in high concentration, germanium was discovered comparatively late in the history of chemistry. Germanium ranks near fiftieth in relative abundance of the elements in the Earth's crust. In 1869, Dmitri Mendeleev predicted its existence and some of its properties from its position on his periodic table, and called the element ekasilicon. Nearly two decades later, in 1886, Clemens Winkler found the new element along with silver and sulfur, in a rare mineral called argyrodite. Although the new element somewhat resembled arsenic and antimony in appearance, the combining ratios in compounds agreed with Mendeleev's predictions for a relative of silicon. Winkler named the element after his country, Germany. Today, germanium is mined primarily from sphalerite (the primary ore of zinc), though germanium is also recovered commercially from silver, lead, and copper ores.
Elemental germanium is used as a semiconductor in transistors and various other electronic devices. Historically, the first decade of semiconductor electronics was based entirely on germanium. Presently, the major end uses are fibre-optic systems, infrared optics, solar cell applications, and light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Germanium compounds are also used for polymerization catalysts and have most recently found use in the production of nanowires. This element forms a large number of organogermanium compounds, such as tetraethylgermanium, useful in organometallic chemistry. Germanium is considered a technology-critical element.
Germanium is not thought to be an essential element for any living organism. Some complex organic germanium compounds are being investigated as possible pharmaceuticals, though none have yet proven successful. Similar to silicon and aluminium, natural germanium compounds tend to be insoluble in water and thus have little oral toxicity. However, synthetic soluble germanium salts are nephrotoxic, and synthetic chemically reactive germanium compounds with halogens and hydrogen are irritants and toxins.
In his report on "The Periodic Law of the Chemical Elements" in 1869, the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev predicted the existence of several unknown chemical elements, including one that would fill a gap in the carbon family, located between silicon and tin. Because of its position in his periodic table, Mendeleev called it "ekasilicon (Es)", and he estimated its atomic weight to be 70 (later 72).
In mid-1885, at a mine near Freiberg, Saxony, a new mineral was discovered and named "argyrodite" because of its high silver content. The chemist Clemens Winkler analyzed this new mineral, which proved to be a combination of silver, sulfur, and a new element. Winkler was able to isolate the new element in 1886 and found it similar to antimony. He initially considered the new element to be eka-antimony, but was soon convinced that it was instead eka-silicon. Before Winkler published his results on the new element, he decided that he would name his element "neptunium", since the recent discovery of planet Neptune in 1846 had similarly been preceded by mathematical predictions of its existence. However, the name "neptunium" had already been given to another proposed chemical element (though not the element that today bears the name neptunium, which was discovered in 1940). So instead, Winkler named the new element "germanium" (from the Latin word, "Germania", for Germany) in honor of his homeland. Argyrodite proved empirically to be Ag8GeS6.
Because this new element showed some similarities with the elements arsenic and antimony, its proper place in the periodic table was under consideration, but its similarities with Dmitri Mendeleev's predicted element "ekasilicon" confirmed that place on the periodic table. With further material from 500 kg of ore from the mines in Saxony, Winkler confirmed the chemical properties of the new element in 1887. He also determined an atomic weight of 72.32 by analyzing pure germanium tetrachloride (), while Lecoq de Boisbaudran deduced 72.3 by a comparison of the lines in the spark spectrum of the element.
Winkler was able to prepare several new compounds of germanium, including fluorides, chlorides, sulfides, dioxide, and tetraethylgermane (Ge(C2H5)4), the first organogermane. The physical data from those compounds—which corresponded well with Mendeleev's predictions—made the discovery an important confirmation of Mendeleev's idea of element periodicity. Here is a comparison between the prediction and Winkler's data:
Until the late 1930s, germanium was thought to be a poorly conducting metal. Germanium did not become economically significant until after 1945 when its properties as an electronic semiconductor were recognized. During World War II, small amounts of germanium were used in some special electronic devices, mostly diodes. The first major use was the point-contact Schottky diodes for radar pulse detection during the War. The first silicon-germanium alloys were obtained in 1955. Before 1945, only a few hundred kilograms of germanium were produced in smelters each year, but by the end of the 1950s, the annual worldwide production had reached .
The development of the germanium transistor in 1948 opened the door to countless applications of solid state electronics. From 1950 through the early 1970s, this area provided an increasing market for germanium, but then high-purity silicon began replacing germanium in transistors, diodes, and rectifiers. For example, the company that became Fairchild Semiconductor was founded in 1957 with the express purpose of producing silicon transistors. Silicon has superior electrical properties, but it requires much greater purity that could not be commercially achieved in the early years of semiconductor electronics.
Meanwhile, the demand for germanium for fiber optic communication networks, infrared night vision systems, and polymerization catalysts increased dramatically. These end uses represented 85% of worldwide germanium consumption in 2000. The US government even designated germanium as a strategic and critical material, calling for a 146 ton (132 tonne) supply in the national defense stockpile in 1987.
Germanium differs from silicon in that the supply is limited by the availability of exploitable sources, while the supply of silicon is limited only by production capacity since silicon comes from ordinary sand and quartz. While silicon could be bought in 1998 for less than $10 per kg, the price of germanium was almost $800 per kg.
Under standard conditions, germanium is a brittle, silvery-white, semi-metallic element. This form constitutes an allotrope known as "α-germanium", which has a metallic luster and a diamond cubic crystal structure, the same as diamond. While in crystal form, germanium has a displacement threshold energy of formula_1. At pressures above 120 kbar, germanium becomes the allotrope "β-germanium" with the same structure as β-tin. Like silicon, gallium, bismuth, antimony, and water, germanium is one of the few substances that expands as it solidifies (i.e. freezes) from the molten state.
Germanium is a semiconductor. Zone refining techniques have led to the production of crystalline germanium for semiconductors that has an impurity of only one part in 1010,
making it one of the purest materials ever obtained.
The first metallic material discovered (in 2005) to become a superconductor in the presence of an extremely strong electromagnetic field was an alloy of germanium, uranium, and rhodium.
Pure germanium suffers from the forming of whiskers by spontaneous screw dislocations. If a whisker grows long enough to touch another part of the assembly or a metallic packaging, it can effectively shunt out a p-n junction. This is one of the primary reasons for the failure of old germanium diodes and transistors.
Elemental germanium starts to oxidize slowly in air at around 250 °C, forming GeO2 . Germanium is insoluble in dilute acids and alkalis but dissolves slowly in hot concentrated sulfuric and nitric acids and reacts violently with molten alkalis to produce germanates (). Germanium occurs mostly in the oxidation state +4 although many +2 compounds are known. Other oxidation states are rare: +3 is found in compounds such as Ge2Cl6, and +3 and +1 are found on the surface of oxides, or negative oxidation states in germanides, such as −4 in . Germanium cluster anions (Zintl ions) such as Ge42−, Ge94−, Ge92−, [(Ge9)2]6− have been prepared by the extraction from alloys containing alkali metals and germanium in liquid ammonia in the presence of ethylenediamine or a cryptand. The oxidation states of the element in these ions are not integers—similar to the ozonides O3−.
Two oxides of germanium are known: germanium dioxide (, germania) and germanium monoxide, (). The dioxide, GeO2 can be obtained by roasting germanium disulfide (), and is a white powder that is only slightly soluble in water but reacts with alkalis to form germanates. The monoxide, germanous oxide, can be obtained by the high temperature reaction of GeO2 with Ge metal. The dioxide (and the related oxides and germanates) exhibits the unusual property of having a high refractive index for visible light, but transparency to infrared light. Bismuth germanate, Bi4Ge3O12, (BGO) is used as a scintillator.
Binary compounds with other chalcogens are also known, such as the disulfide (), diselenide (), and the monosulfide (GeS), selenide (GeSe), and telluride (GeTe). GeS2 forms as a white precipitate when hydrogen sulfide is passed through strongly acid solutions containing Ge(IV). The disulfide is appreciably soluble in water and in solutions of caustic alkalis or alkaline sulfides. Nevertheless, it is not soluble in acidic water, which allowed Winkler to discover the element. By heating the disulfide in a current of hydrogen, the monosulfide (GeS) is formed, which sublimes in thin plates of a dark color and metallic luster, and is soluble in solutions of the caustic alkalis. Upon melting with alkaline carbonates and sulfur, germanium compounds form salts known as thiogermanates.
Four tetrahalides are known. Under normal conditions GeI4 is a solid, GeF4 a gas and the others volatile liquids. For example, germanium tetrachloride, GeCl4, is obtained as a colorless fuming liquid boiling at 83.1 °C by heating the metal with chlorine. All the tetrahalides are readily hydrolyzed to hydrated germanium dioxide. GeCl4 is used in the production of organogermanium compounds. All four dihalides are known and in contrast to the tetrahalides are polymeric solids. Additionally Ge2Cl6 and some higher compounds of formula Ge"n"Cl2"n"+2 are known. The unusual compound Ge6Cl16 has been prepared that contains the Ge5Cl12 unit with a neopentane structure.
Germane (GeH4) is a compound similar in structure to methane. Polygermanes—compounds that are similar to alkanes—with formula Ge"n"H2"n"+2 containing up to five germanium atoms are known. The germanes are less volatile and less reactive than their corresponding silicon analogues. GeH4 reacts with alkali metals in liquid ammonia to form white crystalline MGeH3 which contain the GeH3− anion. The germanium hydrohalides with one, two and three halogen atoms are colorless reactive liquids.
The first organogermanium compound was synthesized by Winkler in 1887; the reaction of germanium tetrachloride with diethylzinc yielded tetraethylgermane (). Organogermanes of the type R4Ge (where R is an alkyl) such as tetramethylgermane () and tetraethylgermane are accessed through the cheapest available germanium precursor germanium tetrachloride and alkyl nucleophiles. Organic germanium hydrides such as isobutylgermane () were found to be less hazardous and may be used as a liquid substitute for toxic germane gas in semiconductor applications. Many germanium reactive intermediates are known: germyl free radicals, germylenes (similar to carbenes), and germynes (similar to carbynes). The organogermanium compound 2-carboxyethylgermasesquioxane was first reported in the 1970s, and for a while was used as a dietary supplement and thought to possibly have anti-tumor qualities.
Using a ligand called Eind (1,1,3,3,5,5,7,7-octaethyl-s-hydrindacen-4-yl) germanium is able to form a double bond with oxygen (germanone). Germanium hydride and germanium tetrahydride are very flammable and even explosive when mixed with air.
Germanium occurs in 5 natural isotopes: , , , , and . Of these, is very slightly radioactive, decaying by double beta decay with a half-life of . is the most common isotope, having a natural abundance of approximately 36%. is the least common with a natural abundance of approximately 7%. When bombarded with alpha particles, the isotope will generate stable , releasing high energy electrons in the process. Because of this, it is used in combination with radon for nuclear batteries.
At least 27 radioisotopes have also been synthesized, ranging in atomic mass from 58 to 89. The most stable of these is , decaying by electron capture with a half-life of ays. The least stable is , with a half-life of . While most of germanium's radioisotopes decay by beta decay, and decay by delayed proton emission. through isotopes also exhibit minor delayed neutron emission decay paths.
Germanium is created by stellar nucleosynthesis, mostly by the s-process in asymptotic giant branch stars. The s-process is a slow neutron capture of lighter elements inside pulsating red giant stars. Germanium has been detected in some of the most distant stars and in the atmosphere of Jupiter.
Germanium's abundance in the Earth's crust is approximately 1.6 ppm. Only a few minerals like argyrodite, briartite, germanite, and renierite contain appreciable amounts of germanium. Only few of them (especially germanite) are, very rarely, found in mineable amounts. Some zinc-copper-lead ore bodies contain enough germanium to justify extraction from the final ore concentrate. An unusual natural enrichment process causes a high content of germanium in some coal seams, discovered by Victor Moritz Goldschmidt during a broad survey for germanium deposits. The highest concentration ever found was in Hartley coal ash with as much as 1.6% germanium. The coal deposits near Xilinhaote, Inner Mongolia, contain an estimated 1600 tonnes of germanium. germanium hydride and germanium tetrahydride are very flammable and even explosive when mixed with air.
About 118 tonnes of germanium was produced in 2011 worldwide, mostly in China (80 t), Russia (5 t) and United States (3 t). Germanium is recovered as a by-product from sphalerite zinc ores where it is concentrated in amounts as great as 0.3%, especially from low-temperature sediment-hosted, massive Zn–Pb–Cu(–Ba) deposits and carbonate-hosted Zn–Pb deposits. A recent study found that at least 10,000 t of extractable germanium is contained in known zinc reserves, particularly those hosted by Mississippi-Valley type deposits, while at least 112,000 t will be found in coal reserves. In 2007 35% of the demand was met by recycled germanium.
While it is produced mainly from sphalerite, it is also found in silver, lead, and copper ores. Another source of germanium is fly ash of power plants fueled from coal deposits that contain germanium. Russia and China used this as a source for germanium. Russia's deposits are located in the far east of Sakhalin Island, and northeast of Vladivostok. The deposits in China are located mainly in the lignite mines near Lincang, Yunnan; coal is also mined near Xilinhaote, Inner Mongolia.
The ore concentrates are mostly sulfidic; they are converted to the oxides by heating under air in a process known as roasting:
Some of the germanium is left in the dust produced, while the rest is converted to germanates, which are then leached (together with zinc) from the cinder by sulfuric acid. After neutralization, only the zinc stays in solution while germanium and other metals precipitate. After removing some of the zinc in the precipitate by the Waelz process, the residing Waelz oxide is leached a second time. The dioxide is obtained as precipitate and converted with chlorine gas or hydrochloric acid to germanium tetrachloride, which has a low boiling point and can be isolated by distillation:
Germanium tetrachloride is either hydrolyzed to the oxide (GeO2) or purified by fractional distillation and then hydrolyzed. The highly pure GeO2 is now suitable for the production of germanium glass. It is reduced to the element by reacting it with hydrogen, producing germanium suitable for infrared optics and semiconductor production:
The germanium for steel production and other industrial processes is normally reduced using carbon:
The major end uses for germanium in 2007, worldwide, were estimated to be: 35% for fiber-optics, 30% infrared optics, 15% polymerization catalysts, and 15% electronics and solar electric applications. The remaining 5% went into such uses as phosphors, metallurgy, and chemotherapy.
The notable properties of germania (GeO2) are its high index of refraction and its low optical dispersion. These make it especially useful for wide-angle camera lenses, microscopy, and the core part of optical fibers. It has replaced titania as the dopant for silica fiber, eliminating the subsequent heat treatment that made the fibers brittle. At the end of 2002, the fiber optics industry consumed 60% of the annual germanium use in the United States, but this is less than 10% of worldwide consumption. GeSbTe is a phase change material used for its optic properties, such as that used in rewritable DVDs.
Because germanium is transparent in the infrared wavelengths, it is an important infrared optical material that can be readily cut and polished into lenses and windows. It is especially used as the front optic in thermal imaging cameras working in the 8 to 14 micron range for passive thermal imaging and for hot-spot detection in military, mobile night vision, and fire fighting applications. It is used in infrared spectroscopes and other optical equipment that require extremely sensitive infrared detectors. It has a very high refractive index (4.0) and must be coated with anti-reflection agents. Particularly, a very hard special antireflection coating of diamond-like carbon (DLC), refractive index 2.0, is a good match and produces a diamond-hard surface that can withstand much environmental abuse.
Silicon-germanium alloys are rapidly becoming an important semiconductor material for high-speed integrated circuits. Circuits utilizing the properties of Si-SiGe junctions can be much faster than those using silicon alone. Silicon-germanium is beginning to replace gallium arsenide (GaAs) in wireless communications devices. The SiGe chips, with high-speed properties, can be made with low-cost, well-established production techniques of the silicon chip industry.
Solar panels are a major use of germanium. Germanium is the substrate of the wafers for high-efficiency multijunction photovoltaic cells for space applications. High-brightness LEDs, used for automobile headlights and to backlight LCD screens, are an important application.
Because germanium and gallium arsenide have very similar lattice constants, germanium substrates can be used to make gallium arsenide solar cells. The Mars Exploration Rovers and several satellites use triple junction gallium arsenide on germanium cells.
Germanium-on-insulator (GeOI) substrates are seen as a potential replacement for silicon on miniaturized chips. CMOS circuit based on GeOI substrates has been reported recently. Other uses in electronics include phosphors in fluorescent lamps and solid-state light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Germanium transistors are still used in some effects pedals by musicians who wish to reproduce the distinctive tonal character of the "fuzz"-tone from the early rock and roll era, most notably the Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face.
Germanium dioxide is also used in catalysts for polymerization in the production of polyethylene terephthalate (PET). The high brilliance of this polyester is especially favored for PET bottles marketed in Japan. In the United States, germanium is not used for polymerization catalysts.
Due to the similarity between silica (SiO2) and germanium dioxide (GeO2), the silica stationary phase in some gas chromatography columns can be replaced by GeO2.
In recent years germanium has seen increasing use in precious metal alloys. In sterling silver alloys, for instance, it reduces firescale, increases tarnish resistance, and improves precipitation hardening. A tarnish-proof silver alloy trademarked Argentium contains 1.2% germanium.
Semiconductor detectors made of single crystal high-purity germanium can precisely identify radiation sources—for example in airport security. Germanium is useful for monochromators for beamlines used in single crystal neutron scattering and synchrotron X-ray diffraction. The reflectivity has advantages over silicon in neutron and high energy X-ray applications. Crystals of high purity germanium are used in detectors for gamma spectroscopy and the search for dark matter. Germanium crystals are also used in X-ray spectrometers for the determination of phosphorus, chlorine and sulfur.
Germanium is emerging as an important material for spintronics and spin-based quantum computing applications. In 2010, researchers demonstrated room temperature spin transport and more recently donor electron spins in germanium has been shown to have very long coherence times.
Germanium is not considered essential to the health of plants or animals. Germanium in the environment has little or no health impact. This is primarily because it usually occurs only as a trace element in ores and carbonaceous materials, and the various industrial and electronic applications involve very small quantities that are not likely to be ingested. For similar reasons, end-use germanium has little impact on the environment as a biohazard. Some reactive intermediate compounds of germanium are poisonous (see precautions, below).
Germanium supplements, made from both organic and inorganic germanium, have been marketed as an alternative medicine capable of treating leukemia and lung cancer. There is, however, no medical evidence of benefit; some evidence suggests that such supplements are actively harmful.
Some germanium compounds have been administered by alternative medical practitioners as non-FDA-allowed injectable solutions. Soluble inorganic forms of germanium used at first, notably the citrate-lactate salt, resulted in some cases of renal dysfunction, hepatic steatosis, and peripheral neuropathy in individuals using them over a long term. Plasma and urine germanium concentrations in these individuals, several of whom died, were several orders of magnitude greater than endogenous levels. A more recent organic form, beta-carboxyethylgermanium sesquioxide (propagermanium), has not exhibited the same spectrum of toxic effects.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration research has concluded that inorganic germanium, when used as a nutritional supplement, "presents potential human health hazard".
Certain compounds of germanium have low toxicity to mammals, but have toxic effects against certain bacteria.
Some of germanium's artificially produced compounds are quite reactive and present an immediate hazard to human health on exposure. For example, germanium chloride and germane (GeH4) are a liquid and gas, respectively, that can be very irritating to the eyes, skin, lungs, and throat. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12242 |
Gadolinium
Gadolinium is a chemical element with the symbol Gd and atomic number 64. Gadolinium is a silvery-white metal when oxidation is removed. It is only slightly malleable and is a ductile rare-earth element. Gadolinium reacts with atmospheric oxygen or moisture slowly to form a black coating. Gadolinium below its Curie point of is ferromagnetic, with an attraction to a magnetic field higher than that of nickel. Above this temperature it is the most paramagnetic element. It is found in nature only in an oxidized form. When separated, it usually has impurities of the other rare-earths because of their similar chemical properties.
Gadolinium was discovered in 1880 by Jean Charles de Marignac, who detected its oxide by using spectroscopy. It is named after the mineral gadolinite, one of the minerals in which gadolinium is found, itself named for the chemist Johan Gadolin. Pure gadolinium was first isolated by the chemist Paul Emile Lecoq de Boisbaudran around 1886.
Gadolinium possesses unusual metallurgical properties, to the extent that as little as 1% of gadolinium can significantly improve the workability and resistance to oxidation at high temperatures of iron, chromium, and related metals. Gadolinium as a metal or a salt absorbs neutrons and is, therefore, used sometimes for shielding in neutron radiography and in nuclear reactors.
Like most of the rare earths, gadolinium forms trivalent ions with fluorescent properties, and salts of gadolinium(III) are used as phosphors in various applications.
The kinds of gadolinium(III) ions occurring in water-soluble salts are toxic to mammals. However, chelated gadolinium(III) compounds are far less toxic because they carry gadolinium(III) through the kidneys and out of the body before the free ion can be released into the tissues. Because of its paramagnetic properties, solutions of chelated organic gadolinium complexes are used as intravenously administered gadolinium-based MRI contrast agents in medical magnetic resonance imaging.
Gadolinium is a silvery-white, malleable, ductile rare-earth element. It crystallizes in the hexagonal close-packed α-form at room temperature, but, when heated to temperatures above , it transforms into its β-form, which has a body-centered cubic structure.
The isotope gadolinium-157 has the highest thermal-neutron capture cross-section among any stable nuclide: about 259,000 barns. Only xenon-135 has a higher capture cross-section, about 2.0 million barns, but this isotope is radioactive.
Gadolinium is believed to be ferromagnetic at temperatures below and is strongly paramagnetic above this temperature. There is evidence that gadolinium is a helical antiferromagnetic, rather than a ferromagnetic, below . Gadolinium demonstrates a magnetocaloric effect whereby its temperature increases when it enters a magnetic field and decreases when it leaves the magnetic field. The temperature is lowered to for the gadolinium alloy Gd85Er15, and this effect is considerably stronger for the alloy Gd5(Si2Ge2), but at a much lower temperature ( A significant magnetocaloric effect is observed at higher temperatures, up to about 300 kelvins, in the compounds Gd5(Si"x"Ge1−"x")4.
Individual gadolinium atoms can be isolated by encapsulating them into fullerene molecules, where they can be visualized with a transmission electron microscope. Individual Gd atoms and small Gd clusters can be incorporated into carbon nanotubes.
Gadolinium combines with most elements to form Gd(III) derivatives. It also combines with nitrogen, carbon, sulfur, phosphorus, boron, selenium, silicon, and arsenic at elevated temperatures, forming binary compounds.
Unlike the other rare-earth elements, metallic gadolinium is relatively stable in dry air. However, it tarnishes quickly in moist air, forming a loosely-adhering gadolinium(III) oxide (Gd2O3):
which spalls off, exposing more surface to oxidation.
Gadolinium is a strong reducing agent, which reduces oxides of several metals into their elements. Gadolinium is quite electropositive and reacts slowly with cold water and quite quickly with hot water to form gadolinium hydroxide:
Gadolinium metal is attacked readily by dilute sulfuric acid to form solutions containing the colorless Gd(III) ions, which exist as [Gd(H2O)9]3+ complexes:
Gadolinium metal reacts with the halogens (X2) at temperature about :
In the great majority of its compounds, gadolinium adopts the oxidation state +3. All four trihalides are known. All are white, except for the iodide, which is yellow. Most commonly encountered of the halides is gadolinium(III) chloride (GdCl3). The oxide dissolves in acids to give the salts, such as gadolinium(III) nitrate.
Gadolinium(III), like most lanthanide ions, forms complexes with high coordination numbers. This tendency is illustrated by the use of the chelating agent DOTA, an octadentate ligand. Salts of [Gd(DOTA)]− are useful in magnetic resonance imaging. A variety of related chelate complexes have been developed, including gadodiamide.
Reduced gadolinium compounds are known, especially in the solid state. Gadolinium(II) halides are obtained by heating Gd(III) halides in presence of metallic Gd in tantalum containers. Gadolinium also form sesquichloride Gd2Cl3, which can be further reduced to GdCl by annealing at . This gadolinium(I) chloride forms platelets with layered graphite-like structure.
Naturally occurring gadolinium is composed of six stable isotopes, 154Gd, 155Gd, 156Gd, 157Gd, 158Gd and 160Gd, and one radioisotope, 152Gd, with the isotope 158Gd being the most abundant (24.8% natural abundance). The predicted double beta decay of 160Gd has never been observed (an experimental lower limit on its half-life of more than 1.3×1021 years has been measured).
29 radioisotopes of gadolinium have been observed, with the most stable being 152Gd (naturally occurring), with a half-life of about 1.08×1014 years, and 150Gd, with a half-life of 1.79×106 years. All of the remaining radioactive isotopes have half-lives of less than 75 years. The majority of these have half-lives of less than 25 seconds. Gadolinium isotopes have four metastable isomers, with the most stable being 143mGd ("t"1/2= 110 seconds), 145mGd ("t"1/2= 85 seconds) and 141mGd ("t"1/2= 24.5 seconds).
The isotopes with atomic masses lower than the most abundant stable isotope, 158Gd, primarily decay by electron capture to isotopes of europium. At higher atomic masses, the primary decay mode is beta decay, and the primary products are isotopes of terbium.
Gadolinium is named after the mineral gadolinite, in turn named after Finnish chemist and geologist Johan Gadolin. This makes it the only element whose name is derived from a Hebrew root (, "great"). In 1880, the Swiss chemist Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac observed the spectroscopic lines from gadolinium in samples of gadolinite (which actually contains relatively little gadolinium, but enough to show a spectrum) and in the separate mineral cerite. The latter mineral proved to contain far more of the element with the new spectral line. De Marignac eventually separated a mineral oxide from cerite, which he realized was the oxide of this new element. He named the oxide "gadolinia". Because he realized that "gadolinia" was the oxide of a new element, he is credited with the discovery of gadolinium. The French chemist Paul Émile Lecoq de Boisbaudran carried out the separation of gadolinium metal from gadolinia in 1886.
Gadolinium is a constituent in many minerals such as monazite and bastnäsite, which are oxides. The metal is too reactive to exist naturally. Paradoxically, as noted above, the mineral gadolinite actually contains only traces of this element. The abundance in the Earth's crust is about 6.2 mg/kg. The main mining areas are in China, the US, Brazil, Sri Lanka, India, and Australia with reserves expected to exceed one million tonnes. World production of pure gadolinium is about 400 tonnes per year. The only known mineral with essential gadolinium, lepersonnite-(Gd), is very rare.
Gadolinium is produced both from monazite and bastnäsite.
Gadolinium metal is obtained from its oxide or salts by heating it with calcium at in an argon atmosphere. Sponge gadolinium can be produced by reducing molten GdCl3 with an appropriate metal at temperatures below (the melting point of Gd) at reduced pressure.
Gadolinium has no large-scale applications, but it has a variety of specialized uses.
Because 157Gd has a high neutron cross-section, it is used to target tumors in neutron therapy. This element is effective for use with neutron radiography and in shielding of nuclear reactors. It is used as a secondary, emergency shut-down measure in some nuclear reactors, particularly of the CANDU reactor type. Gadolinium is also used in nuclear marine propulsion systems as a burnable poison.
Gadolinium possesses unusual metallurgic properties, with as little as 1% of gadolinium improving the workability and resistance of iron, chromium, and related alloys to high temperatures and oxidation.
Gadolinium is paramagnetic at room temperature, with a ferromagnetic Curie point of . Paramagnetic ions, such as gadolinium, enhance nuclear relaxation rates, making gadolinium useful for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Solutions of organic gadolinium complexes and gadolinium compounds are used as intravenous MRI contrast agent to enhance images in medical magnetic resonance imaging and magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) procedures. Magnevist is the most widespread example. Nanotubes packed with gadolinium, called "gadonanotubes", are 40 times more effective than the usual gadolinium contrast agent. Once injected, gadolinium-based contrast agents accumulate in abnormal tissues of the brain and body, which provides a greater image contrast between normal and abnormal tissues, facilitating location of abnormal cell growths and tumors.
Gadolinium as a phosphor is also used in other imaging. In X-ray systems gadolinium is contained in the phosphor layer, suspended in a polymer matrix at the detector. Terbium-doped gadolinium oxysulfide (Gd2O2S:Tb) at the phosphor layer converts the X-rays released from the source into light. This material emits green light at 540 nm due to the presence of Tb3+, which is very useful for enhancing the imaging quality. The energy conversion of Gd is up to 20%, which means that 1/5 of the X-ray energy striking the phosphor layer can be converted into visible photons. Gadolinium oxyorthosilicate (Gd2SiO5, GSO; usually doped by 0.1–1.0% of Ce) is a single crystal that is used as a scintillator in medical imaging such as positron emission tomography or for detecting neutrons.
Gadolinium compounds are also used for making green phosphors for color TV tubes.
Gadolinium-153 is produced in a nuclear reactor from elemental europium or enriched gadolinium targets. It has a half-life of days and emits gamma radiation with strong peaks at 41 keV and 102 keV. It is used in many quality-assurance applications, such as line sources and calibration phantoms, to ensure that nuclear-medicine imaging systems operate correctly and produce useful images of radioisotope distribution inside the patient. It is also used as a gamma-ray source in X-ray absorption measurements or in bone density gauges for osteoporosis screening, as well as in the Lixiscope portable X-ray imaging system.
Gadolinium is used for making gadolinium yttrium garnet (Gd:Y3Al5O12); it has microwave applications and is used in fabrication of various optical components and as substrate material for magneto-optical films.
Gadolinium gallium garnet (GGG, Gd3Ga5O12) was used for imitation diamonds and for computer bubble memory.
Gadolinium can also serve as an electrolyte in solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). Using gadolinium as a dopant for materials like cerium oxide (in the form of gadolinium-doped ceria) creates an electrolyte with both high ionic conductivity and low operating temperatures, which are optimal for cost-effective production of fuel cells.
Research is being conducted on magnetic refrigeration near room temperature, which could provide significant efficiency and environmental advantages over conventional refrigeration methods. Gadolinium-based materials, such as Gd5(Si"x"Ge1−"x")4, are currently the most promising materials, owing to their high Curie temperature and giant magnetocaloric effect. Pure Gd itself exhibits a large magnetocaloric effect near its Curie temperature of , and this has sparked great interest into producing Gd alloys with a larger effect and tunable Curie temperature. In Gd5(Si"x"Ge1−"x")4, Si and Ge compositions can be varied to adjust the Curie temperature. This technology is still very early in development, and significant material improvements still need to be made before it is commercially viable.
Physicists Mark Vagins and John Beacom, of the Japanese Super Kamiokande, theorized that gadolinium may facilitate neutrino detection when it is added to very high-purity water in the tank.
Gadolinium barium copper oxide (GdBCO) has been researched for its superconducting properties with applications in superconducting motors or generators - for example in a wind turbine. It can be manufactured in the same way as the most widely researched cuprate high temperature superconductor, Yttrium barium copper oxide (YBCO) and uses an analogous chemical composition (GdBa2Cu3O7−"δ" ). Most notably, it was used by the Bulk Superconductivity Group from the University of Cambridge in 2014 to set a new world record for the highest trapped magnetic field in a bulk high temperature superconductor, with a field of 17.6T being trapped within two GdBCO bulks.
Gadolinium has no known native biological role, but its compounds are used as research tools in biomedicine. Gd3+ compounds are components of MRI contrast agents. It is used in various ion channel electrophysiology experiments to block sodium leak channels and stretch activated ion channels. Gadolinium has recently been used to measure the distance between two points in a protein via electron paramagnetic resonance, something that gadolinium is especially amenable to thanks to EPR sensitivity at w-band (95 GHz) frequencies.
As a free ion, gadolinium is reported often to be highly toxic, but MRI contrast agents are chelated compounds and are considered safe enough to be used in most persons. The toxicity of free gadolinium ions in animals is due to interference with a number of calcium-ion channel dependent processes. The 50% lethal dose is about 100–200 mg/kg. Toxicities have not been reported following low dose exposure to gadolinium ions. Toxicity studies in rodents, however show that chelation of gadolinium (which also improves its solubility) decreases its toxicity with regard to the free ion by at least a factor of 100 (i.e., the lethal dose for the Gd-chelate increases by 100 times). It is believed therefore that clinical toxicity of gadolinium-based contrast agents (GBCAs) in humans will depend on the strength of the chelating agent; however this research is still not complete. About a dozen different Gd-chelated agents have been approved as MRI contrast agents around the world.
GBCAs have proved safer than the iodinated contrast agents used in X-ray radiography or computed tomography. Anaphylactoid reactions are rare, occurring in approximately 0.03–0.1%.
Although gadolinium agents are useful for patients with renal impairment, in patients with severe kidney failure requiring dialysis, there is a risk of a rare but serious illness called nephrogenic systemic fibrosis (NSF) or nephrogenic fibrosing dermopathy, that is linked to the use of MRI contrast agents containing gadolinium. The disease resembles scleromyxedema and to some extent scleroderma. It may occur months after a contrast agent has been injected. Its association with gadolinium and not the carrier molecule is confirmed by its occurrence with various contrast materials in which gadolinium is carried by very different carrier molecules. Due to this, it is not recommended to use these agents for any individual with end-stage kidney failure as they will require emergent dialysis. Similar but not identical symptoms to NSF may occur in subjects with normal or near-normal renal function within hours to 2 months following the administration of GBCAs; the name "gadolinium deposition disease" (GDD) has been proposed for this condition, which occurs in the absence of pre-existent disease or subsequently developed disease of an alternate known process. A 2016 study reported numerous anecdotal cases of GDD. However, in that study, participants were recruited from online support groups for subjects self-identified as having gadolinium toxicity, and no relevant medical history or data were collected. There have yet to be definitive scientific studies proving the existence of the condition. In addition, gadolinium deposition in neural tissues has solely been demonstrated in patients with inflammatory, infective, or malignant disease, and no healthy volunteer studies have assessed the potential of gadolinium deposition within the brain, skin, or bones.
Included in the current guidelines from the Canadian Association of Radiologists are that dialysis patients should only receive gadolinium agents where essential and that they should receive dialysis after the exam. If a contrast-enhanced MRI must be performed on a dialysis patient, it is recommended that certain high-risk contrast agents be avoided but not that a lower dose be considered. The American College of Radiology recommends that contrast-enhanced MRI examinations be performed as closely before dialysis as possible as a precautionary measure, although this has not been proven to reduce the likelihood of developing NSF. The FDA recommends that potential for gadolinium retention be considered when choosing the type of GBCA used in patients requiring multiple lifetime doses, pregnant women, children, and patients with inflammatory conditions.
Long-term environmental impacts of gadolinium contamination due to human usage is a topic of ongoing research. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12243 |
Alliance 90/The Greens
Alliance 90/The Greens, often simply Greens ( or ""; ), is a green political party in Germany. It was formed in 1993 as the merger of The Greens, formed in West Germany in 1980, and Alliance 90, formed in East Germany in 1990. The Greens had itself merged with the East German Green Party after German reunification in 1990.
Since January 2018, Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck have co-led the party. It currently holds 67 of the 709 seats in the Bundestag, and is the smallest of the six parliamentary groups, having won 8.9% of votes cast in the 2017 federal election. The leaders of the Alliance 90/The Greens parliamentary group are Katrin Göring-Eckardt and Anton Hofreiter. The party is currently in opposition on the federal level, but previously participated in a coalition government with the Social Democratic Party from 1998 to 2005.
The party holds seats in fourteen of Germany's sixteen state legislatures, and is a member of coalition governments in eleven states. Winfried Kretschmann, Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg, is the only Green head of government in Germany. The Landtag of Baden-Württemberg is also the only state legislature in which Alliance 90/The Greens is the largest party; it is the second largest party in the legislatures of Bavaria, Hamburg, and Hesse.
Alliance 90/The Greens is a founding member of the European Green Party and the Greens–European Free Alliance group in the European Parliament. It is currently the largest party in the G/EFA group, with 21 MEPs. In the 2019 European election, Alliance 90/The Greens was the second largest party in Germany, winning 20.5% of votes cast.
As of April 2020, the party has 101,561 members, making it the fourth largest party in Germany by membership.
The Green Party was initially founded in West Germany as "Die Grünen" (the Greens) in January 1980. It rose out of the anti-nuclear energy, environmental, peace, new left, and new social movements of the late 20th century.
"Grüne Liste Umweltschutz" (green list for environmental protection) were the names of some branches in Lower Saxony and other states in the Federal Republic of Germany. These groups were founded in 1977 and took part in several elections. Most of them merged with The Greens in 1980.
The West Berlin state branch of The Greens was founded as "Alternative Liste", or precisely, "Alternative Liste für Demokratie und Umweltschutz" (AL; alternative list for democracy and environmental protection) in 1978 and became the official West Berlin branch of The Greens in 1980. In 1993 it renamed to Alliance 90/The Greens Berlin after the merger with East Berlin's Greens and Alliance 90.
The Hamburg state branch of the Green Party was called "Grün-Alternative Liste Hamburg" (GAL; green-alternative list) from its foundation in 1982 until 2012. In 1984 it became the official Hamburg branch of The Greens.
The political party The Greens () sprung out of the wave of New Social Movements that were active in the 1970s, including environmentalist, anti-war, and anti-nuclear movements which can trace their origin to the student protests of 1968. Officially founded as a german national party on 13 January 1980 in Karlsruhe, the party sought to give these movements political and parliamentary representation, as the pre-existing were not organised in a way to address their stated issues. its membership included organisers from former attempts to achieve institutional representation such as and . Opposition to pollution, use of nuclear power, NATO military action, and certain aspects of industrialised society were principal campaign issues.
The formation of a party was purportedly first discussed by movement leaders in 1978. Important figures in the first years were – among others – Petra Kelly, Gert Bastian, , Rudolf Bahro, Joseph Beuys, Antje Vollmer, Joschka Fischer, Herbert Gruhl, August Haußleiter, Luise Rinser, , Brigitte Heinrich, , and .
In the foundational congress of 1980, the ideological tenets of the party were consolidated, proclaiming the famous Four Pillars of the Green Party:
In 1982, the conservative factions of the Greens broke away to form the Ecological Democratic Party (ÖDP). Those who remained in the Green party were more strongly pacifist and against restrictions on immigration and reproductive rights, while supporting the legalisation of cannabis use, placing a higher priority on working for LGBT rights, and tending to advocate what they described as "anti-authoritarian" concepts of education and child-rearing. They also tended to identify more closely with a culture of protest and civil disobedience, frequently clashing with police at demonstrations against nuclear weapons, nuclear energy, and the construction of a new runway ("Startbahn West") at Frankfurt Airport. Those who left the party at the time might have felt similarly about some of these issues, but did not identify with the forms of protest that Green party members took part in.
After some success at state-level elections, the party won 27 seats with 5.7% of the vote in the Bundestag, the lower house of the German parliament, in the 1983 federal election. Among the important political issues at the time was the deployment of Pershing II IRBMs and nuclear-tipped cruise missiles by the U.S. and NATO on West German soil, generating strong opposition in the general population that found an outlet in mass demonstrations. The newly formed party was able to draw on this popular movement to recruit support. Partly due to the impact of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, and to growing awareness of the threat of air pollution and acid rain to German forests ("Waldsterben"), the Greens increased their share of the vote to 8.3% in the 1987 federal election. Around this time, Joschka Fischer emerged as the unofficial leader of the party, which he remained until resigning all leadership posts following the 2005 federal election.
The Greens were the target of attempts by the East German secret police to enlist the cooperation of members who were willing to align the party with the agenda of the German Democratic Republic. The party ranks included several politicians who were later discovered to have been Stasi agents, including Bundestag representative Dirk Schneider, European Parliament representative Brigitte Heinrich, and Red Army Faction defense lawyer Klaus Croissant. Greens politician and Bundestag representative Gert Bastian was also a founding member of , a pacifist group created and funded by the Stasi, the revelation of which may have contributed to the murder-suicide in which he killed his partner and Greens founder Petra Kelly. A study commissioned by the Greens determined that 15 to 20 members intimately cooperated with the Stasi and another 450 to 500 had been informants.
Until 1987, the Greens included a faction involved in pedophile activism, the "SchwuP" short for "Arbeitsgemeinschaft "Schwule, Päderasten und Transsexuelle"" (approx. "working group "Gays, Pederasts and Transsexuals""). This faction campaigned for repealing § 176 of the German penal code, dealing with child sexual abuse. This group was controversial within the party itself, and was seen as partly responsible for the poor election result of 1985. This controversy re-surfaced in 2013 and chairwoman Claudia Roth stated she welcomed an independent scientific investigation on the extent of influence pedophile activists had on the party in the mid 1980s. In November 2014 the political scientist Franz Walter presented the final report about his research on a press conference.
In the 1990 federal elections, taking place post-reunified Germany, the Greens in the West did not pass the 5% limit required to win seats in the Bundestag. It was only due to a temporary modification of German election law, applying the five-percent "hurdle" separately in East and West Germany, that the Greens acquired any parliamentary seats at all. This happened because in the new states of Germany, the Greens, in a joint effort with Alliance 90, a heterogeneous grouping of civil rights activists, were able to gain more than 5% of the vote. Some critics attribute this poor performance to the reluctance of the campaign to cater to the prevalent mood of nationalism, instead focusing on subjects such as global warming. A campaign poster at the time proudly stated, "Everyone is talking about Germany; we're talking about the weather!", paraphrasing a popular slogan of Deutsche Bundesbahn, the German national railway. The party also opposed imminent reunification that was in process, instead wanting to initiate debates on ecology and nuclear issues before reunification causing a drop in support in Western Germany. After the 1994 federal election; however, the merged party returned to the Bundestag, and the Greens received 7.3% of the vote nationwide and 49 seats.
In the 1998 federal election, despite a slight fall in their percentage of the vote (6.7%), the Greens retained 47 seats and joined the federal government for the first time in 'Red-Green' coalition government with the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Joschka Fischer became Vice-Chancellor of Germany and foreign minister in the new government, which had two other Green ministers (Andrea Fischer, later Renate Künast, and Jürgen Trittin).
Almost immediately the party was plunged into a crisis by the question of German participation in the NATO actions in Kosovo. Numerous anti-war party members resigned their party membership when the first post-war deployment of German troops in a military conflict abroad occurred under a Red-Green government, and the party began to experience a long string of defeats in local and state-level elections. Disappointment with the Green participation in government increased when anti-nuclear power activists realised that shutting down the nation's nuclear power stations would not happen as quickly as they wished, and numerous pro-business SPD members of the federal cabinet opposed the environmentalist agenda of the Greens, calling for tacit compromises.
In 2001, the party experienced a further crisis as some Green Members of Parliament refused to back the government's plan of sending military personnel to help with the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. Chancellor Gerhard Schröder called a vote of confidence, tying it to his strategy on the war. Four Green MPs and one Social Democrat voted against the government, but Schröder was still able to command a majority.
On the other hand, the Greens achieved a major success as a governing party through the 2000 decision to phase out the use of nuclear energy. Minister of Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety Jürgen Trittin reached an agreement with energy companies on the gradual phasing out of the country's nineteen nuclear power plants and a cessation of civil usage of nuclear power by 2020. This was authorised through the Nuclear Exit Law. Based on an estimate of 32 years as the normal period of operation for a nuclear power plant, the agreement defines precisely how much energy a power plant is allowed to produce before being shut down. This law has since been overturned.
Despite the crises of the preceding electoral period, in the 2002 federal election, the Greens increased their total to 55 seats (in a smaller parliament) and 8.6%. This was partly due to the perception that the internal debate over the war in Afghanistan had been more honest and open than in other parties, and one of the MPs who had voted against the Afghanistan deployment, Hans-Christian Ströbele, was directly elected to the Bundestag as a district representative for the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg – Prenzlauer Berg East constituency in Berlin, becoming the first Green to ever gain a first-past-the-post seat in Germany. The Greens benefited from increased inroads among traditionally left-wing demographics which had benefited from Green-initiated legislation in the 1998–2002 term, such as environmentalists (Renewable Energies Act) and LGBT groups (Registered Partnership Law). Perhaps most important for determining the success of both the Greens and the SPD was the increasing threat of war in Iraq, which was highly unpopular with the German public, and helped gather votes for the parties which had taken a stand against participation in this war. Despite losses for the SPD, the Red-Green coalition government commanded a very slight majority in the Bundestag and was renewed, with Joschka Fischer as foreign minister, Renate Künast as minister for consumer protection, nutrition and agriculture, and Jürgen Trittin as minister for the environment.
One internal issue in 2002 was the failed attempt to settle a long-standing discussion about the question of whether members of parliament should be allowed to become members of the party executive. Two party conventions declined to change the party statute. The necessary majority of two-thirds was missed by a small margin. As a result, former party chairpersons Fritz Kuhn and Claudia Roth (who had been elected to parliament that year) were no longer able to continue in their executive function and were replaced by former party secretary general Reinhard Bütikofer and former Bundestag member Angelika Beer. The party then held a member referendum on this question in the spring of 2003 which changed the party statute. Now members of parliament may be elected for two of the six seats of the party executive, as long as they are not ministers or caucus leaders. 57% of all party members voted in the member referendum, with 67% voting in favor of the change. The referendum was only the second in the history of Alliance 90/The Greens, the first having been held about the merger of the Greens and Alliance 90. In 2004, after Angelika Beer was elected to the European parliament, Claudia Roth was elected to replace her as party chair.
The only party convention in 2003 was planned for November 2003, but about 20% of the local organisations forced the federal party to hold a special party convention in Cottbus early to discuss the party position regarding "Agenda 2010", a major reform of the German welfare programmes planned by Chancellor Schröder.
The November 2003 party convention was held in Dresden and decided the election platform for the 2004 European Parliament elections. The German Green list for these elections was headed by Rebecca Harms (then leader of the Green party in Lower Saxony) and Daniel Cohn-Bendit, previously Member of the European Parliament for The Greens of France. The November 2003 convention is also noteworthy because it was the first convention of a German political party ever to use an electronic voting system.
The Greens gained a record 13 of Germany's 99 seats in these elections, mainly due to the perceived competence of Green ministers in the federal government and the unpopularity of the Social Democratic Party.
In early 2005, the Greens were the target of the German Visa Affair 2005, instigated in the media by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). At the end of April 2005, they celebrated the decommissioning of the Obrigheim nuclear power station. They also continue to support a bill for an Anti-Discrimination Law () in the Bundestag.
In May 2005, the only remaining state-level red-green coalition government lost the vote in the North Rhine-Westphalia state election, leaving only the federal government with participation of the Greens (apart from local governments). In the early 2005 federal election the party incurred very small losses and achieved 8.1% of the vote and 51 seats. However, due to larger losses of the SPD, the previous coalition no longer had a majority in the Bundestag.
For almost two years after the federal election in 2005, the Greens were not part of any government at the state or federal level. In June 2007, the Greens in Bremen entered into a coalition with the Social Democratic Party (SPD) following the 2007 Bremen state election.
In April 2008, following the 2008 Hamburg state election, the Green-Alternative List (GAL) in Hamburg entered into a coalition with the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the first state-level coalition in Germany. Although the GAL had to agree to the deepening of the Elbe River, the construction of a new coal-fired power station and two road projects they had opposed, they also received some significant concessions from the CDU. These included reforming state schools by increasing the number of primary school educational stages, the restoration of trams as public transportation in the city-state, and more pedestrian-friendly real estate development. On 29 November 2010, the coalition collapsed, resulting in an election that was won by SPD.
Following the Saarland state election of August 2009, The Greens held the balance of power after a close election where no two-party coalitions could create a stable majority government. After negotiations, the Saarland Greens rejected the option of a left-wing 'red-red-green' coalition with the SPD and The Left ("Die Linke") in order to form a centre-right state government with the CDU and Free Democratic Party (FDP), a historical first time that a Jamaica coalition has formed in German politics.
In June 2010, in the first state election following the victory of the CDU/CSU and FDP in the 2009 federal election, the "black-yellow" CDU-FDP coalition in North Rhine-Westphalia under Jürgen Rüttgers lost its majority. The Greens and the SPD came one seat short of a governing majority, but after multiple negotiations about coalitions of SPD and Greens with either the FDP or The Left, the SPD and Greens decided to form a minority government, which was possible because under the constitution of North Rhine-Westphalia a plurality of seats is sufficient to elect a minister-president. So a red-green government in a state where it was defeated under Peer Steinbrück in 2005 came into office again on 14 June 2010 with the election of Hannelore Kraft as minister-president (Cabinet Kraft I).
The Greens founded the first international chapter of a German political party in the U.S. on 13 April 2008 at the Goethe-Institut in Washington D.C. Its main goal is "to provide a platform for politically active and green-oriented German citizens, in and beyond Washington D.C., to discuss and actively participate in German Green politics. [...] to foster professional and personal exchange, channeling the outcomes towards the political discourse in Germany."
In March 2011 (two weeks after the Fukushima nuclear disaster had begun), the Greens made large gains in Rhineland-Palatinate and in Baden-Württemberg. In Baden-Württemberg they became the senior partner in a governing coalition for the first time. Winfried Kretschmann is now the first Green to serve as Minister-President of a German State (Cabinet Kretschmann I and II). Polling data from August 2011 indicated that one in five Germans supported the Greens. From 4 October 2011 to 4 September 2016, the party was represented in all state parliaments.
Like the Social Democrats, the Greens backed Chancellor Angela Merkel on most bailout votes in the German parliament during her second term, saying their pro-European stances overrode party politics. Shortly before the elections, the party plummeted to a four-year low in the polls, undermining efforts by Peer Steinbrück's Social Democrats to unseat Merkel.
While being in opposition on the federal level since 2005, the Greens have established themselves as a powerful force in Germany's political system. By 2016, the Greens have joined 11 out of 16 state governments in a variety of coalitions. Over the years, they have built up an informal structure called G-coordination to organize interests between the federal party office, the parliamentary group in the Bundestag, and the Greens governing on the state level.
Following the election, the Greens saw a major surge in support, consistently polling between 17 and 20% nationally in October 2018. They achieved record results in the Bavarian and Hessian state elections, becoming the second largest party in the respective Landtags of both states.
In the 2019 European Parliament election, the Greens achieved their best ever result in a national election, coming second with 20.5% of the vote and winning 21 seats. The first poll after the election, conducted by Forsa, showed the Greens up nine percentage points, on 27%, narrowly ahead of the CDU/CSU. This was the first time the Greens had ever been in first place in a national poll, and the first time in the history of the BRD that any party other than the CDU/CSU or SPD had placed first in a national poll. This trend continued as polls from May to July showed the CDU/CSU and Greens trading first place. The Greens continued to poll in the low 20% range into early 2020.
In the 2020 Hamburg state election, the Greens became the second largest party, winning 24.2% of votes cast. This was the party's second-best state election result, behind their 2016 result in Baden-Württemberg, and tying their 2011 result there.
Below are charts of the results that Alliance90/The Greens have secured in each election to the federal Bundestag. Timelines showing the number of seats and percentage of party list votes won are on the right.
Ever since the party's inception, The Greens have been concerned with the immediate halt of construction or operation of all nuclear power stations. As an alternative, they promote a shift to alternative energy and a comprehensive program of energy conservation.
In 1986, large parts of Germany were covered with radioactive contamination from the Chernobyl disaster and Germans went to great lengths to deal with the contamination. Germany's anti-nuclear stance was strengthened. From the mid-1990s onwards, anti-nuclear protests were primarily directed against transports of radioactive waste in "CASTOR" containers.
After the Chernobyl disaster, the Greens became more radicalised and resisted compromise on the nuclear issue. During the 1990s, a re-orientation towards a moderate program occurred, with concern about global warming and ozone depletion taking a more prominent role. During the federal red-green government (1998–2005) many people became disappointed with what they saw as excessive compromise on key Greens policies.
Energy policy is still the most important cross-cutting issue in climate and economic policies. Implementation of Green Policy would see electricity generation from 100 percent renewable sources as early as 2040. The development of renewable energy and combined heat and power is also a great opportunity for technical and economic innovation. Solar industry and environmental technologies are already a significant part of key industries providing jobs which need to be developed and promoted vigorously. In addition, a priority of green energy policy is increasing the thermal insulation and energy efficiency of homes, the phaseout of all nuclear energy generation with possible high-efficiency gas-fired power plants operational during the transition phase.
The central idea of green politics is sustainable development. The concept of environmental protection is the cornerstone of Alliance 90/The Greens policy. In particular, the economic, energy and transport policy claims are in close interaction with environmental considerations. The Greens acknowledge the natural environment as a high priority and animal protection should be enshrined as a national objective in constitutional law. An effective environmental policy would be based on a common environmental code, with the urgent integration of a climate change bill. During the red-green coalition (1998–2005) a policy of agricultural change was launched labeled as a paradigm shift in agricultural policy towards a more ecological friendly agriculture, which needs to continue.
Climate change is at the center of all policy considerations. This includes environmental policy and safety and social aspects. The plans of the Alliance 90/The Greens provide a climate change bill laying down binding reductions to greenhouse gas emissions in Germany by 2020 restricting emissions to minus 40 percent compared to 1990.
A similarly high priority is given to transport policy. The switch from a traveling allowance to a mobility allowance, which is paid regardless of income to all employees, replacing company car privileges. The truck toll will act as a climate protection instrument internalizing the external costs of transport. Railway should be promoted in order to achieve the desired environmental objectives and the comprehensive care of customers. The railway infrastructure is to remain permanently in the public sector, allowing a reduction in expenditure on road construction infrastructure. The Greens want to control privileges on kerosene and for international flights, introduce an air ticket levy. Restrict speeds nationwide on the highways to 120 km/h and country roads to 80 km/h. The Greens want to create a market incentive and research program of €500 million annually to ensure that by 2020 there are at least two million electric cars on German roads.
For many years, the Green Party has advocated against the "Ehegattensplitting" policy, under which the incomes of married couples are split for taxation purposes. Furthermore, the Party advocates for a massive increase in federal spending for places in preschools, and for increased investment in education: an additional 1 billion Euros for vocational schools and 200 million Euros more BAföG (Bundesausbildungsförderungsgesetz in German, approximately translated to "the Federal Law for the Advancement of Education") for adults.
In its 2013 platform, the Green Party successfully advocated for a minimum wage of 8.50 Euro per hour, which was implemented on 1 January 2015. It continues to press for higher minimum wages.
The Greens want to continue have retirement age start at 67, but with some qualifications, for example, a provision for partial retirement.
The Greens advocate decriminalizing marijuana usage and the private growing of plants. Furthermore, the Greens support research on the drug and the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes.
The Green Party supports the implementation of quotas in executive boards, the policy of equal pay for equal work, and continuing the fight against domestic violence. According to its website, the Green Party "fights for the acceptance and against the exclusion of homosexuals, bisexuals, intersex- and transgender people and others".
In order to recognize the political persecution that LGBT+ people face abroad, the Green Party wants to extend asylum to LGBT people abroad. The policy change was sponsored primarily by Volker Beck, one of the Party's most prominent gay members. Because of the extensive support the Green Party has given the LGBT community since its conception, many gays and lesbians vote for the Green Party even if their political ideology does not quite align otherwise.
The Infratest Dimap political research company has suggested the Green voter demographic includes those on higher incomes (e.g. above €2000/month) and the party's support is less among households with lower incomes. The same polling research also concluded that the Greens received fewer votes from the unemployed and general working population, with business people favouring the party as well as the centre-right liberal Free Democratic Party. According to Infratest Dimap the Greens received more voters from the age group 34–42 than any other age group and that the young were generally more supportive of the party than the old. (Source: Intrafest Dimap political research company for the ARD.)
The Greens have a higher voter demographic in urban areas than rural areas, except for a small number of rural areas with pressing local environmental concerns, such as strip mining or radioactive waste deposits. The cities of Bonn, Cologne, Stuttgart, Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt and Munich have among the highest percentages of Green voters in the country. The towns of Stuttgart, Hanover, Tübingen and Darmstadt have Green mayors. The party has a lower level of support in the states of the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany); nonetheless, the party was represented on every state parliament between 2011 and 2016. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12246 |
Gheorghe Zamfir
Gheorghe Zamfir (; born April 6, 1941) is a Romanian nai (pan flute) musician.
Zamfir is known for playing an expanded version of normally 20-pipe nai, with 22, 25, 28 or even 30 pipes, to increase its range, and obtaining as many as eight overtones (additional to the fundamental tone) from each pipe by changing his embouchure. He is known as "The Master of the Pan Flute".
Zamfir came to the public eye when he was approached by Swiss ethnomusicologist Marcel Cellier, who extensively researched Romanian folk music in the 1960s. The composer Vladimir Cosma brought Zamfir with his pan flute to Western European countries for the first time in 1972 as the soloist in Cosma's original music for the movie "Le grand blond avec une chaussure noire". The movie received several awards, including the "Top Foreign Film" from the National Board of Review in 1973. Zamfir continued to perform as a soloist in movie soundtracks by composers Francis Lai, Ennio Morricone and many others. Largely through television commercials where he was billed as "Zamfir, Master of the Pan Flute", he introduced the folk instrument to a modern audience and revived it from obscurity.
In 1966, Zamfir was appointed conductor of the "Ciocîrlia Orchestra", one of the most prestigious state ensembles of Romania, destined for concert tours abroad. This created the opportunity for composition and arranging. In 1969 he left Ciocîrlia and started his own "taraf" (small band) and in 1970 he had his first longer term contract in Paris. Zamfir discovered the much greater freedom for artistic adventure. His taraf consisted of: Ion Drăgoi (violin), Ion Lăceanu (flutes), Dumitru Fărcaș (tarogato), Petre Vidrean (double bass) and Tony Iordache (cymbalum) all number one soloists in their country. This taraf made some excellent recordings (CD Zamfir a Paris). He changed the composition of the band soon after: Efta Botoca (violin), Marin Chisar (flutes), Dorin Ciobaru and Pavel Cebzan (clarinet and tarogato), Vasile Pandelescu (accordion), Petre Vidrean (bass) and Pantelimon Stînga (cymbalum). It is said that this change was made to increase the command of Zamfir and have more artistic freedom. A turning point was the recording of Zamfir's composition "Messe pour la Paix" (Philips). His taraf joined a choir and a symphonic orchestra. This was evidence of the growing ambition. While the Philips recordings of that time were rather conservative, Zamfir preached revolution in the concert halls with daring performances. In 1977, he recorded "The Lonely Shepherd" with James Last. Zamfir put himself on the world map and since then his career became highly varied, hovering over classical repertoire, easy listening and pop music.
Zamfir's big break in the English-speaking world came when the BBC religious television programme, "The Light of Experience", adopted his recording of "Doina De Jale", a traditional Romanian funeral song, as its theme. Epic Records releaseed the tune as a single in 1976, and it climbed to number four on the UK Singles chart. It would prove to be his only UK hit single, but it helped pave the way for a consistent stream of album sales in Britain. His song "Summer Love" reached number 9 in South Africa in November 1976. In 1983, he scored a No. 3 hit on the Canadian Adult Contemporary chart with "Blue Navajo," and several of his albums (including 1982's "Romance" and 1983's "Childhood Dreams") have charted in Canada as well. His 1985 album, "Atlantis", contained tracks composed by Jacques Brel and Eric Satie, plus music from films and Zamfir's version of "Stranger on the Shore".
After nearly a decade-long absence, Zamfir returned to Canada in January 2006 for a seven-city tour with the Traffic Strings quintet. The program included a world premiere of Vivaldi's Four Seasons for PanFlute and string quintet arranged by Lucian Moraru, jazz standards, and well-known favourites.
In 2009, Zamfir was sampled by Animal Collective in the song "Graze" on their EP "Fall Be Kind".
In 2012, Zamfir performed at the opening ceremony of the 11th Conference of Parties to the Ramsar Convention at the Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest, Romania.
In 2019, Zamfir appeared on stage at the Phish from Vermont's New Year's Eve celebration at Madison Square Garden. Zamfir joined the band for a performance of Chalkdust Reprise.
His first appearance as soloist interpreter in a movie soundtrack was in Vladimir Cosma's 1972 "Le grand blond avec une chaussure noire", whose soundtrack became a worldwide hit.
Another of his notable contributions was to the soundtrack of the classic 1975 Australian film "Picnic at Hanging Rock". His other film scores include "La guerre du pétrole n'aura pas lieu" (1975) and the Moroccan film "Bodas de Sangre" (1977).
He was asked by Ennio Morricone to perform the pieces "Childhood Memories" and "Cockeye's Song" for the soundtrack of Sergio Leone's 1984 gangster film "Once Upon a Time in America". His performance can also be heard throughout the 1984 film "The Karate Kid".
One of Zamfir's most famous pieces is "The Lonely Shepherd", which was written by James Last and recorded with the James Last Orchestra, and first included on Last's 1977 album "Russland Erinnerungen" (Memories of Russia); it was also released as a single. "The Lonely Shepherd" was used as the theme for the 1979 Australian miniseries "Golden Soak". It was also featured in Quentin Tarantino's 2003 film "" and in Nikolas Grasso's short film Doina.
His song "Frunzuliță Lemn Adus Cântec De Nuntă" ("Fluttering Green Leaves Wedding Song") appears in the 1991 Studio Ghibli film "Only Yesterday".
Zamfir was born in Găeşti, Romania, on April 6, 1941. Although initially interested in becoming an accordionist, at the age of 14 he began his pan flute studies with Fănică Luca at the Special Musical School no. 1 in Bucharest. Later he attended the Ciprian Porumbescu Conservatory. He currently resides and teaches pan flute in Bucharest. His son, Emmanuel Teodor (who resides in Montreal, Canada), is also a drummer/musician.
Zamfir has written an instructional book, "Traitė Du Naï Roumain: méthode de flûte de pan", Paris: Chappell S.A., 1975, , and an autobiography "Binecuvântare şi blestem" ("Blessing and Curse"), Arad: Mirador, 2000, . | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12248 |
Georg Henrik von Wright
Georg Henrik von Wright (; 14 June 1916 – 16 June 2003) was a Finnish philosopher.
On the retirement of Ludwig Wittgenstein as professor at the University of Cambridge in 1948, von Wright was elected to his chair at the age of 32. He published in English, Finnish, German, and Swedish, having belonged to the Swedish-speaking minority of Finland. Von Wright was of both Finnish and 17th-century Scottish ancestry.
Von Wright's writings come under two broad categories. The first is analytic philosophy and philosophical logic in the Anglo-American vein. His 1951 books, "An Essay in Modal Logic" and "Deontic Logic", were landmarks in the postwar rise of formal modal logic and its deontic version. He was an authority on Wittgenstein, editing his later works. He was the leading figure in the Finnish philosophy of his time, specializing in philosophical logic, philosophical analysis, philosophy of action, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and the close study of Charles Sanders Peirce.
The other vein in von Wright's writings is moralist and pessimist. During the last twenty years of his life, under the influence of Oswald Spengler, Jürgen Habermas and the Frankfurt School's reflections about modern Rationality, he wrote prolifically. His best known article from this period is entitled "The Myth of Progress", and it questions whether our apparent material and technological progress can really be considered "progress".
In the last year of his life, among his other honorary degrees, he held an honorary degree at the University of Bergen. He also was awarded Swedish Academy Finland Prize in 1968.
Von Wright edited posthumous publications by Wittgenstein, which were published by Blackwell (unless otherwise stated):
Von Wright also edited extracts from the diary of David Pinsent, also published by Blackwell: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12250 |
Gaudy Night
Gaudy Night (1935) is a mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, the tenth featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, and the third including Harriet Vane.
The dons of Harriet Vane's "alma mater", the all-female Shrewsbury College, Oxford (based on Sayers' own Somerville College), have invited her back to attend the annual Gaudy celebrations. However, the mood turns sour when someone begins a series of malicious acts including poison-pen messages, obscene graffiti and wanton vandalism. Harriet asks her old friend Wimsey to investigate.
Harriet Vane returns with trepidation to her "alma mater", Shrewsbury College, Oxford to attend the Gaudy dinner. Expecting hostility because of her notoriety (she had stood trial for murder in an earlier novel, "Strong Poison)", she is surprised to be welcomed warmly by the dons, and rediscovers her old love of the academic life. Harriet's short stay is, however, marred by her discovery of a sheet of paper with an offensive drawing, and a poison pen message referring to her as a "dirty murderess".
Some time later the Dean of Shrewsbury writes to ask for her help. There has been an outbreak of vandalism and anonymous letters, and fearing for the college's reputation if this becomes public knowledge, the Dean wants someone to investigate confidentially. Harriet, herself a victim of poison-pen letters since her trial, reluctantly agrees, and returns to spend some months in residence, ostensibly to do research on Sheridan Le Fanu and to assist a don with her book.
As she wrestles with the case, trying to narrow down the list of suspects who might be responsible for poison-pen messages, obscene graffiti, wanton vandalism including the destruction of a set of scholarly proofs, and the crafting of vile effigies, she is forced to examine her ambivalent feelings about Wimsey, about love and marriage, and about her attraction to academia as an intellectual and emotional refuge. Wimsey eventually arrives in Oxford to help, and she gains a new perspective from those who know him, including his nephew, an undergraduate at the university.
The attacks build to a crisis. There is an attempt to drive a vulnerable student to suicide and a physical assault on Harriet that almost kills her. The perpetrator is finally unmasked as Annie Wilson, one of the college scouts, revealed to be the widow of a disgraced University of York academic. Her husband's academic fraud had been exposed by an examiner, destroying his career and driving him to suicide. The examiner later moved to Shrewsbury College, and the widow's campaign has been her revenge against the examiner in particular and more generally against intellectual women who move outside what she sees as their proper domestic sphere.
At the end of the book, Harriet finally accepts Wimsey's proposal of marriage.
A 'gaudy', at the University of Oxford, is a college feast, typically a reunion for its alumni. The term 'gaudy night' appears in Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra": "Let's have one other gaudy night: call to me / All my sad captains; fill our bowls once more / Let's mock the midnight bell".
Writing in 1936, George Orwell disagreed with the opinion of an "Observer" critic who felt that Gaudy Night had put Miss Sayers "definitely among the great writers". Orwell concluded, to the contrary, that "her slickness in writing has blinded many readers to the fact that her stories, considered as detective stories, are very bad ones. They lack the minimum of probability that even a detective story ought to have, and the crime is always committed in a way that is incredibly tortuous and quite uninteresting".
Although no murder occurs in "Gaudy Night", it includes a great deal of suspense and psychological thrills. The narrative is interwoven with a love story and an examination of women's struggles to enlarge their roles and achieve some independence within the social climate of 1930s England, and the novel has been described as "the first feminist mystery novel".
Jacques Barzun stated that ""Gaudy Night" is a remarkable achievement. Harriet Vane and Saint-George, the undergraduate nephew of Lord Peter, help give variety, and the college setting justifies good intellectual debate. The motive is magnificently orated on by the culprit in a scene that is a striking set-piece. And though the Shrewsbury dons are sometimes hard to distinguish one from another, the College architecture is very good".
"Gaudy Night" deals with a number of philosophical themes, such as the right relation between love and independence or between principles and personal loyalties. Susan Haack has an essay on "Gaudy Night" as a philosophical novel.
The issue of women's right to academic education is central to the book's plot. The lecturers of Shrewsbury College are veterans of the prolonged struggle for academic degrees for women, which Oxford granted only reluctantly. The Fellows of the college are surprised and a bit dismayed at the attitude of their students, who take for granted this right for which such a hard struggle had to be fought.
Sayers had herself been one of the first women to obtain an Oxford university degree, having being awarded first-class honours in the mediaeval literature examinations of 1915. She attended Somerville College, the basis for the fictional Shrewsbury College of the plot.
The book was adapted as a three-part series for BBC television in 1987, starring Edward Petherbridge as Wimsey and Harriet Walter as Harriet.
In 2005 a dramatisation of the novel was released on CD by the BBC Radio Collection, with Joanna David as Harriet and Ian Carmichael as Wimsey. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12253 |
G
G or g is the seventh letter of the ISO basic Latin alphabet. Its name in English is "gee" (pronounced ), plural "gees".
The letter 'G' was introduced in the Old Latin period as a variant of 'C' to distinguish voiced from voiceless . The recorded originator of 'G' is freedman Spurius Carvilius Ruga, the first Roman to open a fee-paying school, who taught around 230 BCE. At this time, 'K' had fallen out of favor, and 'C', which had formerly represented both and before open vowels, had come to express in all environments.
Ruga's positioning of 'G' shows that alphabetic order related to the letters' values as Greek numerals was a concern even in the 3rd century BC. According to some records, the original seventh letter, 'Z', had been purged from the Latin alphabet somewhat earlier in the 3rd century BC by the Roman censor Appius Claudius, who found it distasteful and foreign. Sampson (1985) suggests that: "Evidently the order of the alphabet was felt to be such a concrete thing that a new letter could be added in the middle only if a 'space' was created by the dropping of an old letter." The 3rd-century-BC addition of the letter G to the Roman alphabet is credited to Spurius Carvilius Ruga.
George Hempl proposed in 1899 that there never was such a "space" in the alphabet and that in fact 'G' was a direct descendant of zeta. Zeta took shapes like ⊏ in some of the Old Italic scripts; the development of the monumental form 'G' from this shape would be exactly parallel to the development of 'C' from gamma. He suggests that the pronunciation > was due to contamination from the also similar-looking 'K'.
Eventually, both velar consonants and developed palatalized allophones before front vowels; consequently in today's Romance languages, and have different sound values depending on context (known as hard and soft C and hard and soft G). Because of French influence, English language orthography shares this feature.
The modern lowercase 'g' has two typographic variants: the single-storey (sometimes "opentail") 'g' and the double-storey (sometimes "looptail") 'g'. The single-storey form derives from the majuscule (uppercase) form by raising the serif that distinguishes it from 'c' to the top of the loop, thus closing the loop, and extending the vertical stroke downward and to the left. The double-storey form (g) had developed similarly, except that some ornate forms then extended the tail back to the right, and to the left again, forming a closed bowl or loop. The initial extension to the left was absorbed into the upper closed bowl. The double-storey version became popular when printing switched to "Roman type" because the tail was effectively shorter, making it possible to put more lines on a page. In the double-storey version, a small top stroke in the upper-right, often terminating in an orb shape, is called an "ear".
Generally, the two forms are complementary, but occasionally the difference has been exploited to provide contrast. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, opentail has always represented a voiced velar plosive, while was distinguished from and represented a voiced velar fricative from 1895 to 1900. In 1948, the Council of the International Phonetic Association recognized and as typographic equivalents, and this decision was reaffirmed in 1993. While the 1949 "Principles of the International Phonetic Association" recommended the use of for a velar plosive and for an advanced one for languages where it is preferable to distinguish the two, such as Russian, this practice never caught on. The 1999 "Handbook of the International Phonetic Association", the successor to the "Principles", abandoned the recommendation and acknowledged both shapes as acceptable variants.
Wong et al. (2018) found that native English speakers have little conscious awareness of the looptail 'g' (). They write: "Despite being questioned repeatedly, and despite being informed directly that G has two lowercase print forms, nearly half of the participants failed to reveal any knowledge of the looptail 'g', and only 1 of the 38 participants was able to write looptail 'g' correctly."
In English, the letter appears either alone or in some digraphs. Alone, it represents
In words of Romance origin, is mainly soft before (including the digraphs and ), , or , and hard otherwise. Soft is also used in many words that came into English through medieval or modern Romance languages from languages without soft (like Ancient Latin and Greek) (e.g. "fragile" or "logic").
There are many English words of non-Romance origin where is hard though followed by or (e.g. "get", "gift"), and a few in which is soft though followed by such as "gaol" or "margarine".
The double consonant has the value (hard ) as in "nugget", with very few exceptions: in "suggest" and in "exaggerate" and "veggies".
The digraph has the value (soft ), as in "badger". Non-digraph can also occur, in compounds like "floodgate" and "headgear".
The digraph may represent
Non-digraph also occurs, with possible values
The digraph (in many cases a replacement for the obsolete letter yogh, which took various values including , , and ) may represent
Non-digraph also occurs, in compounds like "foghorn", "pigheaded"
The digraph may represent
Non-digraph also occurs, as in "signature", "agnostic"
The trigraph has the value as in "gingham" or "dinghy". Non-trigraph also occurs, in compounds like "stronghold" and "dunghill".
G is the tenth least frequently used letter in the English language (after Y, P, B, V, K, J, X, Q, and Z), with a frequency of about 2.02% in words.
Most Romance languages and some Nordic languages also have two main pronunciations for , hard and soft. While the soft value of varies in different Romance languages ( in French and Portuguese, in Catalan, in Italian and Romanian, and in most dialects of Spanish), in all except Romanian and Italian, soft has the same pronunciation as the .
In Italian and Romanian, is used to represent before front vowels where would otherwise represent a soft value. In Italian and French, is used to represent the palatal nasal , a sound somewhat similar to the in English "canyon". In Italian, the trigraph , when appearing before a vowel or as the article and pronoun "gli", represents the palatal lateral approximant .
Other languages typically use to represent regardless of position.
Amongst European languages, Czech, Dutch, Finnish, and Slovak are an exception as they do not have in their native words. In Dutch, represents a voiced velar fricative instead, a sound that does not occur in modern English, but there is a dialectal variation: many Netherlandic dialects use a voiceless fricative ( or ) instead, and in southern dialects it may be palatal . Nevertheless, word-finally it is always voiceless in all dialects, including the standard Dutch of Belgium and the Netherlands. On the other hand, some dialects (like Amelands) may have a phonemic .
Faroese uses to represent , in addition to , and also uses it to indicate a glide.
In Māori, is used in the digraph which represents the velar nasal and is pronounced like the in "singer".
In older Czech and Slovak orthographies, was used to represent , while was written as ( with caron). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12255 |
Gamma
Gamma (uppercase , lowercase ; "gámma") is the third letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 3. In Ancient Greek, the letter gamma represented a voiced velar stop . In Modern Greek, this letter represents either a voiced velar fricative or a voiced palatal fricative.
In the International Phonetic Alphabet and other modern Latin-alphabet based phonetic notations, it represents the voiced velar fricative.
The Greek letter Gamma Γ was derived from the Phoenician letter for the /g/ phoneme ( "gīml"), and as such is cognate with Hebrew "gimel" ג.
Based on its name, the letter has been interpreted as an abstract representation of a camel's neck, but this has been criticized as contrived, and it is more likely that the letter is derived from an Egyptian hieroglyph representing a club or throwing stick.
In Archaic Greece, the shape of gamma was closer to a classical lambda (Λ), while lambda retained the Phoenician L-shape ().
Letters that arose from the Greek gamma include Etruscan (Old Italic) 𐌂, Roman C and G, Runic "kaunan" , Gothic "geuua" , the Coptic Ⲅ, and the Cyrillic letters Г and Ґ.
The Ancient Greek /g/ phoneme was the voiced velar stop, continuing the reconstructed proto-Indo-European "*g", "*ǵ".
The modern Greek phoneme represented by gamma is realized either as a voiced palatal fricative () before a front vowel (/e/, /i/), or as a voiced velar fricative in all other environments. Both in Ancient and in Modern Greek, before other velar consonants (κ, χ, ξ "k, kh, ks"), gamma represents a velar nasal . A double gamma γγ represents the sequence (phonetically varying ) or .
Lowercase Greek gamma is used in the Americanist phonetic notation and Uralic Phonetic Alphabet to indicate voiced consonants.
The gamma was also added to the Latin alphabet, as Latin gamma, in the following forms: majuscule Ɣ, minuscule ɣ, and superscript modifier letter ˠ.
In the International Phonetic Alphabet the minuscule letter is used to represent a voiced velar fricative and the superscript modifier letter is used to represent velarization. It is not to be confused with the character , which looks like a lowercase Latin gamma that lies above the baseline rather than crossing, and which represents the close-mid back unrounded vowel. In certain nonstandard variations of the IPA, the uppercase form is used.
It is as a full-fledged majuscule and minuscule letter in the alphabets of some of languages of Africa such as Dagbani, Dinka, Kabye, and Ewe, and Berber languages using the Berber Latin alphabet.
It is sometimes also used in the romanization of Pashto.
The lowercase letter formula_1 is used as a symbol for:
The lowercase Latin gamma ɣ can also be used in contexts (such as chemical or molecule nomenclature) where gamma must not be confused with the letter y, which can occur in some computer typefaces.
The uppercase letter formula_3 is used as a symbol for:
The HTML entities for uppercase and lowercase gamma are codice_1 and codice_2.
These characters are used only as mathematical symbols. Stylized Greek text should be encoded using the normal Greek letters, with markup and formatting to indicate text style. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12257 |
Goitre
A goitre, or goiter, is a swelling in the neck resulting from an enlarged thyroid gland. A goitre can be associated with a thyroid that is not functioning properly.
Worldwide, over 90% of goitre cases are caused by iodine deficiency. The term is from the Latin "gutturia", meaning throat. Most goitres are of a benign nature.
A goiter can present as a palpable or visible enlargement of the thyroid gland at the base of the neck. A goiter, if associated with hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism, may be present with symptoms of the underlying disorder. For hyperthyroidism, the most common symptoms are associated with adrenergic stimulation: tachycardia (increased heart rate), palpitations, nervousness, tremor, increased blood pressure and heat intolerance. Clinical manifestations are often related to hypermetabolism, (increased metabolism), excessive thyroid hormone, an increase in oxygen consumption, metabolic changes in protein metabolism, immunologic stimulation of diffuse goitre, and ocular changes (exophthalmos). Hypothyroid individuals may have weight gain despite poor appetite, cold intolerance, constipation and lethargy. However, these symptoms are often non-specific and make diagnosis difficult.
Worldwide, the most common cause for goitre is iodine deficiency, commonly seen in countries that scarcely use iodized salt. Selenium deficiency is also considered a contributing factor. In countries that use iodized salt, Hashimoto's thyroiditis is the most common cause. Goitre can also result from cyanide poisoning; this is particularly common in tropical countries where people eat the cyanide-rich cassava root as the staple food.
Goitre may be diagnosed via a thyroid function test in an individual suspected of having it.
A goitre may be classified either as nodular or diffuse. Nodular goitres are either of one nodule (uninodular) or of multiple nodules (multinodular).
Goitre is treated according to the cause. If the thyroid gland is producing an excess of thyroid hormones (T3 and T4), radioactive iodine is given to the patient to shrink the gland. If goitre is caused by iodine deficiency, small doses of iodide in the form of Lugol's iodine or KI solution are given. If the goitre is associated with an underactive thyroid, thyroid supplements are used as treatment. Sometimes a partial or complete thyroidectomy is required.
Goitre is more common among women, but this includes the many types of goitre caused by autoimmune problems, and not only those caused by simple lack of iodine.
Chinese physicians of the Tang Dynasty (618–907) were the first to successfully treat patients with goitre by using the iodine-rich thyroid gland of animals such as sheep and pigs—in raw, pill, or powdered form. This was outlined in Zhen Quan's (d. 643 AD) book, as well as several others. One Chinese book, "The Pharmacopoeia of the Heavenly Husbandman", asserted that iodine-rich sargassum was used to treat goitre patients by the 1st century BC, but this book was written much later.
In the 12th century, Zayn al-Din al-Jurjani, a Persian physician, provided the first description of Graves' disease after noting the association of goitre and a displacement of the eye known as exophthalmos in his "Thesaurus of the Shah of Khwarazm", the major medical dictionary of its time. Al-Jurjani also established an association between goitre and palpitation. The disease was later named after Irish doctor Robert James Graves, who described a case of goitre with exophthalmos in 1835. The German Karl Adolph von Basedow also independently reported the same constellation of symptoms in 1840, while earlier reports of the disease were also published by the Italians Giuseppe Flajani and Antonio Giuseppe Testa, in 1802 and 1810 respectively, and by the English physician Caleb Hillier Parry (a friend of Edward Jenner) in the late 18th century.
Paracelsus (1493–1541) was the first person to propose a relationship between goitre and minerals (particularly lead) in drinking water. Iodine was later discovered by Bernard Courtois in 1811 from seaweed ash.
Goitre was previously common in many areas that were deficient in iodine in the soil. For example, in the English Midlands, the condition was known as Derbyshire Neck. In the United States, goitre was found in the Great Lakes, Midwest, and Intermountain regions. The condition is now practically absent in affluent nations, where table salt is supplemented with iodine. However, it is still prevalent in India, China, Central Asia, and Central Africa.
Goitre had been prevalent in the alpine countries for a long time. Switzerland reduced the condition by introducing iodised salt in 1922. The Bavarian tracht in the Miesbach and Salzburg regions, which appeared in the 19th century, includes a choker, dubbed "Kropfband" (struma band) which was used to hide either the goitre or the remnants of goitre surgery.
In the 1920s wearing bottles of iodine around the neck was believed to prevent goitre.
The coat of arms and crest of Die Kröpfner, of Tyrol showed a man "afflicted with a large goitre", an apparent pun on the German for the word ("Kropf"). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12265 |
George Washington
George Washington (February 22, 1732, 1799) was an American political leader, military general, statesman, and founding father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Previously, he led Patriot forces to victory in the nation's War for Independence. He presided at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, which established the U.S. Constitution
and a federal government. Washington has been called the "Father of His Country" for his manifold leadership in the formative days of the new nation.
Washington received his initial military training and command with the Virginia Regiment during the French and Indian War. He was later elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses and was named a delegate to the Continental Congress, where he was appointed Commanding General of the Continental Army. He commanded American forces, allied with France, in the defeat and surrender of the British during the Siege of Yorktown. He resigned his commission after the Treaty of Paris in 1783.
Washington played a key role in adopting and ratifying the Constitution and was then elected president (twice) by the Electoral College. He implemented a strong, well-financed national government while remaining impartial in a fierce rivalry between cabinet members Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. During the French Revolution, he proclaimed a policy of neutrality while sanctioning the Jay Treaty. He set enduring precedents for the office of president, including the title "President of the United States", and his Farewell Address is widely regarded as a pre-eminent statement on republicanism.
Washington owned slaves, and, in order to preserve national unity, he supported measures passed by Congress to protect slavery. He later became troubled with the institution of slavery and freed his slaves in a 1799 will. He endeavored to assimilate Native Americans into Anglo-American culture but combated indigenous resistance during occasions of violent conflict. He was a member of the Anglican Church and the Freemasons, and he urged broad religious freedom in his roles as general and president. Upon his death, he was eulogized as "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen". He has been memorialized by monuments, art, geographical locations, stamps, and currency, and many scholars and polls rank him among the greatest U.S. presidents.
The Washington family was a wealthy Virginia family which had made its fortune in land speculation. Washington's great-grandfather John Washington immigrated in 1656 from Sulgrave, England, to the British Colony of Virginia where he accumulated of land, including Little Hunting Creek on the Potomac River. George Washington was born February 22, 1732, at Popes Creek in Westmoreland County, Virginia, and was the first of six children of Augustine and Mary Ball Washington. By English common law Washington was a naturalized subject of the King, as were all others born in the English colonies. His father was a justice of the peace and a prominent public figure who had three additional children from his first marriage to Jane Butler. The family moved to Little Hunting Creek in 1735, then to Ferry Farm near Fredericksburg, Virginia, in 1738. When Augustine died in 1743, Washington inherited Ferry Farm and ten slaves; his older half-brother Lawrence inherited Little Hunting Creek and renamed it Mount Vernon.
Washington did not have the formal education his elder brothers received at Appleby Grammar School in England, but he did learn mathematics, trigonometry, and land surveying. He was a talented draftsman and map-maker. By early adulthood he was writing with "considerable force" and "precision", however his writing displayed little wit or humor. In pursuit of admiration, status, and power, he tended to attribute his shortcomings and failures to someone else's ineffectuality.
Washington often visited Mount Vernon and Belvoir, the plantation that belonged to Lawrence's father-in-law William Fairfax. Fairfax became Washington's patron and surrogate father, and Washington spent a month in 1748 with a team surveying Fairfax's Shenandoah Valley property. He received a surveyor's license the following year from the College of William & Mary; Fairfax appointed him surveyor of Culpeper County, Virginia, and he thus familiarized himself with the frontier region, resigning from the job in 1750. By 1752 he had bought almost in the Valley and owned .
In 1751 Washington made his only trip abroad when he accompanied Lawrence to Barbados, hoping the climate would cure his brother's tuberculosis. Washington contracted smallpox during that trip, which immunized him but left his face slightly scarred. Lawrence died in 1752, and Washington leased Mount Vernon from his widow; he inherited it outright after her death in 1761.
Lawrence Washington's service as adjutant general of the Virginia militia inspired George to seek a commission. Virginia's Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie appointed him as a major and as commander of one of the four militia districts. The British and French were competing for control of the Ohio Valley at the time, the British building forts along the Ohio River and the French doing likewise between the river and Lake Erie.
In October 1753, Dinwiddie appointed Washington as a special envoy to demand that the French vacate territory which the British had claimed. Dinwiddie also appointed him to make peace with the Iroquois Confederacy and to gather intelligence about the French forces. Washington met with Half-King Tanacharison and other Iroquois chiefs at Logstown to secure their promise of support against the French, and his party reached the Ohio River in November. They were intercepted by a French patrol and escorted to Fort Le Boeuf where Washington was received in a friendly manner. He delivered the British demand to vacate to French commander Saint-Pierre, but the French refused to leave. Saint-Pierre gave Washington his official answer in a sealed envelope after a few days' delay, and he gave Washington's party food and extra winter clothing for the trip back to Virginia. Washington completed the precarious mission in 77 days in difficult winter conditions, achieving a measure of distinction when his report was published in Virginia and in London.
In February 1754, Dinwiddie promoted Washington to lieutenant colonel and second-in-command of the 300-strong Virginia Regiment, with orders to confront French forces at the Forks of the Ohio. Washington set out for the Forks with half the regiment in April but soon learned a French force of 1,000 had begun construction of Fort Duquesne there. In May, having set up a defensive position at Great Meadows, he learned that the French had made camp seven miles (11 km) away; he decided to take the offensive.
The French detachment proved to be only about fifty men, so Washington advanced on May 28 with a small force of Virginians and Indian allies to ambush them. What took place, known as the Battle of Jumonville Glen or the Jumonville affair, was disputed, but French forces were killed outright with muskets and hatchets. French commander Joseph Coulon de Jumonville, who carried a diplomatic message for the British to evacuate, was killed. French forces found Jumonville and some of his men dead and scalped and assumed Washington was responsible. Washington blamed his translator for not communicating the French intentions. Dinwiddie congratulated Washington for his victory over the French. This incident ignited the French and Indian War, which later became part of the larger Seven Years' War.
The full Virginia Regiment joined Washington at Fort Necessity the following month with news that he had been promoted to command of the regiment and to colonel upon the death of the regimental commander. The regiment was reinforced by an independent company of 100 South Carolinians led by Captain James Mackay, whose royal commission outranked that of Washington, and a conflict of command ensued. On July 3, a French force attacked with 900 men, and the ensuing battle ended in Washington's surrender. In the aftermath, Colonel James Innes took command of intercolonial forces, the Virginia Regiment was divided, and Washington was offered a captaincy which he refused, with resignation of his commission.
In 1755, Washington served voluntarily as an aide to General Edward Braddock, who led a British expedition to expel the French from Fort Duquesne and the Ohio Country. On Washington's recommendation, Braddock split the army into one main column and a lightly equipped "flying column". Suffering from a severe case of dysentery, Washington was left behind, and when he rejoined Braddock at Monongahela the French and their Indian allies ambushed the divided army. The British suffered two-thirds casualties, including the mortally wounded Braddock. Under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Gage, Washington, still very ill, rallied the survivors and formed a rear guard, allowing the remnants of the force to disengage and retreat. During the engagement he had two horses shot from under him, and his hat and coat were bullet-pierced. His conduct under fire redeemed his reputation among critics of his command in the Battle of Fort Necessity, but he was not included by the succeeding commander (Colonel Thomas Dunbar) in planning subsequent operations.
The Virginia Regiment was reconstituted in August 1755, and Dinwiddie appointed Washington its commander, again with the colonial rank of colonel. Washington clashed over seniority almost immediately, this time with John Dagworthy, another captain of superior royal rank, who commanded a detachment of Marylanders at the regiment's headquarters in Fort Cumberland. Washington, impatient for an offensive against Fort Duquesne, was convinced Braddock would have granted him a royal commission and pressed his case in February 1756 with Braddock's successor, William Shirley, and again in January 1757 with Shirley's successor, Lord Loudoun. Shirley ruled in Washington's favor only in the matter of Dagworthy; Loudoun humiliated Washington, refused him a royal commission and agreed only to relieve him of the responsibility of manning Fort Cumberland.
In 1758, the Virginia Regiment was assigned to Britain's Forbes Expedition to take Fort Duquesne. Washington disagreed with General John Forbes' tactics and chosen route. Forbes nevertheless made Washington a brevet brigadier general and gave him command of one of the three brigades that would assault the fort. The French abandoned the fort and the valley before the assault was launched; Washington saw only a friendly-fire incident which left 14 dead and 26 injured. The war lasted another four years, but Washington resigned his commission and returned to Mount Vernon.
Under Washington, the Virginia Regiment had defended of frontier against twenty Indian attacks in ten months. He increased the professionalism of the regiment as it increased from 300 to 1,000 men, and Virginia's frontier population suffered less than other colonies. Some historians have said this was Washington's "only unqualified success" during the war. Though he failed to realize a royal commission, he did gain self-confidence, leadership skills, and invaluable knowledge of British tactics. The destructive competition Washington witnessed among colonial politicians fostered his later support of strong central government.
On January 6, 1759, Washington, at age 26, married Martha Dandridge Custis, the 27-year-old widow of wealthy plantation owner Daniel Parke Custis. The marriage took place at Martha's estate; she was intelligent, gracious, and experienced in managing a planter's estate, and the couple created a happy marriage. They raised John Parke Custis (Jacky) and Martha Parke (Patsy) Custis, children from her previous marriage, and later their grandchildren Eleanor Parke Custis (Nelly) and George Washington Parke Custis (Washy). Washington's 1751 bout with smallpox is thought to have rendered him sterile, though it is equally likely "Martha may have sustained injury during the birth of Patsy, her final child, making additional births impossible." They lamented the fact that they had no children together. They moved to Mount Vernon, near Alexandria, where he took up life as a planter of tobacco and wheat and emerged as a political figure.
The marriage gave Washington control over Martha's one-third dower interest in the Custis estate, and he managed the remaining two-thirds for Martha's children; the estate also included 84 slaves. He became one of Virginia's wealthiest men, which increased his social standing.
At Washington's urging, Governor Lord Botetourt fulfilled Dinwiddie's 1754 promise of land bounties to all volunteer militia during the French and Indian War. In late 1770, Washington inspected the lands in the Ohio and Great Kanawha regions, and he engaged surveyor William Crawford to subdivide it. Crawford allotted to Washington; Washington told the veterans that their land was hilly and unsuitable for farming, and he agreed to purchase , leaving some feeling they had been duped. He also doubled the size of Mount Vernon to and increased its slave population to more than a hundred by 1775.
As a respected military hero and large landowner, Washington held local offices and was elected to the Virginia provincial legislature, representing Frederick County in the House of Burgesses for seven years beginning in 1758. He plied the voters with beer, brandy, and other beverages, although he was absent while serving on the Forbes Expedition. He won election with roughly 40 percent of the vote, defeating three other candidates with the help of several local supporters. He rarely spoke in his early legislative career, but he became a prominent critic of Britain's taxation and mercantilist policies in the 1760s.
By occupation, Washington was a planter, and he imported luxuries and other goods from England, paying for them by exporting tobacco. His profligate spending combined with low tobacco prices left him £1,800 in debt by 1764, prompting him to diversify. In 1765, because of erosion and other soil problems, he changed Mount Vernon's primary cash crop from tobacco to wheat and expanded operations to include corn flour milling and fishing. Washington also took time for leisure with fox hunting, fishing, dances, theater, cards, backgammon, and billiards.
Washington soon was counted among the political and social elite in Virginia. From 1768 to 1775, he invited some 2,000 guests to his Mount Vernon estate, mostly those whom he considered "people of rank". He became more politically active in 1769, presenting legislation in the Virginia Assembly to establish an embargo on goods from Great Britain.
Washington's step-daughter Patsy Custis suffered from epileptic attacks from age 12, and she died in his arms in 1773. The following day, he wrote to Burwell Bassett: "It is easier to conceive, than to describe, the distress of this Family". He canceled all business activity and remained with Martha every night for three months.
Washington played a central role before and during the American Revolution. His disdain for the British military had begun when he was abashedly passed over for promotion into the Regular Army. Opposed to taxes imposed by the British Parliament on the Colonies without proper representation, he and other colonists were also angered by the Royal Proclamation of 1763 which banned American settlement west of the Allegheny Mountains and protected the British fur trade.
Washington believed the Stamp Act of 1765 was an "Act of Oppression", and he celebrated its repeal the following year. In March 1766, Parliament passed the Declaratory Act asserting that Parliamentary law superseded colonial law. Washington helped lead widespread protests against the Townshend Acts passed by Parliament in 1767, and he introduced a proposal in May 1769 drafted by George Mason which called Virginians to boycott English goods; the Acts were mostly repealed in 1770.
Parliament sought to punish Massachusetts colonists for their role in the Boston Tea Party in 1774 by passing the Coercive Acts, which Washington referred to as "an invasion of our rights and privileges". He said Americans must not submit to acts of tyranny since "custom and use shall make us as tame and abject slaves, as the blacks we rule over with such arbitrary sway". That July, he and George Mason drafted a list of resolutions for the Fairfax County committee which Washington chaired, and the committee adopted the Fairfax Resolves calling for a Continental Congress. On August 1, Washington attended the First Virginia Convention, where he was selected as a delegate to the First Continental Congress. As tensions rose in 1774, he helped train county militias in Virginia and organized enforcement of the Continental Association boycott of British goods instituted by the Congress.
The American Revolutionary War began on April 19, 1775, with the Battles of Lexington and Concord and the Siege of Boston. The colonists were divided over breaking away from British rule and split into two factions: Patriots who rejected British rule, and Loyalists who desired to remain subject to the King. General Thomas Gage was commander of British forces in America at the beginning of the war. Upon hearing the shocking news of the onset of war, Washington was "sobered and dismayed", and he hastily departed Mount Vernon on May 4, 1775, to join the Continental Congress in Philadelphia.
Congress created the Continental Army on June 14, 1775, and Samuel and John Adams nominated Washington to become its commander in chief. Washington was chosen over John Hancock because of his military experience and the belief that a Virginian would better unite the colonies. He was considered an incisive leader who kept his "ambition in check". He was unanimously elected commander in chief by Congress the next day.
Washington appeared before Congress in uniform and gave an acceptance speech on June 16, declining a salary—though he was later reimbursed expenses. He was commissioned on June 19 and was roundly praised by Congressional delegates, including John Adams, who proclaimed that he was the man best suited to lead and unite the colonies. Congress appointed Washington "General & Commander in chief of the army of the United Colonies and of all the forces raised or to be raised by them", and instructed him to take charge of the siege of Boston on June 22, 1775.
Congress chose his primary staff officers, including Major General Artemas Ward, Adjutant General Horatio Gates, Major General Charles Lee, Major General Philip Schuyler, Major General Nathanael Greene, Colonel Henry Knox, and Colonel Alexander Hamilton. Washington was impressed by Colonel Benedict Arnold and gave him responsibility for invading Canada. He also engaged French and Indian War compatriot Brigadier General Daniel Morgan. Henry Knox impressed Adams with ordnance knowledge, and Washington promoted him to colonel and chief of artillery.
Washington initially protested enlistment of slaves in the Continental Army, but later he relented when the British emancipated and used theirs. On January 16, 1776, Congress allowed free blacks to serve in the militia. By the end of the war one-tenth of Washington's army were blacks.
Early in 1775, in response to the growing rebellious movement, London sent British troops, commanded by General Thomas Gage, to occupy Boston. They set up fortifications about the city, making it impervious to attack. Various local militias surrounded the city and effectively trapped the British, resulting in a standoff.
As Washington headed for Boston, word of his march preceded him, and he was greeted everywhere; gradually he became a symbol of the Patriot cause. Upon arrival on July 2, 1775, two weeks after the Patriot defeat at nearby Bunker Hill, he set up his Cambridge, Massachusetts headquarters and inspected the new army there, only to find an undisciplined and badly outfitted militia. After consultation, he initiated Benjamin Franklin's suggested reforms—drilling the soldiers and imposing strict discipline, floggings, and incarceration. Washington ordered his officers to identify the skills of recruits to ensure military effectiveness, while removing incompetent officers. He petitioned Gage, his former superior, to release captured Patriot officers from prison and treat them humanely. In October 1775, King George III declared that the colonies were in open rebellion and relieved General Gage of command for incompetence, replacing him with General William Howe.
In June 1775, Congress ordered an invasion of Canada. It was led by Benedict Arnold, who, despite Washington's strong objection, drew volunteers from the latter's force during the Siege of Boston. The move on Quebec failed, with the American forces being reduced to less than half and forced to retreat.
The Continental Army, further diminished by expiring short-term enlistments, and by January 1776 reduced by half to 9,600 men, had to be supplemented with militia, and was joined by Knox with heavy artillery captured from Fort Ticonderoga. When the Charles River froze over Washington was eager to cross and storm Boston, but General Gates and others were opposed to untrained militia striking well-garrisoned fortifications. Washington reluctantly agreed to secure Dorchester Heights, 100 feet above Boston, in an attempt to force the British out of the city. On March 9, under cover of darkness, Washington's troops brought up Knox's big guns and bombarded British ships in Boston harbor. On March 17 9,000 British troops and Loyalists began a chaotic ten-day evacuation of Boston aboard 120 ships. Soon after, Washington entered the city with 500 men, with explicit orders not to plunder the city. He ordered vaccinations against smallpox to great effect, as he did later in Morristown, New Jersey. He refrained from exerting military authority in Boston, leaving civilian matters in the hands of local authorities.
Washington then proceeded to New York City, arriving on April 13, 1776, and began constructing fortifications there to thwart the expected British attack. He ordered his occupying forces to treat civilians and their property with respect, to avoid the abuse suffered by civilians in Boston at the hands of British troops. A plot to assassinate or capture him was discovered but it failed, though his bodyguard Thomas Hickey was hanged for mutiny and sedition. General Howe transported his resupplied army, with the British fleet, from Halifax to New York, knowing the city was key to securing the continent. George Germain, who ran the British war effort in England, believed it could be won with one "decisive blow". The British forces, including more than a hundred ships and thousands of troops, began arriving on Staten Island on July2 to lay siege to the city. After the Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4, Washington informed his troops in his general orders of July9 that Congress had declared the united colonies to be "free and independent states".
Howe's troop strength totaled 32,000 regulars and Hessians, and Washington's consisted of 23,000, mostly raw recruits and militia. In August, Howe landed 20,000 troops at Gravesend, Brooklyn, and approached Washington's fortifications, as King George III proclaimed the rebellious American colonists to be traitors. Washington, opposing his generals, chose to fight, based upon inaccurate information that Howe's army had only 8,000-plus troops. In the Battle of Long Island, Howe assaulted Washington's flank and inflicted 1,500 Patriot casualties, the British suffering 400. Washington retreated, instructing General William Heath to acquisition river craft in the area. On August 30, General William Alexander held off the British and gave cover while the army crossed the East River under darkness to Manhattan Island without loss of life or materiel, although Alexander was captured.
Howe, emboldened by his Long Island victory, dispatched Washington as "George Washington, Esq.", in futility to negotiate peace. Washington declined, demanding to be addressed with diplomatic protocol, as general and fellow belligerent, not as a "rebel", lest his men be hanged as such if captured. The British navy bombarded the unstable earthworks on lower Manhattan Island. Washington, with misgivings, heeded the advice of Generals Greene and Putnam to defend Fort Washington. They were unable to hold it, and Washington abandoned it despite General Lee's objections, as his army retired north to White Plains. Howe's pursuit forced Washington to retreat across the Hudson River to Fort Lee to avoid encirclement. Howe landed his troops on Manhattan in November and captured Fort Washington, inflicting high casualties on the Americans. Washington was responsible for delaying the retreat, though he blamed Congress and General Greene. Loyalists in New York considered Howe a liberator and spread a rumor that Washington had set fire to the city. Patriot morale reached its lowest when Lee was captured.
Now reduced to 5,400 troops, Washington's army retreated through New Jersey, and Howe broke off pursuit, delaying his advance on Philadelphia, and set up winter quarters in New York.
Washington crossed the Delaware River into Pennsylvania, where Lee's replacement John Sullivan joined him with 2,000 more troops. The future of the Continental Army was in doubt for lack of supplies, a harsh winter, expiring enlistments, and desertions. Washington was disappointed that many New Jersey residents were Loyalists or skeptical about the prospect of independence.
Howe split up his British Army and posted a Hessian garrison at Trenton to hold western New Jersey and the east shore of the Delaware, but the army appeared complacent, and Washington and his generals devised a surprise attack on the Hessians at Trenton, which he codenamed "Victory or Death". The army was to cross the Delaware River to Trenton in three divisions: one led by Washington (2,400 troops), another by General James Ewing (700), and the third by Colonel John Cadwalader (1,500). The force was to then split, with Washington taking the Pennington Road and General Sullivan traveling south on the river's edge.
Washington first ordered a 60-mile search for Durham boats, to transport his army, and he ordered the destruction of vessels that could be used by the British. He crossed the Delaware River on the night of December 25–26, 1776, and risked capture staking out the Jersey shoreline. His men followed across the ice-obstructed river in sleet and snow from McConkey's Ferry, with 40 men per vessel. Wind churned up the waters, and they were pelted with hail, but by 3:00a.m. on December 26, they made it across with no losses. Henry Knox was delayed, managing frightened horses and about 18 field guns on flat-bottomed ferries. Cadwalader and Ewing failed to cross due to the ice and heavy currents, and a waiting Washington doubted his planned attack on Trenton. Once Knox arrived, Washington proceeded to Trenton, to take only his troops against the Hessians, rather than risk being spotted returning his army to Pennsylvania.
The troops spotted Hessian positions a mile from Trenton, so Washington split his force into two columns, rallying his men: "Soldiers keep by your officers. For God's sake, keep by your officers." The two columns were separated at the Birmingham crossroads, with General Nathanael Greene's column taking the upper Ferry Road, led by Washington, and General John Sullivan's advancing on River Road. (.) The Americans marched in sleet and snowfall. Many were shoeless with bloodied feet, and two died of exposure. At sunrise, Washington led them in a surprise attack on the Hessians, aided by Major General Knox and artillery. The Hessians had 22 killed (including Colonel Johann Rall), 83 wounded, and 850 captured with supplies.
Washington retreated across the Delaware to Pennsylvania but returned to New Jersey on January 3, launching an attack on British regulars at Princeton, with 40 Americans killed or wounded and 273 British killed or captured. American Generals Hugh Mercer and John Cadwalader were being driven back by the British when Mercer was mortally wounded, then Washington arrived and led the men in a counterattack which advanced to within of the British line.
Some British troops retreated after a brief stand, while others took refuge in Nassau Hall, which became the target of Colonel Alexander Hamilton's cannons. Washington's troops charged, the British surrendered in less than an hour, and 194 soldiers laid down their arms. Howe retreated to New York City where his army remained inactive until early the next year. Washington's depleted Continental Army took up winter headquarters in Morristown, New Jersey while disrupting British supply lines and expelling them from parts of New Jersey. Washington later said the British could have successfully counterattacked his encampment before his troops were dug in.
The British still controlled New York, and many Patriot soldiers did not re-enlist or deserted after the harsh winter campaign. Congress instituted greater rewards for re-enlisting and punishments for desertion in an effort to effect greater troop numbers. Strategically, Washington's victories were pivotal for the Revolution and quashed the British strategy of showing overwhelming force followed by offering generous terms. In February 1777, word reached London of the American victories at Trenton and Princeton, and the British realized the Patriots were in a position to demand unconditional independence.
In July 1777, British General John Burgoyne led the Saratoga campaign south from Quebec through Lake Champlain and recaptured Fort Ticonderoga with the objective of dividing New England, including control of the Hudson River. But General Howe in British-occupied New York blundered, taking his army south to Philadelphia rather than up the Hudson River to join Burgoyne near Albany. Meanwhile, Washington and Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette rushed to Philadelphia to engage Howe and were shocked to learn of Burgoyne's progress in upstate New York, where the Patriots were led by General Philip Schuyler and successor Horatio Gates. Washington's army of less experienced men were defeated in the pitched battles at Philadelphia.
Howe outmaneuvered Washington at the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777, and marched unopposed into the nation's capital at Philadelphia. A Patriot attack failed against the British at Germantown in October. Major General Thomas Conway prompted some members of Congress (referred to as the Conway Cabal) to consider removing Washington from command because of the losses incurred at Philadelphia. Washington's supporters resisted and the matter was finally dropped after much deliberation. Once exposed, Conway wrote an apology to Washington, resigned, and returned to France.
Washington was concerned with Howe's movements during the Saratoga campaign to the north, and he was also aware that Burgoyne was moving south toward Saratoga from Quebec. Washington took some risks to support Gates' army, sending reinforcements north with Generals Benedict Arnold, his most aggressive field commander, and Benjamin Lincoln. On October 7, 1777, Burgoyne tried to take Bemis Heights but was isolated from support by Howe. He was forced to retreat to Saratoga and ultimately surrendered after the Battles of Saratoga. As Washington suspected, Gates' victory emboldened his critics. Biographer John Alden maintains, "It was inevitable that the defeats of Washington's forces and the concurrent victory of the forces in upper New York should be compared." The admiration for Washington was waning, including little credit from John Adams. British commander Howe resigned in May 1778, left America forever, and was replaced by Sir Henry Clinton.
Washington's army of 11,000 went into winter quarters at Valley Forge north of Philadelphia in December 1777. They suffered between 2,000 and 3,000 deaths in the extreme cold over six months, mostly from disease and lack of food, clothing, and shelter. Meanwhile, the British were comfortably quartered in Philadelphia, paying for supplies in pounds sterling, while Washington struggled with a devalued American paper currency. The woodlands were soon exhausted of game, and by February morale and increased desertions ensued.
Washington made repeated petitions to the Continental Congress for provisions. He received a congressional delegation to check the Army's conditions, and expressed the urgency of the situation, proclaiming: "Something must be done. Important alterations must be made." He recommended that Congress expedite supplies, and Congress agreed to strengthen and fund the army's supply lines by reorganizing the commissary department. By late February, supplies began arriving.
Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben's incessant drilling soon transformed Washington's recruits into a disciplined fighting force, and the revitalized army emerged from Valley Forge early the following year. Washington promoted Von Steuben to Major General and made him chief of staff.
In early 1778, the French responded to Burgoyne's defeat and entered into a Treaty of Alliance with the Americans. The Continental Congress ratified the treaty in May, which amounted to a French declaration of war against Britain. The British evacuated Philadelphia for New York that June and Washington summoned a war council of American and French Generals. He chose a partial attack on the retreating British at the Battle of Monmouth; the British were commanded by Howe's successor General Henry Clinton. Generals Charles Lee and Lafayette moved with 4,000 men, without Washington's knowledge, and bungled their first attack on June 28. Washington relieved Lee and achieved a draw after an expansive battle. At nightfall, the British continued their retreat to New York, and Washington moved his army outside the city. Monmouth was Washington's last battle in the North; he valued the safety of his army more than towns with little value to the British.
Washington became "America's first spymaster" by designing an espionage system against the British. In 1778, Major Benjamin Tallmadge formed the Culper Ring at Washington's direction to covertly collect information about the British in New York. Washington had disregarded incidents of disloyalty by Benedict Arnold, who had distinguished himself in many battles.
During mid-1780, Arnold began supplying British spymaster John André with sensitive information intended to compromise Washington and capture West Point, a key American defensive position on the Hudson River. Historians have noted several possible reasons for Arnold's treachery: his anger at losing promotions to junior officers, the repeated slights from Congress. He was also deeply in debt, had been profiteering from the war and was disappointed by Washington's lack of support during his resultant court-martial.
Arnold repeatedly asked for command of West Point, and Washington finally agreed in August. Arnold met André on September 21, giving him plans to take over the garrison. Militia forces captured André and discovered the plans, but Arnold escaped to New York. Washington recalled the commanders positioned under Arnold at key points around the fort to prevent any complicity, but he did not suspect Arnold's wife Peggy. Washington assumed personal command at West Point and reorganized its defenses. André's trial for espionage ended in a death sentence, and Washington offered to return him to the British in exchange for Arnold, but Clinton refused. André was hanged on October 2, 1780, despite his request to face a firing squad, in order to deter other spies.
In late 1778, General Clinton shipped 3,000 troops from New York to Georgia and launched a Southern invasion against Savannah, reinforced by 2,000 British and Loyalist troops. They repelled an attack by Patriots and French naval forces, which bolstered the British war effort.
In mid-1779, Washington attacked Iroquois warriors of the Six Nations in order to force Britain's Indian allies out of New York, from which they had assaulted New England towns. The Indian warriors joined with Tory rangers led by Walter Butler and viciously slew more than 200 frontiersmen in June, laying waste to the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania. In response, Washington ordered General John Sullivan to lead an expedition to effect "the total destruction and devastation" of Iroquois villages and take their women and children hostage. Those who managed to escape fled to Canada.
Washington's troops went into quarters at Morristown, New Jersey during the winter of 1779–1780 and suffered their worst winter of the war, with temperatures well below freezing. New York Harbor was frozen over, snow and ice covered the ground for weeks, and the troops again lacked provisions.
Clinton assembled 12,500 troops and attacked Charlestown, South Carolina in January 1780, defeating General Benjamin Lincoln who had only 5,100 Continental troops. The British went on to occupy the South Carolina Piedmont in June, with no Patriot resistance. Clinton returned to New York and left 8,000 troops commanded by General Charles Cornwallis. Congress replaced Lincoln with Horatio Gates; he failed in South Carolina and was replaced by Washington's choice of Nathaniel Greene, but the British already had the South in their grasp. Washington was reinvigorated, however, when Lafayette returned from France with more ships, men, and supplies, and 5,000 veteran French troops led by Marshal Rochambeau arrived at Newport, Rhode Island in July 1780. French naval forces then landed, led by Admiral Grasse, and Washington encouraged Rochambeau to move his fleet south to launch a joint land and naval attack on Arnold's troops.
Washington's army went into winter quarters at New Windsor, New York in December 1780, and Washington urged Congress and state officials to expedite provisions in hopes that the army would not "continue to struggle under the same difficulties they have hitherto endured". On March 1, 1781, Congress ratified the Articles of Confederation, but the government that took effect on March2 did not have the power to levy taxes, and it loosely held the states together.
General Clinton sent Benedict Arnold, now a British Brigadier General with 1,700 troops, to Virginia to capture Portsmouth and to spread terror from there; Washington responded by sending Lafayette south to counter Arnold's efforts. Washington initially hoped to bring the fight to New York, drawing off British forces from Virginia and ending the war there, but Rochambeau advised Grasse that Cornwallis in Virginia was the better target. Grasse's fleet arrived off the Virginia coast and Washington saw the advantage. He made a feint towards Clinton in New York, then headed south to Virginia.
The Siege of Yorktown, Virginia was a decisive allied victory by the combined forces of the Continental Army commanded by General Washington, the French Army commanded by the General Comte de Rochambeau, and the French Navy commanded by Admiral de Grasse, in the defeat of Cornwallis' British forces. On August 19, the march to Yorktown led by Washington and Rochambeau began, which is known now as the "celebrated march". Washington was in command of an army of 7,800 Frenchmen, 3,100 militia, and 8,000 Continentals. Lacking in experience in siege warfare, Washington often deferred judgment to Rochambeau, effectively putting him in command; however, Rochambeau never challenged Washington's authority.
By late September, Patriot-French forces completely surrounded Yorktown, trapped the British army, and prevented British reinforcements from Clinton in the North, while the French Navy was victorious at the Battle of the Chesapeake. The final American offensive was begun with a shot fired by Washington. The siege ended with a British surrender on October 19, 1781; over 7,000 British soldiers were captured, in the last major land battle of the American Revolutionary War. Washington negotiated the terms of surrender for two days, and the official signing ceremony took place on October 19; Cornwallis, in fact, claimed illness and was absent, sending General Charles O'Hara as his proxy. As a gesture of goodwill, Washington held a dinner for the American, French, and British generals, all of whom fraternized on friendly terms and identified with one another as members of the same professional military caste.
After the surrender at Yorktown, a situation developed that threatened relations between the new American nation and Britain. Following a series of retributive executions between Patriots and Loyalists, Washington, on May 18, 1782, wrote in a letter to General Moses Hazen that a British Captain would be executed for the execution of Joshua Huddy a popular patriot leader among volunteers, who was hanged at the direction of Loyalist Captain Lippincott. Washington wanted Lippincott himself to be executed but was declined. Subsequently, Charles Asgill was chosen instead, by a drawing of lots from a hat. This was a violation of the 14th article of the Yorktown Articles of Capitulation, which protected prisoners of war from acts of retaliation. Later, Washington's feelings on matters changed and in a letter of November 13, 1782, to Asgill, he acknowledged Asgill's letter and situation, expressing his desire not to see any harm come to him. After much consideration between the Continental Congress, Alexander Hamilton, Washington, and appeals from the French Crown, Asgill was finally released, where Washington issued Asgill a pass that allowed his passage to New York.
As peace negotiations started, the British gradually evacuated troops from Savannah, Charlestown, and New York by 1783, and the French army and navy likewise departed. The American treasury was empty, unpaid and mutinous soldiers forced the adjournment of Congress, and Washington dispelled unrest by suppressing the Newburgh Conspiracy in March 1783; Congress promised officers a five-year bonus. Washington submitted an account of $450,000 in expenses which he had advanced to the army. The account was settled, though it was allegedly vague about large sums and included expenses his wife had incurred through visits to his headquarters.
Washington resigned as commander-in-chief once the Treaty of Paris was signed, and he planned to retire to Mount Vernon. The treaty was ratified in April 1783, and Hamilton's Congressional committee adapted the army for peacetime. Washington gave the Army's perspective to the committee in his "Sentiments on a Peace Establishment". The Treaty was signed on September 3, 1783, and Great Britain officially recognized the independence of the United States. Washington then disbanded his army, giving an eloquent farewell address to his soldiers on November 2. On November 25, the British evacuated New York City, and Washington and Governor George Clinton took possession.
Washington advised Congress in August 1783 to keep a standing army, create a "national militia" of separate state units, and establish a navy and a national military academy. He circulated his "Farewell" orders that discharged his troops, whom he called "one patriotic band of brothers". Before his return to Mount Vernon, he oversaw the evacuation of British forces in New York and was greeted by parades and celebrations, where he announced that Knox had been promoted commander-in-chief.
After leading the Continental Army for 8½ years, Washington bade farewell to his officers at Fraunces Tavern in December 1783, and resigned his commission days later, refuting Loyalist predictions that he would not relinquish his military command. In a final appearance in uniform, he gave a statement to the Congress: "I consider it an indispensable duty to close this last solemn act of my official life, by commending the interests of our dearest country to the protection of Almighty God, and those who have the superintendence of them, to his holy keeping." Washington's resignation was acclaimed at home and abroad and showed a skeptical world that the new republic would not degenerate into chaos.
The same month, Washington was appointed president-general of the Society of the Cincinnati, a hereditary fraternity, and he served for the remainder of his life.
Washington was longing to return home after spending just 10 days at Mount Vernon out of years of war. He arrived on Christmas Eve, delighted to be "free of the bustle of a camp and the busy scenes of public life". He was a celebrity and was fêted during a visit to his mother at Fredericksburg in February 1784, and he received a constant stream of visitors wishing to pay their respects to him at Mount Vernon.
Washington reactivated his interests in the Great Dismal Swamp and Potomac canal projects begun before the war, though neither paid him any dividends, and he undertook a 34-day, trip to check on his land holdings in the Ohio Country. He oversaw the completion of the remodeling work at Mount Vernon which transformed his residence into the mansion that survives to this day—although his financial situation was not strong. Creditors paid him in depreciated wartime currency, and he owed significant amounts in taxes and wages. Mount Vernon had made no profit during his absence, and he saw persistently poor crop yields due to pestilence and poor weather. His estate recorded its eleventh year running at a deficit in 1787, and there was little prospect of improvement. Washington undertook a new landscaping plan and succeeded in cultivating a range of fast-growing trees and shrubs that were native to North America.
Before returning to private life in June 1783, Washington called for a strong union. Though he was concerned that he might be criticized for meddling in civil matters, he sent a circular letter to all the states maintaining that the Articles of Confederation was no more than "a rope of sand" linking the states. He believed the nation was on the verge of "anarchy and confusion", was vulnerable to foreign intervention and that a national constitution would unify the states under a strong central government. When Shays' Rebellion erupted in Massachusetts on August 29, 1786, over taxation, Washington was further convinced that a national constitution was needed. Some nationalists feared that the new republic had descended into lawlessness, and they met together on September 11, 1786, at Annapolis to ask Congress to revise the Articles of Confederation. One of their biggest efforts, however, was getting Washington to attend. Congress agreed to a Constitutional Convention to be held in Philadelphia in Spring 1787, and each state was to send delegates.
On December 4, 1786, Washington was chosen to lead the Virginia delegation, but he declined on December 21. He had concerns about the legality of the convention and consulted James Madison, Henry Knox, and others. They persuaded him to attend it, however, as his presence might induce reluctant states to send delegates and smooth the way for the ratification process. On March 28, Washington told Governor Edmund Randolph that he would attend the convention, but made it clear that he was urged to attend.
Washington arrived in Philadelphia on May 9, 1787, though a quorum was not attained until Friday, May 25. Benjamin Franklin nominated Washington to preside over the convention, and he was unanimously elected to serve as president general. The convention's state-mandated purpose was to revise the Articles of Confederation with "all such alterations and further provisions" required to improve them, and the new government would be established when the resulting document was "duly confirmed by the several states". Governor Edmund Randolph of Virginia introduced Madison's Virginia Plan on May 27, the third day of the convention. It called for an entirely new constitution and a sovereign national government, which Washington highly recommended.
Washington wrote Alexander Hamilton on July 10: "I almost despair of seeing a favorable issue to the proceedings of our convention and do therefore repent having had any agency in the business." Nevertheless, he lent his prestige to the goodwill and work of the other delegates. He unsuccessfully lobbied many to support ratification of the Constitution, such as anti-federalist Patrick Henry; Washington told him "the adoption of it under the present circumstances of the Union is in my opinion desirable" and declared the alternative would be anarchy. Washington and Madison then spent four days at Mount Vernon evaluating the transition of the new government.
The delegates to the Convention anticipated a Washington presidency and left it to him to define the office once elected. The state electors under the Constitution voted for the president on February 4, 1789, and Washington suspected that most republicans had not voted for him. The mandated March4 date passed without a Congressional quorum to count the votes, but a quorum was reached on April 5. The votes were tallied the next day, and Congressional Secretary Charles Thomson was sent to Mount Vernon to tell Washington he had been elected president. Washington won the majority of every state's electoral votes; John Adams received the next highest number of votes and therefore became vice president. Washington had "anxious and painful sensations" about leaving the "domestic felicity" of Mount Vernon, but departed for New York City on April 16 to be inaugurated.
Washington was inaugurated on April 30, 1789, taking the oath of office at Federal Hall in New York City. His coach was led by militia and a marching band and followed by statesmen and foreign dignitaries in an inaugural parade, with a crowd of 10,000. Chancellor Robert R. Livingston administered the oath, using a Bible provided by the Masons, after which the militia fired a 13-gun salute. Washington read a speech in the Senate Chamber, asking "that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations—and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, consecrate the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States". Though he wished to serve without a salary, Congress insisted adamantly that he accept it, later providing Washington $25,000 per year to defray costs of the presidency.
Washington wrote to James Madison: "As the first of everything in our situation will serve to establish a precedent, it is devoutly wished on my part that these precedents be fixed on true principles." To that end, he preferred the title "Mr. President" over more majestic names proposed by the Senate, including "His Excellency" and "His Highness the President". His executive precedents included the inaugural address, messages to Congress, and the cabinet form of the executive branch.
Washington had planned to resign after his first term, but the political strife in the nation convinced him he should remain in office. He was an able administrator and a judge of talent and character, and he talked regularly with department heads to get their advice. He tolerated opposing views, despite fears that a democratic system would lead to political violence, and he conducted a smooth transition of power to his successor. He remained non-partisan throughout his presidency and opposed the divisiveness of political parties, but he favored a strong central government, was sympathetic to a Federalist form of government, and leery of the Republican opposition.
Washington dealt with major problems. The old Confederation lacked the powers to handle its workload and had weak leadership, no executive, a small bureaucracy of clerks, a large debt, worthless paper money, and no power to establish taxes. He had the task of assembling an executive department, and relied on Tobias Lear for advice selecting its officers. Great Britain refused to relinquish its forts in the American West, and Barbary pirates preyed on American merchant ships in the Mediterranean at a time when the United States did not even have a navy.
Congress created executive departments in 1789, including the State Department in July, the Department of War in August, and the Treasury Department in September. Washington appointed fellow Virginian Edmund Randolph as Attorney General, Samuel Osgood as Postmaster General, Thomas Jefferson as Secretary of State, and Henry Knox as Secretary of War. Finally, he appointed Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury. Washington's cabinet became a consulting and advisory body, not mandated by the Constitution.
Washington's cabinet members formed rival parties with sharply opposing views, most fiercely illustrated between Hamilton and Jefferson. He restricted cabinet discussions to topics of his choosing, without participating in the debate. He occasionally requested cabinet opinions in writing and expected department heads to agreeably carry out his decisions.
Washington was apolitical and opposed the formation of parties, suspecting that conflict would undermine republicanism. His closest advisors formed two factions, portending the First Party System. Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton formed the Federalist Party to promote the national credit and a financially powerful nation. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson opposed Hamilton's agenda and founded the Jeffersonian Republicans. Washington favored Hamilton's agenda, however, and it ultimately went into effect—resulting in bitter controversy.
Washington proclaimed November 26 as a day of Thanksgiving in order to encourage national unity. "It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor." He spent that day fasting and visiting debtors in prison to provide them with food and beer.
In response to two antislavery petitions, Georgia and South Carolina objected and were threatening to "blow the trumpet of civil war". Washington and Congress responded with a series of pro-slavery measures: citizenship was denied to black immigrants; slaves were barred from serving in state militias; two more slave states (Kentucky in 1792, Tennessee in 1796) were admitted; and the continuation of slavery in federal territories south of the Ohio River was guaranteed. On February 12, 1793, Washington signed into law the Fugitive Slave Act, which overrode state laws and courts, allowing agents to cross state lines to capture and return escaped slaves. Many in the north decried the law believing the act allowed bounty hunting and the kidnappings of blacks. The Slave Trade Act of 1794, limiting American involvement in the Atlantic slave trade, was also enacted.
Washington's first term was largely devoted to economic concerns, in which Hamilton had devised various plans to address matters. The establishment of public credit became a primary challenge for the federal government. Hamilton submitted a report to a deadlocked Congress, and he, Madison, and Jefferson reached the Compromise of 1790 in which Jefferson agreed to Hamilton's debt proposals in exchange for moving the nation's capital temporarily to Philadelphia and then south near Georgetown on the Potomac River. The terms were legislated in the Funding Act of 1790 and the Residence Act, both of which Washington signed into law. Congress authorized the assumption and payment of the nation's debts, with funding provided by customs duties and excise taxes.
Hamilton created controversy among Cabinet members by advocating the establishment of the First Bank of the United States. Madison and Jefferson objected, but the bank easily passed Congress. Jefferson and Randolph insisted that the new bank was beyond the authority granted by the constitution, as Hamilton believed. Washington sided with Hamilton and signed the legislation on February 25, and the rift became openly hostile between Hamilton and Jefferson.
The nation's first financial crisis occurred in March 1792. Hamilton's Federalists exploited large loans to gain control of U.S. debt securities, causing a run on the national bank; the markets returned to normal by mid-April. Jefferson believed Hamilton was part of the scheme, in spite of Hamilton's efforts to ameliorate, and Washington again found himself in the middle of a feud.
Jefferson and Hamilton adopted diametrically opposed political principles. Hamilton believed in a strong national government requiring a national bank and foreign loans to function, while Jefferson believed the government should be primarily directed by the states and the farm element; he also resented the idea of banks and foreign loans. To Washington's dismay, the two men persistently entered into disputes and infighting. Hamilton demanded that Jefferson resign if he could not support Washington, and Jefferson told Washington that Hamilton's fiscal system would lead to the overthrow of the Republic. Washington urged them to call a truce for the nation's sake, but they ignored him.
Washington reversed his decision to retire after his first term in order to minimize party strife, but the feud continued after his re-election. Jefferson's political actions, his support of Freneau's "National Gazette", and his attempt to undermine Hamilton nearly led Washington to dismiss him from the cabinet; Jefferson ultimately resigned his position in December 1793, and Washington forsook him from that time on.
The feud led to the well-defined Federalist and Republican parties, and party affiliation became necessary for election to Congress by 1794. Washington remained aloof from congressional attacks on Hamilton, but he did not publicly protect him, either. The Hamilton–Reynolds sex scandal opened Hamilton to disgrace, but Washington continued to hold him in "very high esteem" as the dominant force in establishing federal law and government.
In March 1791, at Hamilton's urging, with support from Madison, Congress imposed an excise tax on distilled spirits to help curtail the national debt, which took effect in July. Grain farmers strongly protested in Pennsylvania's frontier districts; they argued that they were unrepresented and were shouldering too much of the debt, comparing their situation to excessive British taxation prior to the Revolutionary War. On August 2, Washington assembled his cabinet to discuss how to deal with the situation. Unlike Washington who had reservations about using force, Hamilton had long waited for such a situation and was eager to suppress the rebellion by use of Federal authority and force. Not wanting to involve the federal government if possible, Washington called on Pennsylvania state officials to take the initiative, but they declined to take military action. On August 7, Washington issued his first proclamation for calling up state militias. After appealing for peace, he reminded the protestors that, unlike the rule of the British crown, the Federal law was issued by state-elected representatives.
Threats and violence against tax collectors, however, escalated into defiance against federal authority in 1794 and gave rise to the Whiskey Rebellion. Washington issued a final proclamation on September 25, threatening the use of military force to no avail. The federal army was not up to the task, so Washington invoked the Militia Act of 1792 to summon state militias. Governors sent troops, initially commanded by Washington, who gave the command to Light-Horse Harry Lee to lead them into the rebellious districts. They took 150 prisoners, and the remaining rebels dispersed without further fighting. Two of the prisoners were condemned to death, but Washington exercised his Constitutional authority for the first time and pardoned them.
Washington's forceful action demonstrated that the new government could protect itself and its tax collectors. This represented the first use of federal military force against the states and citizens, and remains the only time an incumbent president has commanded troops in the field. Washington justified his action against "certain self-created societies" which he regarded as "subversive organizations" which threatened the national union. He did not dispute their right to protest, but he insisted that their dissent must not violate federal law. Congress agreed and extended their congratulations to him; only Madison and Jefferson expressed indifference.
In April 1792, the French Revolutionary Wars began between Great Britain and France, and Washington declared America's neutrality. The revolutionary government of France sent diplomat Citizen Genêt to America, and he was welcomed with great enthusiasm. He created a network of new Democratic-Republican Societies promoting France's interests, but Washington denounced them and demanded that the French recall Genêt. The National Assembly of France granted Washington honorary French citizenship on August 26, 1792, during the early stages of the French Revolution. Hamilton formulated the Jay Treaty to normalize trade relations with Great Britain while removing them from western forts, and also to resolve financial debts remaining from the Revolution. Chief Justice John Jay acted as Washington's negotiator and signed the treaty on November 19, 1794; critical Jeffersonians, however, supported France. Washington deliberated, then supported the treaty because it avoided war with Britain, but was disappointed that its provisions favored Britain. He mobilized public opinion and secured ratification in the Senate but faced frequent public criticism.
The British agreed to abandon their forts around the Great Lakes, and the United States modified the boundary with Canada. The government liquidated numerous pre-Revolutionary debts, and the British opened the British West Indies to American trade. The treaty secured peace with Britain and a decade of prosperous trade. Jefferson claimed that it angered France and "invited rather than avoided" war. Relations with France deteriorated afterwards, leaving succeeding president John Adams with prospective war. James Monroe was the American Minister to France, but Washington recalled him for his opposition to the Treaty. The French refused to accept his replacement Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, and the French Directory declared the authority to seize American ships two days before Washington's term ended.
Ron Chernow describes Washington as always trying to be even-handed in dealing with the Natives. He states that Washington hoped they would abandon their itinerant hunting life and adapt to fixed agricultural communities in the manner of Anglo-Saxon settlers. He also maintains that Washington never advocated outright confiscation of tribal land or the forcible removal of tribes, and that he berated American settlers who abused natives, admitting that he held out no hope for pacific relations with the natives as long as "frontier settlers entertain the opinion that there is not the same crime (or indeed no crime at all) in killing an native as in killing a white man."
By contrast, Colin G. Calloway writes that "Washington had a lifelong obsession with getting Indian land, either for himself or for his nation, and initiated policies and campaigns that had devastating effects in Indian country." "The growth of the nation," Galloway has stated, "demanded the dispossession of Indian people. Washington hoped the process could be bloodless and that Indian people would give up their lands for a "fair" price and move away. But if Indians refused and resisted, as they often did, he felt he had no choice but to "extirpate" them and that the expeditions he sent to destroy Indian towns were therefore entirely justified."
During the Fall of 1789, Washington had to contend with the British military occupation in the Northwest frontier and their concerted efforts to incite hostile Indian tribes to attack American settlers. The Northwest tribes under Miami chief Little Turtle allied with the British Army to resist American expansion, and killed 1,500 settlers between 1783 and 1790.
Washington decided that "The Government of the United States are determined that their Administration of Indian Affairs shall be directed entirely by the great principles of Justice and humanity", and provided that their land interests should be negotiated by treaties. The administration regarded powerful tribes as foreign nations, and Washington even smoked a peace pipe and drank wine with them at the Philadelphia presidential house. He made numerous attempts to conciliate them; he equated killing indigenous peoples with killing Whites and sought to integrate them into European American culture. Secretary of War Henry Knox also attempted to encourage agriculture among the tribes.
In the Southwest, negotiations failed between federal commissioners and raiding Indian tribes seeking retribution. Washington invited Creek Chief Alexander McGillivray and 24 leading chiefs to New York to negotiate a treaty and treated them like foreign dignitaries. Knox and McGillivray concluded the "Treaty of New York" on August 7, 1790 in Federal Hall, which provided the tribes with agricultural supplies and McGillivray with a rank of Brigadier General Army and a salary of $1,500.
In 1790, Washington sent Brigadier General Josiah Harmar to pacify the Northwest tribes, but Little Turtle routed him twice and forced him to withdraw. The Western Confederacy of tribes used guerrilla tactics and were an effective force against the sparsely manned American Army. Washington sent Major General Arthur St. Clair from Fort Washington on an expedition to restore peace in the territory in 1791. On November 4, St. Clair's forces were ambushed and soundly defeated by tribal forces with few survivors, despite Washington's warning of surprise attacks. Washington was outraged over what he viewed to be excessive Native American brutality and execution of captives, including women and children.
St. Clair resigned his commission, and Washington replaced him with the Revolutionary War hero General Anthony Wayne. From 1792 to 1793, Wayne instructed his troops on Native American warfare tactics and instilled discipline which was lacking under St. Clair. In August 1794, Washington sent Wayne into tribal territory with authority to drive them out by burning their villages and crops in the Maumee Valley. On August 24, the American army under Wayne's leadership defeated the western confederacy at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, and the Treaty of Greenville in August 1795 opened up two-thirds of the Ohio Country for American settlement.
Originally Washington had planned to retire after his first term, while many Americans could not imagine anyone else taking his place. After nearly four years as president, and dealing with the infighting in his own cabinet and with partisan critics, Washington showed little enthusiasm in running for a second term, while Martha also wanted him not to run. James Madison urged him not to retire, that his absence would only allow the dangerous political rift in his cabinet, and in the House, to worsen. Jefferson also pleaded with him not to retire and agreed to drop his attacks on Hamilton, or he would also retire if Washington did. Hamilton maintained that Washington's absence would be "deplored as the greatest evil" to the country at this time. Washington's close nephew George Augustine Washington, his manager at Mount Vernon, was critically ill and had to be replaced, further increasing Washington's desire to retire and return to Mount Vernon.
When the election of 1792 neared, Washington did not publicly announce his presidential candidacy but silently consented to run, to prevent a further political-personal rift in his cabinet. The Electoral College unanimously elected him president on February 13, 1793, and John Adams as vice president by a vote of 77 to 50. Washington, with nominal fanfare, arrived alone at his inauguration in his carriage. Sworn into office by Associate Justice William Cushing on March 4, 1793 in the Senate Chamber of Congress Hall in Philadelphia, Washington gave a brief address and then immediately retired to his Philadelphia presidential house, weary of office and in poor health.
On April 22, 1793, during the French Revolution, Washington issued his famous Neutrality Proclamation and was resolved to pursue, "a conduct friendly and impartial toward the belligerent Powers" while he warned Americans not to intervene in the international conflict. Although Washington recognized France's revolutionary government, he would eventually ask French minister to America Citizen Genet be recalled over the Citizen Genet Affair. Genet was a diplomatic troublemaker who was openly hostile toward Washington's neutrality policy. He procured four American ships as privateers to strike at Spanish forces (British allies) in Florida while organizing militias to strike at other British possessions. But his efforts failed to draw America into the foreign campaigns during Washington's presidency. On July 31, 1793 Jefferson submitted his resignation from Washington's cabinet. Washington signed the Naval Act of 1794 and commissioned the first six federal frigates to combat Barbary pirates.
In January 1795, Hamilton, who desired more income for his family, resigned office and was replaced by Washington appointment Oliver Wolcott, Jr.. Washington and Hamilton remained friends. However, Washington's relationship with his Secretary of War Henry Knox deteriorated. Knox resigned office on the rumor he profited from construction contracts on U.S. Frigates.
In the final months of his presidency, Washington was assailed by his political foes and a partisan press who accused him of being ambitious and greedy, while he argued that he had taken no salary during the war and had risked his life in battle. He regarded the press as a disuniting, "diabolical" force of falsehoods, sentiments that he expressed in his Farewell Address. At the end of his second term, Washington retired for personal and political reasons, dismayed with personal attacks, and to ensure that a truly contested presidential election could be held. He did not feel bound to a two-term limit, but his retirement set a significant precedent. Washington is often credited with setting the principle of a two-term presidency, but it was Thomas Jefferson who first refused to run for a third term on political grounds.
In 1796, Washington declined to run for a third term of office, believing his death in office would create an image of a lifetime appointment. The precedent of a two-term limit was created by his retirement from office. In May 1792, in anticipation of his retirement, Washington instructed James Madison to prepare a "valedictory address", an initial draft of which was entitled the "Farewell Address". In May 1796, Washington sent the manuscript to his Secretary of Treasury Alexander Hamilton who did an extensive rewrite, while Washington provided final edits. On September 19, 1796, David Claypoole's "American Daily Advertiser" published the final version of the address.
Washington stressed that national identity was paramount, while a united America would safeguard freedom and prosperity. He warned the nation of three eminent dangers: regionalism, partisanship, and foreign entanglements, and said the "name of AMERICAN, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations." Washington called for men to move beyond partisanship for the common good, stressing that the United States must concentrate on its own interests. He warned against foreign alliances and their influence in domestic affairs and against bitter partisanship and the dangers of political parties. He counseled friendship and commerce with all nations, but advised against involvement in European wars. He stressed the importance of religion, asserting that "religion and morality are indispensable supports" in a republic. Washington's address favored Hamilton's Federalist ideology and economic policies.
Washington closed the address by reflecting on his legacy:
After initial publication, many Republicans, including Madison, criticized the Address and believed it was an anti-French campaign document. Madison believed Washington was strongly pro-British. Madison also was suspicious of who authored the Address.
In 1839, Washington biographer Jared Sparks maintained that Washington's "...Farewell Address was printed and published with the laws, by order of the legislatures, as an evidence of the value they attached to its political precepts, and of their affection for its author." In 1972, Washington scholar James Flexner referred to the Farewell Address as receiving as much acclaim as Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence and Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. In 2010, historian Ron Chernow reported the "Farewell Address" proved to be one of the most influential statements on Republicanism.
Washington retired to Mount Vernon in March 1797 and devoted time to his plantations and other business interests, including his . His plantation operations were only minimally profitable, and his lands in the west (Piedmont) were under Indian attacks and yielded little income, with the squatters there refusing to pay rent. He attempted to sell these but without success. He became an even more committed Federalist. He vocally supported the Alien and Sedition Acts and convinced Federalist John Marshall to run for Congress to weaken the Jeffersonian hold on Virginia.
Washington grew restless in retirement, prompted by tensions with France, and he wrote to Secretary of War James McHenry offering to organize President Adams' army. In a continuation of the French Revolutionary Wars, French privateers began seizing American ships in 1798, and relations deteriorated with France and led to the "Quasi-War". Without consulting Washington, Adams nominated him for a lieutenant general commission on July 4, 1798 and the position of commander-in-chief of the armies. Washington chose to accept, replacing James Wilkinson, and he served as the commanding general from July 13, 1798 until his death 17 months later. He participated in planning for a provisional army, but he avoided involvement in details. In advising McHenry of potential officers for the army, he appeared to make a complete break with Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans: "you could as soon scrub the blackamoor white, as to change the principles of a profest Democrat; and that he will leave nothing unattempted to overturn the government of this country." Washington delegated the active leadership of the army to Hamilton, a major general. No army invaded the United States during this period, and Washington did not assume a field command.
Washington was thought to be rich because of the well-known "glorified façade of wealth and grandeur" at Mount Vernon, but nearly all his wealth was in the form of land and slaves rather than ready cash. To supplement his income he erected a for substantial whiskey production. Historians estimate that the estate was worth about $1million in 1799 dollars, . He bought land parcels to spur development around the new Federal City that was named in his honor, and he sold individual lots to middle-income investors rather than multiple lots to large investors, believing they would more likely commit to making improvements.
On December 12, 1799, Washington inspected his farms on horseback in snow and sleet. He returned home late for dinner but refused to change out of his wet clothes, not wanting to keep his guests waiting. He had a sore throat the following day but again went out in freezing, snowy weather to mark trees for cutting. That evening, he complained of chest congestion, but was still cheerful. On Saturday, he awoke to an inflamed throat and difficulty breathing, so he ordered estate overseer George Rawlins to remove nearly a pint of his blood, bloodletting being a common practice of the time. His family summoned Doctors James Craik, Gustavus Richard Brown, and Elisha C. Dick. (Dr. William Thornton arrived some hours after Washington died.)
Dr. Brown thought Washington had quinsy; Dr. Dick thought the condition was a more serious "violent inflammation of the throat". They continued the process of bloodletting to approximately five pints, and Washington's condition deteriorated further. Dr. Dick proposed a tracheotomy, but the others were not familiar with that procedure and therefore disapproved. Washington instructed Brown and Dick to leave the room, while he assured Craik, "Doctor, I die hard, but I am not afraid to go."
Washington's death came more swiftly than expected. On his deathbed, he instructed his private secretary Tobias Lear to wait three days before his burial, out of fear of being entombed alive. According to Lear, he died peacefully between 10 and 11 p.m. on December 14, 1799, with Martha seated at the foot of his bed. His last words were "'Tis well", from his conversation with Lear about his burial. He was 67.
Congress immediately adjourned for the day upon news of Washington's death, and the Speaker's chair was shrouded in black the next morning. The funeral was held four days after his death on December 18, 1799, at Mount Vernon, where his body was interred. Cavalry and foot soldiers led the procession, and six colonels served as the pallbearers. The Mount Vernon funeral service was restricted mostly to family and friends. Reverend Thomas Davis read the funeral service by the vault with a brief address, followed by a ceremony performed by various members of Washington's Masonic lodge in Alexandria, Virginia. Congress chose Light-Horse Harry Lee to deliver the eulogy. Word of his death traveled slowly; church bells rang in the cities, and many places of business closed. People worldwide admired Washington and were saddened by his death, and memorial processions were held in major cities of the United States. Martha wore a black mourning cape for one year, and she burned their correspondence to protect their privacy. Only five letters between the couple are known to have survived: two from Martha to George and three from him to her.
The diagnosis of Washington's illness and the immediate cause of his death have been subjects of debate since the day he died. The published account of Drs. Craik and Brown stated that his symptoms had been consistent with "cynanche trachealis" (tracheal inflammation), a term of that period used to describe severe inflammation of the upper windpipe, including quinsy. Accusations have persisted since Washington's death concerning medical malpractice, with some believing he had been bled to death. Various modern medical authors have speculated that he died from a severe case of epiglottitis complicated by the given treatments, most notably the massive blood loss which almost certainly caused hypovolemic shock.
Washington was buried in the old Washington family vault at Mount Vernon, situated on a grassy slope overspread with willow, juniper, cypress, and chestnut trees. It contained the remains of his brother Lawrence and other family members, but the decrepit brick vault was in need of repair, prompting Washington to leave instructions in his will for the construction of a new vault. Washington's estate at the time of his death was worth an estimated $780,000 in 1799, approximately equivalent to $14.3million in 2010. Washington's peak net worth was $587.0 million, including his 300 slaves.
In 1830, a disgruntled ex-employee of the estate attempted to steal what he thought was Washington's skull, prompting the construction of a more secure vault. The next year, the new vault was constructed at Mount Vernon to receive the remains of George and Martha and other relatives. In 1832, a joint Congressional committee debated moving his body from Mount Vernon to a crypt in the Capitol. The crypt had been built by architect Charles Bulfinch in the 1820s during the reconstruction of the burned-out capital, after the Burning of Washington by the British during the War of 1812. Southern opposition was intense, antagonized by an ever-growing rift between North and South; many were concerned that Washington's remains could end up on "a shore foreign to his native soil" if the country became divided, and Washington's remains stayed in Mount Vernon.
On October 7, 1837, Washington's remains were placed, still in the original lead coffin, within a marble sarcophagus designed by William Strickland and constructed by John Struthers earlier that year. The sarcophagus was sealed and encased with planks, and an outer vault was constructed around it. The outer vault has the sarcophagi of both George and Martha Washington; the inner vault has the remains of other Washington family members and relatives.
Washington was somewhat reserved in personality, but he generally had a strong presence among others. He made speeches and announcements when required, but he was not a noted orator or debater. He was taller than most of his contemporaries; accounts of his height vary from to tall, he weighed between as an adult, and he was known for his great strength. He had grey-blue eyes and reddish-brown hair which he wore powdered in the fashion of the day. He had a rugged and dominating presence, which garnered respect from his male peers.
Washington suffered frequently from severe tooth decay and ultimately lost all his teeth but one. He had several sets of false teeth made which he wore during his presidency—none of which were made of wood, contrary to common lore. These dental problems left him in constant pain, for which he took laudanum. As a public figure, he relied upon the strict confidence of his dentist.
Washington was a talented equestrian early in life. He collected thoroughbreds at Mount Vernon, and his two favorite horses were Blueskin and Nelson. Fellow Virginian Thomas Jefferson said Washington was "the best horseman of his age and the most graceful figure that could be seen on horseback"; he also hunted foxes, deer, ducks, and other game. He was an excellent dancer and attended the theater frequently. He drank in moderation but was morally opposed to excessive drinking, smoking tobacco, gambling, and profanity.
Washington was descended from Anglican minister Lawrence Washington (his great-great-grandfather), whose troubles with the Church of England may have prompted his heirs to emigrate to America. Washington was baptized as an infant in April 1732 and became a devoted member of the Church of England (the Anglican Church). He served more than 20 years as a vestryman and churchwarden for Fairfax Parish and Truro Parish, Virginia. He privately prayed and read the Bible daily, and he publicly encouraged people and the nation to pray. He may have taken communion on a regular basis prior to the Revolutionary War, but he did not do so following the war, for which he was admonished by Pastor James Abercrombie.
Washington believed in a "wise, inscrutable, and irresistible" Creator God who was active in the Universe, contrary to deistic thought. He referred to God by the Enlightenment terms "Providence", the "Creator", or the "Almighty", and also as the "Divine Author" or the "Supreme Being". He believed in a divine power who watched over battlefields, was involved in the outcome of war, was protecting his life, and was involved in American politics—and specifically in the creation of the United States. Modern historian Ron Chernow has posited that Washington avoided evangelistic Christianity or hellfire-and-brimstone speech along with communion and anything inclined to "flaunt his religiosity". Chernow has also said Washington "never used his religion as a device for partisan purposes or in official undertakings". No mention of Jesus Christ appears in his private correspondence, and such references are rare in his public writings. He frequently quoted from the Bible or paraphrased it, and often referred to the Anglican "Book of Common Prayer". There is debate on whether he is best classed as a Christian or a theistic rationalist—or both.
Washington emphasized religious toleration in a nation with numerous denominations and religions. He publicly attended services of different Christian denominations and prohibited anti-Catholic celebrations in the Army. He engaged workers at Mount Vernon without regard for religious belief or affiliation. While president, he acknowledged major religious sects and gave speeches on religious toleration. He was distinctly rooted in the ideas, values, and modes of thinking of the Enlightenment, but he harbored no contempt of organized Christianity and its clergy, "being no bigot myself to any mode of worship". In 1793, speaking to members of the New Church in Baltimore, Washington proclaimed, "We have abundant reason to rejoice that in this Land the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition."
Freemasonry was a widely accepted institution in the late 18th century, known for advocating moral teachings. Washington was attracted to the Masons' dedication to the Enlightenment principles of rationality, reason, and brotherhood. The American Masonic lodges did not share the anti-clerical perspective of the controversial European lodges. A Masonic lodge was established in Fredericksburg in September 1752, and Washington was initiated two months later at the age of 20 as one of its first Entered Apprentices. Within a year, he progressed through its ranks to become a Master Mason. Washington had a high regard for the Masonic Order, but his personal lodge attendance was sporadic. In 1777, a convention of Virginia lodges asked him to be the Grand Master of the newly established Grand Lodge of Virginia, but he declined due to his commitments leading the Continental Army. After 1782, he corresponded frequently with Masonic lodges and members, and he was listed as Master in the Virginia charter of Alexandria Lodge No. 22 in 1788.
In Washington's lifetime, slavery was deeply ingrained in the economic and social fabric of Virginia. Washington owned and worked African slaves his entire adult life. He acquired them through inheritance, gained control of eighty-four dower slaves on his marriage to Martha and purchased at least seventy-one slaves between 1752 and 1773. His early views on slavery were no different from any Virginia planter of the time. He demonstrated no moral qualms about the institution and referred to his slaves as "a Species of Property". From the 1760s his attitudes underwent a slow evolution. The first doubts were prompted by his transition from tobacco to grain crops which left him with a costly surplus of slaves, causing him to question the economic efficiency of the system. His growing disillusionment with the institution was spurred by the principles of the American Revolution and revolutionary friends such as Lafayette and Hamilton. Most historians agree the Revolution was central to the evolution of Washington's attitudes on slavery; "After 1783", Kenneth Morgan writes, "...[Washington] began to express inner tensions about the problem of slavery more frequently, though always in private..."
The many contemporary reports of slave treatment at Mount Vernon are varied and conflicting. Historian Kenneth Morgan ("2000") maintains that Washington was frugal on spending for clothes and bedding for his slaves, and only provided them with just enough food, and that he maintained strict control over his slaves, instructing his overseers to keep them working hard from dawn to dusk year round. However, historian Dorothy Twohig (2001) said: "Food, clothing, and housing seem to have been at least adequate". Washington faced growing debts involved with the costs of supporting slaves. He held an "ingrained sense of racial superiority" over African Americans, but harbored no ill feelings toward them.
Some slave families worked at different locations on the plantation but were allowed to visit one another on their days off. Washington's slaves received two hours off for meals during the workday, and given time off on Sundays and religious holidays. Washington frequently cared for ill or injured slaves personally, and he provided physicians and midwives and had his slaves inoculated for smallpox. In May 1796, Martha's personal and favorite slave Ona Judge escaped to Portsmouth. At Martha's behest Washington attempted to capture Ona, using a Treasury agent, but this effort failed. In February 1797, Washington's personal slave Hercules escaped to Philadelphia and was never found.
Some accounts report that Washington opposed flogging, but at times sanctioned its use, generally as a last resort, on both male and female slaves. Washington used both reward and punishment to encourage discipline and productivity in his slaves. He tried appealing to an individual's sense of pride, gave better blankets and clothing to the "most deserving", and motivated his slaves with cash rewards. He believed "watchfulness and admonition" to be often better deterrents against transgressions, but would punish those who "will not do their duty by fair means". Punishment ranged in severity from demotion back to fieldwork, through whipping and beatings, to permanent separation from friends and family by sale. Historian Ron Chernow maintains that overseers were required to warn slaves before resorting to the lash and required Washington's written permission before whipping, though his extended absences did not always permit this. Washington remained dependent on slave labor to work his farms and negotiated the purchase of more slaves in 1786 and 1787.
In February 1786, Washington took a census of Mount Vernon and recorded 224 slaves.
By 1799, slaves at Mount Vernon totaled 317, including 143 children. Washington owned 124 slaves, leased 40, and held 153 for his wife's dower interest. Washington supported many slaves who were too young or too old to work, greatly increasing Mount Vernon's slave population and causing the plantation to operate at a loss.
Based on his letters, diary, documents, accounts from colleagues, employees, friends and visitors, Washington slowly developed a cautious sympathy toward abolitionism that eventually ended with the emancipation of his own slaves. As president, he kept publicly silent on slavery, believing it was a nationally divisive issue that could destroy the union.
In a 1778 letter to Lund Washington, he made clear his desire "to get quit of Negroes" when discussing the exchange of slaves for land he wanted to buy. The next year, he stated his intention not to separate families as a result of "a change of masters". During the 1780s Washington privately expressed his support for gradual emancipation of slaves. Between 1783 and 1786 he gave moral support to a plan proposed by Lafayette to purchase land and free slaves to work on it, but declined to participate in the experiment. Washington privately expressed support for emancipation to prominent Methodists Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury in 1785, but declined to sign their petition. In personal correspondence the next year, he made clear his desire to see the institution of slavery ended by a gradual legislative process, a view that correlated with the mainstream antislavery literature published in the 1780s that Washington possessed. He significantly reduced his purchases of slaves after the war, but continued to acquire them in small numbers.
In 1788, Washington declined a suggestion from a leading French abolitionist, Jacques Brissot, to establish an abolitionist society in Virginia, stating that although he supported the idea, the time was not yet right to confront the issue. The historian Henry Wiencek (2003) believes, based on a remark that appears in the notebook of his biographer David Humphreys, that Washington considered making a public statement by freeing his slaves on the eve of his presidency in 1789. The historian Philip D. Morgan (2005) disagrees, believing the remark was a "private expression of remorse" at his inability to free his slaves. Other historians agree with Morgan that Washington was determined not to risk national unity over an issue as divisive as slavery. Washington never responded to any of the antislavery petitions he received, and the subject was not mentioned in either his last address to Congress or his Farewell Address.
The first clear indication that Washington was seriously intending to free his own slaves appears in a letter written to his secretary, Tobias Lear, in 1794. Washington instructed Lear to find buyers for his land in western Virginia, explaining in a private coda that he was doing so "to liberate a certain species of property which I possess, very repugnantly to my own feelings". The plan, along with others Washington considered in 1795 and 1796, could not be realized because of his failure to find buyers for his land, his reluctance to break up slave families and the refusal of the Custis heirs to help prevent such separations by freeing their dower slaves at the same time.
On July 9, 1799, Washington finished making his last will; the longest provision concerned slavery. All his slaves were to be freed after the death of his wife Martha. Washington said he did not free them immediately because his slaves intermarried with his wife's dower slaves. He forbade their sale or transportation out of Virginia. His will provided that old and young freed people be taken care of indefinitely; younger ones were to be taught to read and write and placed in suitable occupations. Washington freed more than 160 slaves, including 25 he had acquired from his wife's brother in payment of a debt freed by graduation. He was among the few large slave-holding Virginians during the Revolutionary Era who emancipated their slaves.
On January 1, 1801, one year after George Washington's death, Martha Washington signed an order freeing his slaves. Many of them, having never strayed far from Mount Vernon, were naturally reluctant to try their luck elsewhere; others refused to abandon spouses or children still held as dower slaves (the Custis estate) and also stayed with or near Martha. Following George Washington's instructions in his will, funds were used to feed and clothe the young, aged, and sickly slaves until the early 1830s.
Washington's legacy endures as one of the most influential in American history, since he served as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, a hero of the Revolution, and the first president of the United States. Various historians maintain that he also was a dominant factor in America's founding, the Revolutionary War, and the Constitutional Convention. Revolutionary War comrade Light-Horse Harry Lee as "First in war—first in peace—and first in the hearts of his countrymen". Lee's words became the hallmark by which Washington's reputation was impressed upon the American memory, with some biographers regarding him as the great exemplar of republicanism. He set many precedents for the national government and the presidency in particular, and he was called the "Father of His Country" as early as 1778.
In 1885, Congress proclaimed Washington's birthday to be a federal holiday. Twentieth-century biographer Douglas Southall Freeman concluded, "The great big thing stamped across that man is character." Modern historian David Hackett Fischer has expanded upon Freeman's assessment, defining Washington's character as "integrity, self-discipline, courage, absolute honesty, resolve, and decision, but also forbearance, decency, and respect for others".
Washington became an international symbol for liberation and nationalism, as the leader of the first successful revolution against a colonial empire. The Federalists made him the symbol of their party, but the Jeffersonians continued to distrust his influence for many years and delayed building the Washington Monument. Washington was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences on January 31, 1781, before he had even begun his presidency. He was posthumously appointed to the grade of General of the Armies of the United States during the United States Bicentennial to ensure he would never be outranked; this was accomplished by the congressional joint resolution passed on January 19, 1976, with an effective appointment date of July 4, 1976.
Parson Weems wrote a hagiographic biography in 1809 to honor Washington. Historian Ron Chernow maintains that Weems attempted to humanize Washington, making him look less stern, and to inspire "patriotism and morality" and to foster "enduring myths", such as Washington's refusal to lie about damaging his father's cherry tree. Weems' accounts have never been proven or disproven. Historian John Ferling, however, maintains that Washington remains the only founder and president ever to be referred to as "godlike", and points out that his character has been the most scrutinized by historians, past and present. Historian Gordon S. Wood concludes that "the greatest act of his life, the one that gave him his greatest fame, was his resignation as commander-in-chief of the American forces." Chernow suggests that Washington was "burdened by public life" and divided by "unacknowledged ambition mingled with self-doubt". A 1993 review of presidential polls and surveys consistently ranked Washington number 4, 3, or2 among presidents. A 2018 Siena College Research Institute survey ranked him number1 among presidents.
Jared Sparks began collecting and publishing Washington's documentary record in the 1830s in "Life and Writings of George Washington" (12 vols., 1834–1837). "The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745–1799" (1931–1944) is a 39-volume set edited by John Clement Fitzpatrick, who was commissioned by the George Washington Bicentennial Commission. It contains more than 17,000 letters and documents and is available online from the University of Virginia.
Numerous universities, including George Washington University and Washington University in St. Louis, were named in honor of Washington.
Many places and monuments have been named in honor of Washington, most notably the nation's capital Washington, D.C. The state of Washington is the only state to be named after a president.
George Washington appears on contemporary U.S. currency, including the one-dollar bill and the quarter-dollar coin (the Washington quarter). Washington and Benjamin Franklin appeared on the in 1847. Washington has since appeared on many postage issues, more than any other person. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11968 |
Gulf Coast of the United States
The Gulf Coast of the United States is the coastline along the Southern United States where they meet the Gulf of Mexico. The coastal states that have a shoreline on the Gulf of Mexico are Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida, and these are known as the "Gulf States".
The economy of the Gulf Coast area is dominated by industries related to energy, petrochemicals, fishing, aerospace, agriculture, and tourism. The large cities of the region are (from west to east) McAllen, Brownsville, Corpus Christi, Houston, Galveston, Beaumont, Lake Charles, Lafayette, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Gulfport, Biloxi, Mobile, Pensacola, St. Petersburg, Tampa, and increasingly, Sarasota. All are the centers of their respective metropolitan areas and contain large ports. (Baton Rouge is relatively far from the Gulf of Mexico; its port is on the Mississippi River, as is the port of New Orleans.)
The Gulf Coast is made of many inlets, bays, and lagoons. The coast is also intersected by numerous rivers, the largest of which is the Mississippi River. Much of the land along the Gulf Coast is, or was, marshland. Ringing the Gulf Coast is the Gulf Coastal Plain, which reaches from Southern Texas to the western Florida Panhandle, while the western portions of the Gulf Coast are made up of many barrier islands and peninsulas, including the Padre Island along the Texas coast. These landforms protect numerous bays and inlets providing as a barrier to oncoming waves. The central part of the Gulf Coast, from eastern Texas through Louisiana, consists primarily of marshland. The eastern part of the Gulf Coast, predominantly Florida, is dotted with many bays and inlets.
The Gulf Coast climate is humid subtropical, although the southwestern tip of Florida, such as Everglades City, features a tropical climate. Much of the year is warm to hot along the Gulf Coast, while the 3 winter months bring periods of cool (or rarely, cold) weather mixed with mild temperatures. The area is vulnerable to hurricanes as well as floods and severe thunderstorms. Much of the Gulf Coast has a summer precipitation maximum, with July or August commonly the wettest month due to the combination of frequent summer thunderstorms produced by relentless heat and humidity, and tropical weather systems (tropical depressions, tropical storms and hurricanes), while winter and early spring rainfall also can be heavy. This pattern is evident at Houston, Texas, New Orleans, Louisiana, Mobile, Alabama and Pensacola, Florida. However, the central and southern Florida peninsula and South Texas has a pronounced winter dry season, as at Tampa and Fort Myers, Florida. On the central and southern Texas coast, winter, early spring and mid-summer are markedly drier, and September is the wettest month on average (as at Corpus Christi and Brownsville, Texas). Tornadoes are infrequent at the coast but do occur; however, they occur more frequently in inland portions of Gulf Coast states. Over most of the Gulf Coast from Houston, Texas eastward, extreme rainfall events are a significant threat, commonly from tropical weather systems, which can bring 4 to 10 or more inches of rain in a single day. In August 2017, Hurricane Harvey made landfall along the central Texas coast, then migrated to and stalled over the greater Houston area for several days, producing extreme, unprecedented rainfall totals of over 40 inches (1,000 mm) in many areas, unleashing widespread flooding. Earthquakes are extremely rare to the area, but a surprising 6.0 earthquake in the Gulf of Mexico on September 10, 2006, could be felt from the cities of New Orleans to Tampa.
The Gulf Coast is a major center of economic activity. The marshlands along the Louisiana and Texas coasts provide breeding grounds and nurseries for ocean life that drive the fishing and shrimping industries. The Port of South Louisiana (Metropolitan New Orleans in Laplace) and the Port of Houston are two of the ten busiest ports in the world by cargo volume. As of 2004, seven of the top ten busiest ports in the U.S. are on the Gulf Coast.
The discovery of oil and gas deposits along the coast and offshore, combined with easy access to shipping, have made the Gulf Coast the heart of the U.S. petrochemical industry. The coast contains nearly 4,000 oil platforms.
Besides the above, the region features other important industries including aerospace and biomedical research, as well as older industries such as agriculture and — especially since the development of the Gulf Coast beginning in the 1920s and the increase in wealth throughout the United States — tourism.
Before Europeans arrived in the region, the region was home to several pre-Columbian kingdoms that had extensive trade networks with empires such as the Aztecs and the Mississippi Mound Builders. Shark and alligator teeth and shells from the Gulf have been found as far north as Ohio, in the mounds of the Hopewell culture.
The first Europeans to settle the Gulf Coast were primarily the French and the Spanish. The Louisiana Purchase, Adams–Onís Treaty and the Texas Revolution made the Gulf Coast a part of the United States during the first half of the 19th century. As the U.S. population continued to expand its frontiers westward, the Gulf Coast was a natural magnet in the South providing access to shipping lanes and both national and international commerce. The development of sugar and cotton production (enabled by slavery) allowed the South to prosper. By the mid 19th century the city of New Orleans, being situated as a key to commerce on the Mississippi River and in the Gulf, had become the largest U.S. city not on the Atlantic seaboard and the fourth largest in the U.S. overall.
Two major events were turning points in the earlier history of the Gulf Coast region. The first was the American Civil War, which caused severe damage to some economic sectors in the South, including the Gulf Coast. The second event was the Galveston Hurricane of 1900. At the end of the 19th century Galveston was, with New Orleans, one of the most developed cities in the region. The city had the third busiest port in the U.S. and its financial district was known as the "Wall Street of the South". The storm mostly destroyed the city, which has never regained its former glory, and set back development in the region.
Since then the Gulf Coast has been hit with numerous other hurricanes. On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast as a Category 4 hurricane. It was the most damaging storm in the history of the United States, causing upwards of $80 billion in damages, and leaving over 1,800 dead. Again in 2008 the Gulf Coast was struck by a catastrophic hurricane. Due to its immense size, Hurricane Ike caused devastation from the Louisiana coastline all the way to the Kenedy County, Texas region near Corpus Christi. In addition, Ike caused flooding and significant damage along the Mississippi coastline and the Florida Panhandle Ike killed 112 people and left upwards of 300 people missing, never to be found. Hurricane Ike was the third most damaging storm in the history of the United States, causing more than $25 billion in damage along the coast, leaving hundreds of thousands of people homeless, and sparking the largest search-and-rescue operation in U.S. history.
Other than the hurricanes, the Gulf Coast has redeveloped dramatically over the course of the 20th century. The gulf coast is highly populated. The petrochemical industry, launched with the major discoveries of oil in Texas and spurred on by further discoveries in the Gulf waters, has been a vehicle for development in the central and western Gulf which has spawned development on a variety of fronts in these regions. Texas in particular has benefited tremendously from this industry over the course of the 20th century and economic diversification has made the state a magnet for population and home to more Fortune 500 companies than any other U.S. state. Florida has grown as well, driven to a great extent by its long established tourism industry but also by its position as a gateway to the Caribbean and Latin America. As of 2006, these two states are the second and fourth most populous states in the nation, respectively (see this article). Other areas of the Gulf Coast have benefited less, though economic development fueled by tourism has greatly increased property values along the coast, and is now a severe danger to the valuable but fragile ecosystems of the Gulf Coast.
The following table lists the 15 largest MSAs along the Gulf Coast. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11969 |
Galaxy formation and evolution
The study of galaxy formation and evolution is concerned with the processes that formed a heterogeneous universe from a homogeneous beginning, the formation of the first galaxies, the way galaxies change over time, and the processes that have generated the variety of structures observed in nearby galaxies. Galaxy formation is hypothesized to occur from structure formation theories, as a result of tiny quantum fluctuations in the aftermath of the Big Bang. The simplest model in general agreement with observed phenomena is the Lambda-CDM model—that is, that clustering and merging allows galaxies to accumulate mass, determining both their shape and structure.
Because of the inability to conduct experiments in outer space, the only way to “test” theories and models of galaxy evolution is to compare them with observations. Explanations for how galaxies formed and evolved must be able to predict the observed properties and types of galaxies.
Edwin Hubble created the first galaxy classification scheme known as the Hubble tuning-fork diagram. It partitioned galaxies into ellipticals, normal spirals, barred spirals (such as the Milky Way), and irregulars. These galaxy types exhibit the following properties which can be explained by current galaxy evolution theories:
There is a common misconception that Hubble believed incorrectly that the tuning fork diagram described an evolutionary sequence for galaxies, from elliptical galaxies through lenticulars to spiral galaxies. This is not the case; instead, the tuning fork diagram shows an evolution from simple to complex with no temporal connotations intended. Astronomers now believe that disk galaxies likely formed first, then evolved into elliptical galaxies through galaxy mergers.
Current models also predict that the majority of mass in galaxies is made up of dark matter, a substance which is not directly observable, and might not interact through any means except gravity. This observation arises because galaxies could not have formed as they have, or rotate as they are seen to, unless they contain far more mass than can be directly observed.
The earliest stage in the evolution of galaxies is the formation. When a galaxy forms, it has a disk shape and is called a spiral galaxy due to spiral-like "arm" structures located on the disk. There are different theories on how these disk-like distributions of stars develop from a cloud of matter: however, at present, none of them exactly predicts the results of observation.
Olin Eggen, Donald Lynden-Bell, and Allan Sandage in 1962, proposed a theory that disk galaxies form through a monolithic collapse of a large gas cloud. The distribution of matter in the early universe was in clumps that consisted mostly of dark matter. These clumps interacted gravitationally, putting tidal torques on each other that acted to give them some angular momentum. As the baryonic matter cooled, it dissipated some energy and contracted toward the center. With angular momentum conserved, the matter near the center speeds up its rotation. Then, like a spinning ball of pizza dough, the matter forms into a tight disk. Once the disk cools, the gas is not gravitationally stable, so it cannot remain a singular homogeneous cloud. It breaks, and these smaller clouds of gas form stars. Since the dark matter does not dissipate as it only interacts gravitationally, it remains distributed outside the disk in what is known as the dark halo. Observations show that there are stars located outside the disk, which does not quite fit the "pizza dough" model. It was first proposed by Leonard Searle and Robert Zinn that galaxies form by the coalescence of smaller progenitors. Known as a top-down formation scenario, this theory is quite simple yet no longer widely accepted.
More recent theories include the clustering of dark matter halos in the bottom-up process. Instead of large gas clouds collapsing to form a galaxy in which the gas breaks up into smaller clouds, it is proposed that matter started out in these “smaller” clumps (mass on the order of globular clusters), and then many of these clumps merged to form galaxies, which then were drawn by gravitation to form galaxy clusters. This still results in disk-like distributions of baryonic matter with dark matter forming the halo for all the same reasons as in the top-down theory. Models using this sort of process predict more small galaxies than large ones, which matches observations.
Astronomers do not currently know what process stops the contraction. In fact, theories of disk galaxy formation are not successful at producing the rotation speed and size of disk galaxies. It has been suggested that the radiation from bright newly formed stars, or from an active galactic nucleus can slow the contraction of a forming disk. It has also been suggested that the dark matter halo can pull the galaxy, thus stopping disk contraction.
The Lambda-CDM model is a cosmological model that explains the formation of the universe after the Big Bang. It is a relatively simple model that predicts many properties observed in the universe, including the relative frequency of different galaxy types; however, it underestimates the number of thin disk galaxies in the universe. The reason is that these galaxy formation models predict a large number of mergers. If disk galaxies merge with another galaxy of comparable mass (at least 15 percent of its mass) the merger will likely destroy, or at a minimum greatly disrupt the disk, and the resulting galaxy is not expected to be a disk galaxy (see next section). While this remains an unsolved problem for astronomers, it does not necessarily mean that the Lambda-CDM model is completely wrong, but rather that it requires further refinement to accurately reproduce the population of galaxies in the universe.
Elliptical galaxies (such as IC 1101) are among some of the largest known thus far. Their stars are on orbits that are randomly oriented within the galaxy (i.e. they are not rotating like disk galaxies). A distinguishing feature of elliptical galaxies is that the velocity of the stars does not necessarily contribute to flattening of the galaxy, such as in spiral galaxies. Elliptical galaxies have central supermassive black holes, and the masses of these black holes correlate with the galaxy's mass.
Elliptical galaxies have two main stages of evolution. The first is due to the supermassive black hole growing by accreting cooling gas. The second stage is marked by the black hole stabilizing by suppressing gas cooling, thus leaving the elliptical galaxy in a stable state. The mass of the black hole is also correlated to a property called sigma which is the dispersion of the velocities of stars in their orbits. This relationship, known as the M-sigma relation, was discovered in 2000. Elliptical galaxies mostly lack disks, although some bulges of disk galaxies resemble elliptical galaxies. Elliptical galaxies are more likely found in crowded regions of the universe (such as galaxy clusters).
Astronomers now see elliptical galaxies as some of the most evolved systems in the universe. It is widely accepted that the main driving force for the evolution of elliptical galaxies is mergers of smaller galaxies. Many galaxies in the universe are gravitationally bound to other galaxies, which means that they will never escape their mutual pull. If the galaxies are of similar size, the resultant galaxy will appear similar to neither of the progenitors, but will instead be elliptical. There are many types of galaxy mergers, which do not necessarily result in elliptical galaxies, but result in a structural change. For example, a minor merger event is thought to be occurring between the Milky Way and the Magellanic Clouds.
Mergers between such large galaxies are regarded as violent, and the frictional interaction of the gas between the two galaxies can cause gravitational shock waves, which are capable of forming new stars in the new elliptical galaxy. By sequencing several images of different galactic collisions, one can observe the timeline of two spiral galaxies merging into a single elliptical galaxy.
In the Local Group, the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy are gravitationally bound, and currently approaching each other at high speed. Simulations show that the Milky Way and Andromeda are on a collision course, and are expected to collide in less than five billion years. During this collision, it is expected that the Sun and the rest of the Solar System will be ejected from its current path around the Milky Way. The remnant could be a giant elliptical galaxy.
One observation (see above) that must be explained by a successful theory of galaxy evolution is the existence of two different populations of galaxies on the galaxy color-magnitude diagram. Most galaxies tend to fall into two separate locations on this diagram: a "red sequence" and a "blue cloud". Red sequence galaxies are generally non-star-forming elliptical galaxies with little gas and dust, while blue cloud galaxies tend to be dusty star-forming spiral galaxies.
As described in previous sections, galaxies tend to evolve from spiral to elliptical structure via mergers. However, the current rate of galaxy mergers does not explain how all galaxies move from the "blue cloud" to the "red sequence". It also does not explain how star formation ceases in galaxies. Theories of galaxy evolution must therefore be able to explain how star formation turns off in galaxies. This phenomenon is called galaxy "quenching".
Stars form out of cold gas (see also the Kennicutt-Schmidt law), so a galaxy is quenched when it has no more cold gas. However, it is thought that quenching occurs relatively quickly (within 1 billion years), which is much shorter than the time it would take for a galaxy to simply use up its reservoir of cold gas. Galaxy evolution models explain this by hypothesizing other physical mechanisms that remove or shut off the supply of cold gas in a galaxy. These mechanisms can be broadly classified into two categories: (1) preventive feedback mechanisms that stop cold gas from entering a galaxy or stop it from producing stars, and (2) ejective feedback mechanisms that remove gas so that it cannot form stars.
One theorized preventive mechanism called “strangulation” keeps cold gas from entering the galaxy. Strangulation is likely the main mechanism for quenching star formation in nearby low-mass galaxies. The exact physical explanation for strangulation is still unknown, but it may have to do with a galaxy's interactions with other galaxies. As a galaxy falls into a galaxy cluster, gravitational interactions with other galaxies can strangle it by preventing it from accreting more gas. For galaxies with massive dark matter halos, another preventive mechanism called “virial shock heating” may also prevent gas from becoming cool enough to form stars.
Ejective processes, which expel cold gas from galaxies, may explain how more massive galaxies are quenched. One ejective mechanism is caused by supermassive black holes found in the centers of galaxies. Simulations have shown that gas accreting onto supermassive black holes in galactic centers produces high-energy jets; the released energy can expel enough cold gas to quench star formation.
Our own Milky Way and the nearby Andromeda Galaxy currently appear to be undergoing the quenching transition from star-forming blue galaxies to passive red galaxies. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11971 |
Generation X
Generation X (or Gen X for short) is the demographic cohort following the baby boomers and preceding the millennials. The generation is generally defined as people born from 1965 to 1980. By this definition and U.S. Census data, there are 65.2 million Gen Xers in the United States as of 2019. Most members of Generation X are the children of the Silent Generation and early boomers; Xers are also often the parents of millennials and Generation Z.
As children in the 1970s and 1980s, a time of shifting societal values, Gen Xers were sometimes called the "latchkey generation", due to reduced adult supervision compared to previous generations. This was a result of increasing divorce rates and increased maternal participation in the workforce, prior to widespread availability of childcare options outside the home. As adolescents and young adults in the 1980s and 1990s, Xers were dubbed the "MTV Generation" (a reference to the music video channel), sometimes being characterized as slackers, cynical, and disaffected. Some of the cultural influences on Gen X youth were the musical genres of grunge and hip hop music, and independent films. In midlife, research describes them as active, happy, and achieving a work–life balance. The cohort has been credited with entrepreneurial tendencies, and was the last generation in the United States for whom post-secondary education was broadly financially remunerative.
The term "Generation X" has been used at various times to describe alienated youth. In the early 1950s, Hungarian photographer Robert Capa first used "Generation X" as the title for a photo-essay about young men and women growing up immediately following World War II. The term first appeared in print in a December 1952 issue of "Holiday" magazine announcing their upcoming publication of Capa's photo-essay. From 1976 to 1981, English musician Billy Idol used the moniker as the name for his punk rock band. Idol had attributed the name of his band to the book "Generation X", a 1965 book on British popular youth culture written by journalists Jane Deverson and Charles Hamblett — a copy of which had been owned by Idol's mother. These uses of the term appear to have no connection to Robert Capa's photo-essay.
The term acquired its contemporary application after the release of "", a 1991 novel written by Canadian author Douglas Coupland. In 1987, Coupland had written a piece in "Vancouver Magazine" titled "Generation X" which was "the seed of what went on to become the book." Coupland referenced Billy Idol's band Generation X in the 1987 article and again in 1989, but in 1995 Coupland denied the term's connection to the band, stating that:
"The book's title came not from Billy Idol's band, as many supposed, but from the final chapter of a funny sociological book on American class structure titled "", by Paul Fussell. In his final chapter, Fussell named an "X" category of people who wanted to hop off the merry-go-round of status, money, and social climbing that so often frames modern existence."
Author William Strauss noted that around the time Coupland's 1991 novel was published the symbol "X" was prominent in popular culture, as the film "Malcolm X" was released in 1992, and that the name "Generation X" ended up sticking. The "X" refers to an unknown variable or to a desire not to be defined. Strauss's coauthor Neil Howe noted the delay in naming this demographic cohort saying, "Over 30 years after their birthday, they didn't have a name. I think that's germane." Previously, the cohort had been referred to as Post-Boomers, Baby Busters (referencing the drop in the birth rates following the baby boom), New Lost Generation, latchkey kids, MTV Generation, and the 13th Generation (the 13th generation since American independence).
Generation X is the demographic cohort following the post–World War II baby-boom, representing a generational change from the baby boomers. Many researchers and demographers use dates which correspond to the fertility-patterns in the population. For Generation X, in the U.S. (and broadly, in the Western world), the period begins at a time when fertility rates started to significantly decrease, following the baby boom peak of the late 1950s, until an upswing in the late 1970s and eventual recovery at the start of the 1980s.
In the U.S., the Pew Research Center, a non-partisan think-tank, delineates a Generation X period of 1965–1980 which has, albeit gradually, come to gain acceptance in academic circles. Moreover, although fertility rates are preponderant in the definition of start and end dates, the center remarks: "Generations are analytical constructs, it takes time for popular and expert consensus to develop as to the precise boundaries that demarcate one generation from another." Pew takes into account other factors, notably the labor market as well as attitudinal and behavioral trends of a group. Writing for Pew's "Trend" magazine in 2018, psychologist Jean Twenge observed that the "birth year boundaries of Gen X are debated but settle somewhere around 1965–1980." According to this definition, the oldest Gen Xer is 55 years old and the youngest is, or is turning, 40 years old in 2020.
The Brookings Institution, another U.S. think-tank, sets the Gen X period as between 1965 and 1981. With regard to federal agencies, the U.S. Federal Reserve Board use 1965–1980 to define Gen X. The U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) defines the years for Gen X as between 1964 and 1979. The US Department of Defense (DoD), conversely, use dates 1965 to 1977. In their 2002 book "When Generations Collide", Lynne Lancaster and David Stillman use 1965 to 1980, while in 2012 authors Jain and Pant also used parameters of 1965 to 1980. U.S. news outlets such as "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post" describe Generation X as people born between 1965 and 1980. Bloomberg, "Business Insider", and "Forbes" use 1965–1980. "Time" magazine states that Generation X is "roughly defined as anyone born between 1965 and 1980."
U.S. polling firm Gallup uses 1965–1979 to define Generation X. In Australia, the McCrindle Research Center uses parameters 1965–1979. In France, Dejoux, a researcher from the "Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers (CNAM)", delimits dates of 1965 to 1980. In the UK, the Resolution Foundation think-tank defines Gen X as those born between 1966 and 1980. PricewaterhouseCoopers, a multinational professional services network headquartered in London, describes Generation X employees as those born from 1965 to 1980.
On the basis of the time it takes for a generation to mature, U.S. authors William Strauss and Neil Howe define Generation X as those born between 1961 and 1981 in their 1991 book titled "Generations". Jeff Gordinier, in his 2008 book "X Saves the World", also has a wider definition to include those born between 1961 and 1977 but possibly as late as 1980. George Masnick of the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies puts this generation in the time-frame of 1965 to 1984, in order to satisfy the premise that boomers, Xers, and millennials "cover equal 20-year age spans." In 2004, journalist J. Markert also acknowledged the 20-year increments but goes one step further and subdivides the generation into two 10-year cohorts with early and later members of the generation. The first begins in 1966 and ends in 1975 and the second begins in 1976 and ends in 1985; this thinking is applied to each generation (Silent, boomers, Gen X, millennials, etc.).
Based on external events of historical importance, Schewe and Noble in 2002 argue that a cohort is formed against significant milestones and can be any length of time. Against this logic, Generation X begins in 1966 and ends in 1976, with those born between 1955 and 1965 being labelled as "trailing-edge boomers".
In Canada, professor David Foot describes Generation X as late boomers and includes those born between 1960 and 1966, whilst the "Bust Generation", those born between 1967 and 1979, is considered altogether a separate generation, in his 1996 book "Boom Bust & Echo: How to Profit from the Coming Demographic Shift".
Individuals born in the Generation X and millennial cusp years of the late 1970s and early to mid-1980s have been identified by the media as a "microgeneration" with characteristics of both generations. Names given to these "cuspers" include Xennials, Generation Catalano, and the Oregon Trail Generation.
There are differences in Gen X population numbers depending on the date-range selected. In the U.S., using Census population projections, the Pew Research Center found that the Gen X population born from 1965 to 1980 numbered 65.2 million in 2019. The cohort is likely to overtake boomers in 2028. A 2010 Census report counted approximately 84 million people living in the US who are defined by birth years ranging from the early 1960s to the early 1980s. In a 2012 article for the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, George Masnick wrote that the "Census counted 82.1 million" Gen Xers in the U.S. Masnick concluded that immigration filled in any birth year deficits during low fertility years of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Jon Miller at the Longitudinal Study of American Youth at the University of Michigan wrote that "Generation X refers to adults born between 1961 and 1981" and it "includes 84 million people". In their 1991 book "Generations", authors Howe and Strauss indicated that the total number of Gen X individuals in the U.S. was 88.5 million.
The birth control pill, introduced in 1960 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, was one contributing factor of declining birth rates. Initially, the pill spread rapidly amongst married women as an approved treatment for menstrual disturbance. However, it was also found to prevent pregnancy and was prescribed as a contraceptive in 1964. The pill, as it became commonly known, reached younger, unmarried college women in the late 1960s when state laws were amended and reduced the age of majority from 21 to ages 18–20. These policies are commonly referred to as the Early Legal Access (ELA) laws.
Another major factor was abortion, only available in a few states until its legalization in a 1973 US Supreme Court decision in "Roe v. Wade." This was replicated elsewhere, with reproductive rights legislation passed, notably in the UK (1967), France (1975), West Germany (1976), New Zealand (1977), Italy (1978), and the Netherlands (1980). From 1973 to 1980, the abortion rate per 1,000 US women aged 15–44 increased exponentially from 16% to 29% with more than 9.6 million terminations of pregnancy practiced. Between 1970 and 1980, on average, for every 10 American citizens born, 3 were aborted. However, increased immigration during the same period of time helped to partially offset declining birth-rates and contributed to making Generation X an ethnically and culturally diverse demographic cohort.
Generally, Gen Xers are the children of the Silent Generation and older baby boomers.
Strauss and Howe, who wrote several books on generations, including one specifically on Generation X titled "13th Gen: Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail?" (1993), reported that Gen Xers were children at a time when society was less focused on children and more focused on adults. Xers were children during a time of increasing divorce rates, with divorce rates doubling in the mid-1960s, before peaking in 1980. Strauss and Howe described a cultural shift where the long-held societal value of staying together for the sake of the children was replaced with a societal value of parental and individual self-actualization. Strauss wrote that society "moved from what Leslie Fiedler called a 1950s-era 'cult of the child' to what Landon Jones called a 1970s-era 'cult of the adult'." "The Generation Map", a report from Australia's McCrindle Research Center writes of Gen X children: "their Boomer parents were the most divorced generation in Australian history." According to Christine Henseler in the 2012 book "Generation X Goes Global: Mapping a Youth Culture in Motion", "We watched the decay and demise (of the family), and grew callous to the loss."
The Gen X childhood coincided with the sexual revolution of the 1960s to 1980s, which Susan Gregory Thomas described in her book "In Spite of Everything" as confusing and frightening for children in cases where a parent would bring new sexual partners into their home. Thomas also discussed how divorce was different during the Gen X childhood, with the child having a limited or severed relationship with one parent following divorce, often the father, due to differing societal and legal expectations. In the 1970s, only nine U.S. states allowed for joint custody of children, which has since been adopted by all 50 states following a push for joint custody during the mid-1980s. "Kramer vs. Kramer", a 1979 American legal drama based on Avery Corman's best-selling novel, came to epitomize the struggle for child custody and the demise of the traditional nuclear family.
The rapid influx of boomer women into the labor force that began in the 1970s was marked by the confidence of many in their ability to successfully pursue a career while meeting the needs of their children. This resulted in an increase in latchkey children, leading to the terminology of the "latchkey generation" for Generation X. These children lacked adult supervision in the hours between the end of the school day and when a parent returned home from work in the evening, and for longer periods of time during the summer. Latchkey children became common among all socioeconomic demographics, but this was particularly so among middle- and upper-class children. The higher the educational attainment of the parents, the higher the odds the children of this time would be latchkey children, due to increased maternal participation in the workforce at a time before childcare options outside the home were widely available. McCrindle Research Centre described the cohort as "the first to grow up without a large adult presence, with both parents working," stating this led to Gen Xers being more peer-oriented than previous generations.
Some older Gen Xers started high school in the waning years of the Carter presidency, but much of the cohort became socially and politically conscious during the Reagan Era. President Ronald Reagan, voted in office principally by the boomer generation, embraced "laissez-faire" economics with vigor with cuts in the growth of government spending, reduction in taxes for the higher echelon of society, legalization of stock buybacks, and deregulation of key industries. Measures had drastic consequences on the social fabric of the country even if, gradually, reforms gained acceptability and exported overseas to willing participants. The early 1980s recession saw unemployment rise to 10.8% in 1982 requiring, more often than not, dual parental incomes. One-in-five American children grew up in poverty during this time. The federal debt almost tripled during Reagan's time in office, from $998 billion in 1981 to $2.857 trillion in 1989 placing greater burden on repayment on the incoming generation.
Government expenditure shifted from domestic programs to defense. Remaining funding initiatives, moreover, tended to be diverted away from programs for children and often directed toward the elderly population, with cuts to Medicaid and programs for children and young families, and protection and expansion of Medicare and Social Security for the elderly population. These programs for the elderly were not tied to economic need. Congressman David Durenberger criticized this political situation, stating that while programs for poor children and for young families were cut, the government provided "free health care to elderly millionaires."
Gen Xers came of age or were children during the 1980s crack epidemic, which disproportionately impacted urban areas as well as the African-American community in the U.S. Drug turf battles increased violent crime, and crack addiction impacted communities and families. Between 1984 and 1989, the homicide rate for black males aged 14 to 17 doubled in the U.S., and the homicide rate for black males aged 18 to 24 increased almost as much. The crack epidemic had a destabilizing impact on families with an increase in the number of children in foster care. In 1986, President Reagan signed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act to enforce strict mandatory minimum sentencing for drug users and increased the federal budget for supply-reduction efforts.
Fear of the impending AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s loomed over the formative years of Generation X. The emergence of AIDS coincided with Gen X's adolescence, with the disease first clinically observed in the U.S. in 1981. By 1985, an estimated one-to-two million Americans were HIV-positive. This particularly hit the LGBT community. As the virus spread, at a time before effective treatments were available, a public panic ensued. Sex education programs in schools were adapted to address the AIDS epidemic which taught Gen X students that sex could kill you.
Gen Xers were the first children to have access to personal computers in their homes and at schools. Those born in the early cohort will have experienced the first analog machines whilst, at the late-end, will have been pioneers, at the forefront of the Internet revolution. In the early 1980s, the growth in the use of personal computers exploded with manufacturers such as Commodore, Atari, and Apple responding to the demand via 8- and 16-bit machines. This in turn stimulated the software industries with corresponding developments for backup storage, use of the floppy disk, zip drive, and CD-ROM. At school, several computer projects were supported by the Department of Education under U.S. Secretary Bell's "Technology Initiative". This was later mirrored in the UK's 1982 Computers for Schools programme and, in France, under the 1985 scheme "plan informatique pour tous (IPT)." During the mid-1990s, AOL dial-up modems in the U.S. enabled millions of late Xer teens to log online, paving the way for "digital native" millennials.
In the U.S., Generation X was the first cohort to grow up post-integration after the racist Jim Crow laws. They were described in a marketing report by "Specialty Retail" as the kids who "lived the civil rights movement." They were among the first children to be bused to attain integration in the public school system. In the 1990s, Strauss reported Gen Xers were "by any measure the least racist of today's generations." In the U.S., Title IX, which passed in 1972, provided increased athletic opportunities to Gen X girls in the public school setting. "Roots", based on the novel by Alex Haley and broadcast as a 12-hour series, was viewed as a turning point in the country's ability to relate to the afro-American history.
Although, globally, children and adolescents of Generation X will have been heavily influenced by U.S. cultural industries with shared global currents (e.g. rising divorce rates, the AIDS epidemic, advancements in ICT), there is not one U.S.-born raised concept but multiple perspectives and geographical outgrowths. Even within the period of analysis, inside national communities, commonalities will have differed on the basis of one's birth date. The generation, Christine Henseler also remarks, was shaped as much by real-world events, within national borders, determined by specific political, cultural, and historical incidents. She adds "In other words, it is in between both real, clearly bordered spaces and more fluid global currents that we can spot the spirit of Generation X."
In Russia, for example, Generation Xers are referred to as "the last Soviet children", as the last children to come of age prior to the downfall of communism in their nation and prior to the fall of the Soviet Union. Those that reached adulthood in the 1980s and grew up educated in the doctrines of Marxism and Leninism found themselves against a background of economic and social change with the advent of Mikhail Gorbatchev to power and Perestroika. However, even before the collapse of the Soviet Union and the disbanding of the Communist Party, surveys demonstrated that Russian young people repudiated the key features of the Communist worldview that their party leaders, schoolteachers, and even parents had tried to instill in them. This generation, caught in the transition between Marxism–Leninism and an unknown future, and wooed by the new domestic political classes, remained largely apathetic.
In France, "Generation X" is not as widely known or used to define its members. Demographically, those born early during that period were sometimes referred to as 'Génération Bof' because of their tendency to use the word 'bof', which, translated into English, means 'whatever". More closely associated is "Génération Mitterrand," pertaining to socialist François Mitterrand who served as President of France during two consecutive terms between 1981 and 1995. There is general agreement that, domestically, the event that is accepted in France as the separating point between baby boomer generation and Generation X are the French strikes and violent riots of May 1968. For those at the tail-end of the generation, educational and defense reforms, a new style "baccalauréat général" with three distinct streams in 1995 (the preceding programme, introduced in 1968) and the cessation of military conscription in 1997 (for those born after December 1978) are considered as new transition points to the next.
The United Kingdom's Economic and Social Research Council described Generation X as "Thatcher's children" because the cohort grew up while Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990, "a time of social flux and transformation". Those born in the late 1960s and early 1970s grew up in a period of social unrest. While unemployment was low in the early 1970s, industrial and social unrest escalated. Strike action culminated in the 'winter of discontent' in 1978–79, and the Troubles began to unfold in Northern Ireland. The turn to neoliberal policies introduced and maintained by consecutive conservative governments from 1979 to 1997 marked the end of the post-war consensus. Educationally, the vast majority of the cohort attended secondary modern schools, relabelled comprehensive schools with compulsory education ending at the age of 16. The Further and Higher Education Act 1992 and the liberalisation of higher education in the UK saw greater numbers gaining places, especially those born at the tail-end of the generation.
In Germany, "Generation X" is not widely used or applied. Instead, reference is made to "Generation Golf" in the previous West German republic, based on a novel by Florian Illies whilst, in the east, children of the "Mauerfall" or coming down of the wall. For former east Germans, there was adaptation but also a sense of loss of accustomed values and structures, sometimes turning into romantic narratives of their childhood. For those in the West, a period of discovery and exploration of what had been a forbidden land.
In South Africa, Gen Xers spent their formative years of the 1980s during the "hyper-politicized environment of the final years of apartheid".
In the U.S., compared to the boomer generation, Generation X was more educated than their parents with the share of young adults enrolling in college steadily increasing from 1983 before peaking in 1998. In 1965, as early boomers entered college, total enrollment of new undergraduates was just over 5.7 million individuals across the public and private sectors. By 1983, the first year of Gen X college enrollments (as per Pew Research's definition), this figure had reached 12.2 million, an increase of 53%, effectively a doubling in student intake. As the 1990s progressed, Gen X college enrollments continued to climb with increased loan borrowing as the cost of an education became substantially more expensive compared to their peers in the mid-1980s. By 1998, the generation's last year of college enrollment, those entering the higher education sector totaled 14.3 million. In addition, unlike Boomers and previous generations, women outpaced men in college completion rates.
For early Gen Xer graduates entering the job market at the end of the 1980s, economic conditions were challenging and did not show signs of major improvements until the mid-1990s. In the U.S., restrictive monetary policy to curb rising inflation and the collapse of a large number of savings and loan associations (private banks that specialized in home mortgages) impacted the welfare of many American households and precipitated a large government bailout that placed further strain on the budget. Furthermore, three decades of growth came to an end and the unwritten social contract between employers and employees, which had endured during the 1960s and 1970s and scheduled to last until retirement was no longer applicable with, by the late 1980s, large-scale layoffs of boomers, corporate downsizing, and accelerated offshoring of production.
On the political front, in the U.S. the generation became ambivalent if not outright disaffected with politics; they had been reared in the shadow of the Vietnam War and Watergate scandal, and came to maturity under the Reagan and Bush presidencies, with first-hand experience of the impact of neoliberal policies. Few had experienced a Democratic administration and even then, only, at an atmospheric level. For those on the left of the political spectrum, the disappointments with the previous boomer student mobilizations of the 1960s and the collapse of those movements towards a consumerist "greed is good" and "yuppie" culture during the 1980s felt, to a greater extent, hypocrisy if not outright betrayal. The end of communism and the socialist utopia with the fall of the Berlin Wall, moreover, added to the disillusionment that any alternative to the capitalist model was possible.
In 1990, "Time" magazine published an article titled "Living: Proceeding with Caution", which described those then in their 20s as aimless and unfocused. Media pundits and advertisers further struggled to define the cohort, typically portraying them as "unfocused twentysomethings". A MetLife report noted: "media would portray them as the "Friends" generation: rather self-involved and perhaps aimless...but fun." Gen Xers were often portrayed as apathetic or as "slackers", lacking bearings, a stereotype which was initially tied to Richard Linklater's comedic and essentially plotless 1991 film "Slacker". After the film was released, "journalists and critics thought they put a finger on what was different about these young adults in that 'they were reluctant to grow up' and 'disdainful of earnest action'." Ben Stiller's 1994 film "Reality Bites" also sought to capture the zeitgeist of the generation with a portrayal of the attitudes and lifestyle choices of the time.
Negative stereotypes of Gen X young adults continued, including that they were "bleak, cynical, and disaffected". In 1998, such stereotypes prompted sociological research at Stanford University to study the accuracy of the characterization of Gen X young adults as cynical and disaffected. Using the national General Social Survey, the researchers compared answers to identical survey questions asked of 18–29-year-olds in three different time periods. Additionally, they compared how older adults answered the same survey questions over time. The surveys showed 18–29-year-old Gen Xers did exhibit higher levels of cynicism and disaffection than previous cohorts of 18–29-year-olds surveyed. However, they also found that cynicism and disaffection had increased among all age groups surveyed over time, not just young adults, making this a period effect, not a cohort effect. In other words, adults of all ages were more cynical and disaffected in the 1990s, not just Generation X.
By the mid-late 1990s, under Bill Clinton's presidency, economic optimism had returned to the U.S., with unemployment reduced from 7.5% in 1992 to 4% in 2000. Younger members of Gen X, straddling across administrations, politically experienced a "liberal renewal". In 1997, "Time" magazine published an article titled "Generation X Reconsidered", which retracted the previously-reported negative stereotypes and reported positive accomplishments, citing Gen Xers' tendency to found technology start-ups and small businesses as well as their ambition, which research showed was higher among Gen X young adults than older generations. Yet, the slacker moniker stuck. As the decade progressed, Gen X gained a reputation for entrepreneurship. In 1999, "The New York Times" dubbed them "Generation 1099", describing them as the "once pitied but now envied group of self-employed workers whose income is reported to the Internal Revenue Service not on a W-2 form, but on Form 1099."
The development of the internet witnessed a frenzy of IT initiatives. Newly-created companies, launched on stock exchanges globally, were formed with dubitable revenue generation or cash flow. When the dot-com bubble eventually burst in 2000, early Gen Xers who had embarked as entrepreneurs in the IT industry riding the Internet wave, as well as newly-qualified programmers at the tail-end of the generation (who had grown up with AOL and the first Web browsers), were both caught in the crash. This had major repercussions, with cross-generational consequences; five years after the bubble burst, new matriculation of IT millennial undergraduates fell by 40% and by as much as 70% in some information systems programs.
However, following the crisis, sociologist Mike Males reported continued confidence and optimism among the cohort saying "surveys consistently find 80% to 90% of Gen Xers self-confident and optimistic." Males wrote "these young Americans should finally get the recognition they deserve," praising the cohort and stating that "the permissively raised, universally deplored Generation X is the true 'great generation,' for it has braved a hostile social climate to reverse abysmal trends," describing them as the hardest-working group since the World War II generation. He reported Gen Xers' entrepreneurial tendencies helped create the high-tech industry that fueled the 1990s economic recovery. In 2002, "Time" magazine published an article titled "Gen Xers Aren't Slackers After All", reporting four out of five new businesses were the work of Gen Xers.
In the U.S., Gen Xers were described as the major heroes of the September 11 terrorist attacks by author William Strauss. The firefighters and police responding to the attacks were predominantly from Generation X. Additionally, the leaders of the passenger revolt on United Airlines Flight 93 were also, by majority, Gen Xers. Author Neil Howe reported survey data showing Gen Xers were cohabiting and getting married in increasing numbers following the terrorist attacks, with Gen X survey respondents reporting they no longer wanted to live alone. In October 2001, the "Seattle Post-Intelligencer" wrote of Gen Xers: "Now they could be facing the most formative events of their lives and their generation." The "Greensboro News & Record" reported members of the cohort "felt a surge of patriotism since terrorists struck" by giving blood, working for charities, donating to charities, and by joining the military to fight the War on Terror. "The Jury Expert", a publication of The American Society of Trial Consultants, reported: "Gen X members responded to the terrorist attacks with bursts of patriotism and national fervor that surprised even themselves."
In 2011, survey analysis from the "Longitudinal Study of American Youth" found Gen Xers (defined as those who were then between the ages of 30 and 50) to be "balanced, active, and happy" in midlife and as achieving a work-life balance. The Longitudinal Study of Youth is an NIH-NIA funded study by the University of Michigan which has been studying Generation X since 1987. The study asked questions such as "Thinking about all aspects of your life, how happy are you? If zero means that you are very unhappy and 10 means that you are very happy, please rate your happiness." LSA reported that "mean level of happiness was 7.5 and the median (middle score) was 8. Only four percent of Generation X adults indicated a great deal of unhappiness (a score of three or lower). Twenty-nine percent of Generation X adults were very happy with a score of 9 or 10 on the scale."
In 2016, a global consumer insights project from Viacom International Media Networks and Viacom, based on over 12,000 respondents across 21 countries, reported on Gen X's unconventional approach to sex, friendship, and family, their desire for flexibility and fulfillment at work and the absence of midlife crisis for Gen Xers. The project also included a 20 min documentary titled "Gen X Today". In 2014, Pew Research provided further insight, adding that the cohort was "savvy, skeptical and self-reliant; they're not into preening or pampering, and they just might not give much of a hoot what others think of them. Or whether others think of them at all." Furthermore, guides regarding managing multiple generations in the workforce describes Gen Xers as: independent, resilient, resourceful, self-managing, adaptable, cynical, pragmatic, skeptical of authority, and as seeking a work-life balance.
Individualism is one of the defining traits of Generation X, and reflected in their entrepreneurial spirit. In the 2008 book "X Saves the World: How Generation X Got the Shaft but Can Still Keep Everything from Sucking", author Jeff Gordinier describes Generation X as a "dark horse demographic" which "doesn't seek the limelight." Gordiner cites examples of Gen Xers' contributions to society such as: Google, Wikipedia, Amazon.com, and YouTube, arguing that if Bbomers had created them, "we'd never hear the end of it/" In the book, Gordinier contrasts Gen Xers to baby boomers, saying boomers tend to trumpet their accomplishments more than Gen Xers do, creating what he describes as "elaborate mythologies" around their achievements. Gordiner cites Steve Jobs as an example, while Gen Xers, he argues, are more likely to "just quietly do their thing."
In a 2007 article published in the Harvard Business Review, authors Strauss and Howe wrote of Generation X: "They are already the greatest entrepreneurial generation in U.S. history; their high-tech savvy and marketplace resilience have helped America prosper in the era of globalization." According to authors Michael Hais and Morley Winograd:
Small businesses and the entrepreneurial spirit that Gen Xers embody have become one of the most popular institutions in America. There's been a recent shift in consumer behavior and Gen Xers will join the "idealist generation" in encouraging the celebration of individual effort and business risk-taking. As a result, Xers will spark a renaissance of entrepreneurship in economic life, even as overall confidence in economic institutions declines. Customers, and their needs and wants (including Millennials) will become the North Star for an entire new generation of entrepreneurs.
A 2015 study by Sage Group reports Gen Xers "dominate the playing field" with respect to founding startups in the United States and Canada, with Xers launching the majority (55%) of all new businesses in 2015. In addition, in the UK, a 2016 study of over 2,500 office workers conducted by Workfront found that survey respondents of all ages selected those from Generation X as the hardest-working employees in today's workforce (chosen by 60%). Gen X was also ranked highest among fellow workers for having the strongest work ethic (chosen by 59.5%), being the most helpful (55.4%), the most skilled (54.5%), and the best troubleshooters/problem-solvers (41.6%).
Unlike millennials, Generation X was the last generation in the U.S. for whom higher education was broadly financially remunerative. In 2019, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis published research (using data from the 2016 "Survey of Consumer Finances") demonstrating that after controlling for race and age, cohort families with heads of household with post-secondary education and born before 1980 have seen wealth and income premiums, while, for those after 1980, the wealth premium has weakened to a point of statistical insignificance (in part because of the rising cost of college). The income premium, while remaining positive, has declined to historic lows, with more pronounced downward trajectories among heads of household with postgraduate degrees.
In terms of advocating for their children in the educational setting, author Neil Howe describes Gen X parents as distinct from baby boomer parents. Howe argues that Gen Xers are not helicopter parents, which Howe describes as a parenting style of boomer parents of millennials. Howe described Gen Xers instead as "stealth fighter parents", due to the tendency of Gen X parents to let minor issues go and to not hover over their children in the educational setting, but to intervene forcefully and swiftly in the event of more serious issues. In 2012, the Corporation for National and Community Service ranked Gen X volunteer rates in the U.S. at "29.4% per year", the highest compared with other generations. The rankings were based on a three-year moving average between 2009 and 2011.
A report titled "Economic Mobility: Is the American Dream Alive and Well?" focused on the income of males 30–39 in 2004 (those born April 1964March 1974). The study was released on 25 May 2007 and emphasized that this generation's men made less (by 12%) than their fathers had at the same age in 1974, thus reversing a historical trend. It concluded that, per year increases in household income generated by fathers/sons slowed from an average of 0.9% to 0.3%, barely keeping pace with inflation. "Family incomes have risen though (over the period 1947 to 2005) because more women have gone to work," "supporting the incomes of men, by adding a second earner to the family. And as with male income, the trend is downward."
Gen Xers were the first cohort to come of age with MTV. They were the first generation to experience the emergence of music videos as teenagers and are sometimes called the MTV Generation. Gen Xers were responsible for the alternative rock movement of the 1990s and 2000s, including the grunge subgenre. Hip hop has also been described as defining music of the generation, particularly artists such as Tupac Shakur, N.W.A., and The Notorious B.I.G..
From 1974 to 1976, a new generation of rock bands arose such as the Ramones, Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers, The Dictators in New York City, the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the Damned, and Buzzcocks in the UK, and the Saints in Brisbane. By late 1976, these acts were generally recognized as forming the vanguard of "punk rock", and as 1977 approached, punk rock became a major and highly controversial cultural phenomenon in the UK. It spawned a punk subculture expressing youthful rebellion characterized by distinctive styles of clothing and adornment (ranging from deliberately offensive T-shirts, leather jackets, studded or spiked bands and jewelry, as well as bondage and S&M clothes) and a variety of anti-authoritarian ideologies that have since been associated with the form. By 1977 the influence of punk rock music and subculture became more pervasive, spreading throughout various countries worldwide. It generally took root in local scenes that tended to reject affiliation with the mainstream. In the late 1970s punk experienced its second wave in which acts that were not active during its formative years adopted the style.
While at first punk musicians were not Gen Xers themselves (many of them were late boomers, or Generation Jones), the fanbase for punk became increasingly Gen X-oriented as the earliest Xers entered their adolescence, and it therefore made a significant imprint on the cohort. By the 1980s, faster and more aggressive subgenres such as hardcore punk (e.g. Minor Threat), street punk (e.g. the Exploited, NOFX) and anarcho-punk (e.g. Subhumans) became the predominant modes of punk rock. Musicians identifying with or inspired by punk often later pursued other musical directions, resulting in a broad range of spinoffs, giving rise to genres such as post-punk, new wave and later indie pop, alternative rock, and noise rock. Gen Xers were no longer simply the consumers of punk but becoming the creators as well. By the 1990s punk rock re-emerged into the mainstream, as punk rock and pop punk bands with Gen X members such as Green Day, Rancid, The Offspring, and Blink-182 brought the genre widespread popularity.
A notable example of alternative rock is grunge music and the associated subculture that developed in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. Grunge song lyrics have been called the "...product of Generation X malaise". Vulture commented: "the best bands arose from the boredom of latchkey kids". "People made records entirely to please themselves because there was nobody else to please" commented producer Jack Endino. Grunge lyrics are typically dark, nihilistic, angst-filled, anguished, and often addressing themes such as social alienation, despair and apathy. "The Guardian" wrote that grunge "didn't recycle banal cliches but tackled weighty subjects". Topics of grunge lyrics included homelessness, suicide, rape, broken homes, drug addiction, self-loathing, misogyny, domestic abuse and finding "meaning in an indifferent universe." Grunge lyrics tended to be introspective and aimed to enable the listener to see into hidden personal issues and examine depravity in the world. Notable grunge bands include: Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots and Soundgarden.
The golden age of hip hop refers to hip hop music made from the mid-1980s to mid-1990s, typically by artists originating from the New York metropolitan area, that was characterized by its diversity, quality, innovation and influence after the genre's emergence and establishment in the previous decade. There were various types of subject matter, while the music was experimental and the sampling eclectic. The artists most often associated with the period are LL Cool J, Run–D.M.C., Public Enemy, the Beastie Boys, KRS-One, Eric B. & Rakim, De La Soul, Big Daddy Kane, EPMD, A Tribe Called Quest, Slick Rick, Ultramagnetic MC's, and the Jungle Brothers. Releases by these acts co-existed in this period with, and were as commercially viable as, those of early gangsta rap artists such as Ice-T, Geto Boys and N.W.A, the sex raps of 2 Live Crew and Too Short, and party-oriented music by acts such as Kid 'n Play, The Fat Boys, DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince and MC Hammer.
In addition to lyrical self-glorification, hip hop was also used as a form of social protest. Lyrical content from the era often drew attention to a variety of social issues including afrocentric living, drug use, crime and violence, religion, culture, the state of the American economy, and the modern man's struggle. Conscious and political hip hop tracks of the time were a response to the effects of American capitalism and former President Reagan's conservative political economy. According to Rose Tricia, "In rap, relationships between black cultural practice, social and economic conditions, technology, sexual and racial politics, and the institution policing of the popular terrain are complex and in constant motion". Even though hip hop was used as a mechanism for different social issues it was still very complex with issues within the movement itself. There was also often an emphasis on black nationalism. Hip hop artists often talked about urban poverty and the problems of alcohol, drugs, and gangs in their communities. Public Enemy's most influential song, "Fight the Power", came out at this time; the song speaks up to the government, proclaiming that people in the ghetto have freedom of speech and rights like every other American.
Gen Xers were largely responsible for the "indie film" movement of the 1990s, both as young directors and in large part as the movie audiences fueling demand for such films. In cinema, directors Kevin Smith, Quentin Tarantino, Sofia Coppola, John Singleton, Spike Jonze, David Fincher, Steven Soderbergh, and Richard Linklater have been called Generation X filmmakers. Smith is most known for his View Askewniverse films, the flagship film being "Clerks", which is set in New Jersey circa 1994, and focuses on two convenience-store clerks in their twenties. Linklater's "Slacker" similarly explores young adult characters who were interested in philosophizing. While not a member of Gen X himself, director John Hughes has been recognized as having created a series of classic films with Gen X characters which "an entire generation took ownership of," including "The Breakfast Club", "Sixteen Candles", "Weird Science" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off". In France, a new movement emerged, the "Cinéma du look", spearheaded by filmmakers Luc Besson, Jean-Jacques Beineix and Leos Carax. Although not Gen Xers themselves, "Subway" (1985), "37°2 le matin" (English: "Betty Blue"; 1986), and "Mauvais Sang" (1986) sought to capture on screen the generation's malaise, sense of entrapment, and desire to escape.
The literature of early Gen Xers is often dark and introspective. In the U.S., Elizabeth Wurtzel, author of "Prozac Nation" (1994), captured the zeitgeist of her generation along with David Foster Wallace, Bret Easton Ellis, and Douglas Coupland. In France, Michel Houellebecq and Frédéric Beigbeder rank among major novelists whose work also reflect the dissatisfaction and melancholies of the cohort. In the UK, Alex Garland, author of "The Beach" (1996), further added to the genre.
While previous research has indicated that the likelihood of heart attacks was declining among Americans aged 35 to 74, a 2018 study published in the American Heart Association's journal "Circulation" revealed that this was not the case among younger people. By analyzing data from 28,000 patients from across the United States who were hospitalized for heart attacks between 1995 and 2014, they found that a growing number of such patients were between the ages of 35 to 54. In particular, the number of heart-attack patients in this age group at the end of the study was 32%, up from 27% at the start of the study. This increase is most pronounced among women, for whom the number jumped from 21% to 31%. A common theme among those who suffered from heart attacks is that they also had high-blood pressure, diabetes, and chronic kidney disease. As before, such trends were found to be more common among women than among men. Experts suggest a number of reasons for this. Conditions such as coronary artery disease are traditionally viewed as a man's problem, and as such female patients are not considered high-risk individuals. Many women are not only the primary caretakers of their families but also full-time employees, meaning they do not take care of themselves as much as they should.
Generation X are usually the parents of Generation Z, and sometimes millennials. Jason Dorsey, who works for the Center of Generational Kinetics, observed that like their parents from Generation X, members of Generation Z tend to be autonomous and pessimistic. They need validation less than the millennials and typically become financially literate at an earlier age as many of their parents bore the full brunt of the Great Recession. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11973 |
Guam
Guam (; ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in Micronesia in the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States, along with the Northern Mariana Islands. The capital city of Guam is Hagåtña and the most populous city is Dededo. Guam has been a member of the Pacific Community since 1983. The inhabitants of Guam are called Guamanians, and they are American citizens by birth. The indigenous Guamanians are the Chamorros, who are related to other Austronesian peoples of Indonesia, the Philippines, and Taiwan.
In 2016, 162,742 people resided on Guam. Guam has an area of and a population density of . In Oceania, it is the largest and southernmost of the Mariana Islands and the largest island in Micronesia. Among its municipalities, Mongmong-Toto-Maite has the highest population density at , whereas Inarajan and Umatac have the lowest density at . The highest point is Mount Lamlam at above sea level. Since the 1960s, the economy has been supported by two industries: tourism and the United States Armed Forces.
The indigenous Chamorros settled the island approximately 4,000 years ago. Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, while in the service of Spain, was the first European to visit the island, on March 6, 1521. Guam was colonized by Spain in 1668 with settlers, including Diego Luis de San Vitores, a Catholic Jesuit missionary. Between the 16th century and the 18th century, Guam was an important stopover for the Spanish Manila Galleons. During the Spanish–American War, the United States captured Guam on June 21, 1898. Under the Treaty of Paris, signed on December 10, 1898, Spain ceded Guam to the United States effective April 11, 1899. Guam is among the 17 non-self-governing territories listed by the United Nations.
Before World War II, there were five American jurisdictions in the Pacific Ocean: Guam and Wake Island in Micronesia, American Samoa and Hawaii in Polynesia, and the Philippines.
On December 8, 1941, hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Guam was captured by the Japanese, who occupied the island for two and a half years. During the occupation, Guamanians were subjected to forced labor, incarceration, torture and execution.
American forces recaptured the island on July 21, 1944; Liberation Day commemorates the victory.
An unofficial but frequently used territorial motto is "Where America's Day Begins", which refers to the island's proximity to the International Date Line.
The original inhabitants of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands were the Chamorro people, who are believed to be descendants of Austronesian people originating from Southeast Asia as early as 2000 BC.
The ancient Chamorro society had four classes: "chamorri" (chiefs), "matua" (upper class), "achaot" (middle class), and "mana'chang" (lower class). The "matua" were located in the coastal villages, which meant they had the best access to fishing grounds, whereas the "mana'chang" were located in the interior of the island. "Matua" and "mana'chang" rarely communicated with each other, and "matua" often used "achaot" as intermediaries. There were also ""makåhna"" or ""kakahna"", shamans with magical powers and ""Suruhånu"" or ""Suruhåna"", healers who use different kinds of plants and natural materials to make medicine. Belief in spirits of ancient Chamorros called ""Taotao mo'na"" still persists as a remnant of pre-European culture. It is believed that ""Suruhånu"" or ""Suruhåna"" are the only ones who can safely harvest plants and other natural materials from their homes or ""hålomtåno"" without incurring the wrath of the ""Taotao mo'na"". Their society was organized along matrilineal clans.
"Latte" stones are stone pillars that are found only in the Mariana Islands; they are a recent development in Pre-Contact Chamorro society. The latte-stone was used as a foundation on which thatched huts were built. Latte stones consist of a base shaped from limestone called the "haligi" and with a capstone, or "tåsa", made either from a large brain coral or limestone, placed on top. A possible source for these stones, the Rota Latte Stone Quarry, was discovered in 1925 on Rota.
The first European to travel to Guam was Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan, sailing for the King of Spain, when he sighted the island on March 6, 1521, during his fleet's circumnavigation of the globe. When Magellan arrived on Guam, he was greeted by hundreds of small outrigger canoes that appeared to be flying over the water, due to their considerable speed. These outrigger canoes were called Proas, and resulted in Magellan naming Guam "Islas de las Velas Latinas" ("Islands of the Lateen sails"). Antonio Pigafetta (one of Magellan's original 18) said that the name was "Island of Sails", but he also writes that the inhabitants "entered the ships and stole whatever they could lay their hands on", including "the small boat that was fastened to the poop of the flagship." "Those people are poor, but ingenious and very thievish, on account of which we called those three islands "Islas de los Ladrones" ("Islands of thieves")."
Despite Magellan's visit, Guam was not officially claimed by Spain until January 26, 1565, by General Miguel López de Legazpi. From 1565 to 1815, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, the only Spanish outposts in the Pacific Ocean east of the Philippines, were an important resting stop for the Manila galleons, a fleet that covered the Pacific trade route between Acapulco and Manila. To protect these Pacific fleets, Spain built several defensive structures that still stand today, such as Fort Nuestra Señora de la Soledad in Umatac. Guam is the biggest single segment of Micronesia, the largest islands between the island of Kyushu (Japan), New Guinea, the Philippines, and the Hawaiian Islands.
Spanish colonization commenced on June 15, 1668, with the arrival of Diego Luis de San Vitores and Pedro Calungsod, who established the first Catholic church. The islands were part of the Spanish East Indies, and in turn part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, based in Mexico City. Other reminders of colonial times include the old Governor's Palace in Plaza de España and the Spanish Bridge, both in Hagatña. Guam's Cathedral Dulce Nombre de Maria was formally opened on February 2, 1669, as was the Royal College of San Juan de Letran. Guam, along with the rest of the Mariana and Caroline Islands, were treated as part of Spain's colony in the Philippines. While the island's Chamorro culture has indigenous roots, the cultures of both Guam and the Northern Marianas have many similarities with Spanish culture due to three centuries of Spanish rule.
Intermittent warfare lasting from July 23, 1670, until July 1695, plus the typhoons of 1671 and 1693, and in particular the smallpox epidemic of 1688, reduced the Chamorro population from 50,000 to 10,000, finally to less than 5,000. Precipitated by the death of Quipuha, and the murder of Father San Vitores and Pedro Calungsod by local rebel chief Matapang, tensions led to a number of conflicts. Captain Juan de Santiago started a campaign to conquer the island, which was continued by the successive commanders of the Spanish forces.
After his arrival in 1674, Captain Damian de Esplana ordered the arrest of rebels who attacked the population of certain towns. Hostilities eventually led to the destruction of villages such as Chochogo, Pepura, Tumon, Sidia-Aty, Sagua, Nagan and Ninca. Starting in June 1676, the first Spanish Governor of Guam, Capt. Francisco de Irrisarri y Vinar, controlled internal affairs more strictly than his predecessors in order to curb tensions. He also ordered the construction of schools, roads and other infrastructure.
In 1680, Captain Jose de Quiroga arrived and continued some of the development projects started by his predecessors. He also continued the search for the rebels who had assassinated Father San Vitores, resulting in campaigns against the rebels which were hiding out in some islands, eventually leading to the death of Matapang, Hurao and Aguarin. Quiroga brought some natives from the northern islands to Guam, ordering the population to live in a few large villages. These included Jinapsan, Umatac, Pago, Agat and Inarajan, where he built a number of churches. By July 1695, Quiroga had completed the conquest of Guam, Rota, Tinian and Aguigan.
On February 26, 1767, Charles III of Spain issued a decree confiscating the property of the Jesuits and banishing them from Spain and her possessions. As a consequence, the Jesuit fathers on Guam departed on November 2, 1769, on the schooner "Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe", abandoning their churches, rectories and ranches.
The arrival of Governor Don Mariano Tobias, on September 15, 1771, brought agricultural reforms, including making land available to the islanders for cultivation, encouraged the development of cattle raising, imported deer and water buffalo from Manila, donkeys and mules from Acapulco, established cotton mills and salt pans, free public schools, and the first Guam militia. Later, he was transferred to Manila in June 1774.
Following the Napoleonic Wars, many Spanish colonies in the Western Hemisphere had become independent, shifting the economic dependence of Guam from Mexico to the Philippines. Don Francisco Ramon de Villalobos, who became governor in 1831, improved economic conditions including the promotion of rice cultivation and the establishment of a leper hospital.
Otto von Kotzebue visited the island in November 1817, and Louis de Freycinet in March 1819. Jules Dumont d'Urville made two visits, the first in May 1828. The island became a rest stop for whalers starting in 1823.
A devastating typhoon struck the island on August 10, 1848, followed by a severe earthquake on January 25, 1849, which resulted in many refugees from the Caroline Islands, victims of the resultant tsunami. After a smallpox epidemic killed 3,644 Guamanians in 1856, Carolinians and Japanese were permitted to settle in the Marianas. Guam received nineteen Filipino prisoners after their failed 1872 Cavite mutiny.
After almost four centuries as part of the Kingdom of Spain, the United States occupied the island following Spain's defeat in the 1898 Spanish–American War, as part of the Treaty of Paris of 1898. Guam was transferred to the United States Navy control on December 23, 1898, by from 25th President William McKinley.
Guam came to serve as a station for American merchant and warships traveling to and from the Philippines (another American acquisition from Spain) while the Northern Mariana Islands were sold by Spain to Germany for part of its rapidly expanding German Empire. A U.S. Navy yard was established at Piti in 1899, and a United States Marine Corps barracks at Sumay in 1901.
Following the Philippine–American War of 1899–1902, rebel nationalist leader Apolinario Mabini was exiled to Guam in 1901 after his capture. Following the German defeat in World War I, the Northern Mariana Islands became part of the South Seas Mandate, a League of Nations Mandate in 1919 with the nearby Empire of Japan as the mandatory ("trustee") as a member nation of the victorious Allies in the "Great War".
A marine seaplane unit was stationed in Guam from 1921 to 1930, the first in the Pacific. Pan American World Airways established a seaplane base on the island for its trans-Pacific San Francisco-Manila-Hong Kong route, and the Commercial Pacific Cable Company had earlier built a telegraph/telephone station in 1903 for its trans-oceanic communication line.
During World War II, Guam was attacked and invaded by Japan on Monday, December 8, 1941, shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. In addition, Japan made major military moves into Southeast Asia and the East Indies islands of the South Pacific Ocean against the British and Dutch colonies, opening a new wider Pacific phase in the Second World War. The Japanese renamed Guam (Great Shrine Island).
The Northern Mariana Islands had become a League of Nations mandate assigned to Japan in 1919, pursuant to the Treaty of Versailles of 1919. Chamorros indigenous island people from the Northern Marianas were brought to Guam to serve as interpreters and in other capacities for the occupying Japanese force. The Guamanian Chamorros were treated as an occupied enemy by the Japanese military. After the war, this would cause resentment between the Guamanian Chamorros and the Chamorros of the Northern Marianas. Guam's Chamorros believed their northern brethren should have been compassionate towards them, whereas having been administered by Japan for over 30 years, the Northern Mariana Chamorros were loyal to the Japanese government.
The Japanese occupation of Guam lasted for approximately 31 months. During this period, the indigenous people of Guam were subjected to forced labor, family separation, incarceration, execution, concentration camps and forced prostitution. Approximately 1,000 people died during the occupation, according to later Congressional committee testimony in 2004. Some historians estimate that war violence killed 10% of Guam's then 20,000 population.
The United States returned and fought the Battle of Guam from July 21 to August 10, 1944, to recapture the island from Japanese military occupation. More than 18,000 Japanese were killed as only 485 surrendered. Sergeant Shoichi Yokoi, who surrendered in January 1972, appears to have been the last confirmed Japanese holdout, having held out for 28 years in the forested back country on Guam. The United States also captured and occupied the nearby Northern Marianas Islands.
North Field was established in 1944, and was renamed for Brigadier General James Roy Andersen of the old U.S. Army Air Forces as Andersen Air Force Base.
After World War II, the Guam Organic Act of 1950 established Guam as an unincorporated organized territory of the United States, provided for the structure of the island's civilian government, and granted the people U.S. citizenship. The Governor of Guam was federally appointed until 1968, when the Guam Elective Governor Act provided for the office's popular election. Since Guam is not a U.S. state, U.S. citizens residing on Guam are not allowed to vote for president and their congressional representative is a non-voting member. They do, however, get to vote for party delegates in presidential primaries.
Andersen Air Force Base played a major role in the Vietnam War. The host unit was later designated the 36th Wing (36 WG), assigned to the Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) Thirteenth Air Force (13AF). In September 2012, 13 AF was deactivated and its functions merged into PACAF. The multinational Cope North military exercise is an annual event.
Since 1974, about 124 historic sites in Guam have been recognized under the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. Guam temporarily hosted 100,000 Vietnamese refugees in 1975, and 6,600 Kurdish refugees in 1996.
On August 6, 1997, Guam was the site of the Korean Air Flight 801 aircraft accident. The Boeing 747–300 jetliner was preparing to land when it crashed into a hill, killing 228 of the 254 people on board.
In August 2017, North Korea warned that it might launch mid-range ballistic missiles into waters within of Guam, following an exchange of threats between the governments of North Korea and the United States.
In 2018, a Government Accountability Office report stated that Agent Orange was used as a commercial herbicide in Guam during the Vietnam and Korean Wars. An analysis of chemicals present in the island's soil, together with resolutions passed by Guam's legislature, suggest that Agent Orange was among the herbicides routinely used on and around military bases Anderson Air Force Base, Naval Air Station Agana, Guam. Despite the evidence, the Department of Defense continues to deny that Agent Orange was ever stored or used on Guam. Several Guam veterans have collected an enormous amount of evidence to assist in their disability claims for direct exposure to dioxin containing herbicides such as 2,4,5-T which are similar to the illness associations and disability coverage that has become standard for those who were harmed by the same chemical contaminant of Agent Orange used in Vietnam.
Guam lies between 13.2° and 13.7°N and 144.6° and 145.0°E. It is long and wide, giving it an area of (three-fourths the size of Singapore) and making it the 32nd largest island of the United States. It is the southernmost and largest island in the Marianas as well as the largest in Micronesia. Guam's highest point is Mount Lamlam at . Challenger Deep, at the deepest surveyed point in the Oceans, lies southwest of Guam.
The Mariana chain of which Guam is a part was created by collision of the Pacific and Philippine Sea tectonic plates. Guam is the closest land mass to the Mariana Trench, the deep subduction zone that runs east of the Marianas. Due to its location on the Mariana Plate just westward of where the Pacific Plate subducts the Mariana and the Philippine Sea Plates, Guam occasionally experiences earthquakes. In recent years, most with epicenters near Guam have had magnitudes ranging from 5.0 to 8.7. Unlike Anatahan in the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam is not volcanically active, though vog (volcanic smog) from Anatahan affects it due to proximity.
A coral table reef surrounds most of Guam, and the limestone plateau provides the source for most of the island's fresh water. Steep coastal cliffs dominate the north, while mountains inform the topography of the island's southern end; lower hills typify the area in between.
Guam has a tropical rainforest climate (Köppen "Af"), though its driest month of March almost averages dry enough to qualify as a tropical monsoon climate (Köppen "Am"), moderated by seasonal trade winds from the northeast. The weather is generally hot and humid throughout the year with little seasonal temperature variation. Hence, Guam is known to have equable temperatures year-round. Guam has two distinct seasons: Rainy and dry season. The dry season runs from January through May and the rainy season runs from July through November with an average annual rainfall between 1981 and 2010 of around . The wettest month on record at Guam Airport has been August 1997 with and the driest February 2015 with . The wettest calendar year has been 1976 with and the driest 1998 with . The most rainfall in a single day occurred on October 15, 1953, when fell.
The mean high temperature is and mean low is . Temperatures rarely exceed or fall below . The relative humidity commonly exceeds 84 percent at night throughout the year, but the average monthly humidity hovers near 66 percent. The highest temperature ever recorded in Guam was on April 18, 1971, and April 1, 1990, and the lowest temperature ever recorded was on February 8, 1973.
Guam lies in the path of typhoons and it is common for the island to be threatened by tropical storms and possible typhoons during the rainy season. The highest risk of typhoons is from August through November, where typhoons and tropical storms are most probable in the northwest Pacific. They can, however, occur year round. The most powerful typhoon to pass over Guam recently was Super Typhoon Pongsona, with sustained winds of , gusts to , which struck Guam on December 8, 2002, leaving massive destruction.
Since Typhoon Pamela in 1976, wooden structures have been largely replaced by concrete structures. During the 1980s, wooden utility poles began to be replaced by typhoon-resistant concrete and steel poles. After the local Government enforced stricter construction codes, many home and business owners built their structures out of reinforced concrete with installed typhoon shutters.
Based on a 2010 estimate, the largest ethnic group are the native Chamorros, accounting for 37.3% of the total population. Other significant ethnic groups include those of Filipino (26.3%) and Chuukese (7%) ethnicities. The rest are from other Pacific Islands or of Asian ancestry. The estimated interracial marriage rate is over 40%.
The official languages of the island are English and Chamorro. Filipino is also a common language across the island. Other Pacific island languages and many Asian languages are spoken in Guam as well. Spanish, the language of administration for 300 years, is no longer commonly spoken on the island, although vestiges of the language remain in proper names, loanwords, and place names and it is studied at university and high schools.
The most common religion is the Catholic Church. According to the Pew Research Center, the religious denominations constitute of the following, in 2010:
Post-European-contact Chamorro Guamanian culture is a combination of American, Spanish, Filipino, other Micronesian Islander and Mexican traditions. Few indigenous pre-Hispanic customs remained following Spanish contact. Hispanic influences are manifested in the local language, music, dance, sea navigation, cuisine, fishing, games (such as batu, chonka, estuleks, and bayogu), songs, and fashion.
During Spanish rule (1668–1898) the majority of the population was converted to Roman Catholicism and religious festivities such as Easter and Christmas became widespread. Post-contact Chamorro cuisine is largely based on corn, and includes tortillas, tamales, atole, and chilaquiles, which are a clear influence from Mesoamerica, principally Mexico, from Spanish trade with Asia.
The modern Chamorro language has many historical parallels to modern Philippine languages in that it is an Austronesian language which has absorbed much Spanish vocabulary. The language lies within the Malayo-Polynesian languages subgroup, along with such languages as Tagalog, Indonesian, Hawaiian, and Maori. Unlike most other languages of the Pacific Islands, Chamorro does belong to the Oceanic subgroup of the Austronesian languages.
As with Filipinos, many Chamorros have Spanish surnames, although also like most Filipinos few of the inhabitants are themselves descended from the Spaniards. Instead, Spanish names and surnames became commonplace after their conversion to Roman Catholic Christianity and the historical event of the imposition of the Catálogo alfabético de apellidos in Guam and other territories of the Spanish East Indies, most notably the Philippines.
Due to foreign cultural influence from Spain, most aspects of the early indigenous culture have been lost, though there has been a resurgence in preserving any remaining pre-Hispanic culture in the last few decades. Some scholars have traveled throughout the Pacific Islands conducting research to study what the original Chamorro cultural practices such as dance, language, and canoe building may have been like.
Two aspects of indigenous pre-Hispanic culture that withstood time are chenchule' and inafa'maolek. Chenchule' is the intricate system of reciprocity at the heart of Chamorro society. It is rooted in the core value of inafa'maolek. Historian Lawrence Cunningham in 1992 wrote, "In a Chamorro sense, the land and its produce belong to everyone. , or interdependence, is the key, or central value, in Chamorro culture ... depends on a spirit of cooperation and sharing. This is the armature, or core, that everything in Chamorro culture revolves around. It is a powerful concern for mutuality rather than individualism and private property rights."
The core culture or Pengngan Chamorro is based on complex social protocol centered upon respect: from sniffing over the hands of the elders (called mangnginge in Chamorro), the passing down of legends, chants, and courtship rituals, to a person asking for permission from spiritual ancestors before entering a jungle or ancient battle grounds. Other practices predating Spanish conquest include galaide' canoe-making, making of the belembaotuyan (a string musical instrument made from a gourd), fashioning of slings and slingstones, tool manufacture, burial rituals, and preparation of herbal medicines by Suruhanu.
Master craftsmen and women specialize in weavings, including plaited work (niyok- and åkgak-leaf baskets, mats, bags, hats, and food containments), loom-woven material (kalachucha-hibiscus and banana fiber skirts, belts and burial shrouds), and body ornamentation (bead and shell necklaces, bracelets, earrings, belts, and combs made from tortoise shells and Spondylus).
While only a few masters exist to continue traditional art forms, the resurgence of interest among the Chamorros to preserve the language and culture has resulted in a growing number of young Chamorros who seek to continue the ancient ways of the Chamorro people.
The Guam national football team was founded in 1975 and joined FIFA in 1996. Guam was once considered one of FIFA's weakest teams, and experienced their first victory over a FIFA-registered side in 2009, when they defeated Mongolia in the East Asian Cup.
The national team plays at the Guam National Football Stadium and are known as the "matao" team. Matao is the definition of highest level or "noble" class; the matao team have done exceptionally well under the head coach Gary White. , the Matao is led by Darren Sawatzky, the current head coach. The top football division in Guam is the Guam Men's Soccer League. Rovers FC and Guam Shipyard are the league's most competitive and successful clubs, both have won nine championships in the past years.
Guam entered the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification Group D. Guam hosted qualifying games on the island for the first time in 2015. During the qualifying round, Guam clinched their first FIFA World Cup Qualifying win by defeating the Turkmenistan national football team. Since then, the team has experienced moderate success in the qualifying round with a record of 2–1–1.
The Guam national basketball team is traditionally one of the top teams in the Oceania region behind the Australia men's national basketball team and the New Zealand national basketball team. , it is the reigning champion of the Pacific Games Basketball Tournament. Guam is home to various basketball organizations, including the Guam Basketball Association.
Guam is represented in rugby union by the Guam national rugby union team. The team has never qualified for a Rugby World Cup. Guam played their first match in 2005, an 8–8 draw with the India national rugby union team. Guam's biggest win was a 74–0 defeat of the Brunei national rugby union team in June 2008.
Guam hosted the Pacific Games in 1975 and 1999. At the 2007 Games, Guam finished 7th of 22 countries and 14th at the 2011 Games.
Guam's economy depends primarily on tourism, Department of Defense installations and locally owned businesses. Under the provisions of a special law by Congress, it is Guam's treasury rather than the U.S. treasury that receives the federal income taxes paid by local taxpayers (including military and civilian federal employees assigned to Guam).
Lying in the western Pacific, Guam is a popular destination for Japanese tourists. Its tourist hub, Tumon, features over 20 large hotels, a Duty Free Shoppers Galleria, Pleasure Island district, indoor aquarium, Sandcastle Las Vegas–styled shows and other shopping and entertainment venues. It is a relatively short flight from Asia or Australia compared to Hawaii, with hotels and seven public golf courses accommodating over a million tourists per year. Although 75% of the tourists are Japanese, Guam receives a sizable number of tourists from South Korea, the U.S., the Philippines, and Taiwan. Significant sources of revenue include duty-free designer shopping outlets, and the American-style malls: Micronesia Mall, Guam Premier Outlets, the Agana Shopping Center, and the world's largest Kmart.
The economy had been stable since 2000 due to increased tourism. It is expected to stabilize with the transfer of U.S. Marine Corps' 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force, currently in Okinawa, Japan, (approximately 8,000 Marines, along with their 10,000 dependents), to Guam between 2010 and 2015. In 2003, Guam had a 14% unemployment rate, and the government suffered a $314 million shortfall.
The Compacts of Free Association between the United States, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau accorded the former entities of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands a political status of "free association" with the United States. The Compacts give citizens of these island nations generally no restrictions to reside in the United States (also its territories), and many were attracted to Guam due to its proximity, environmental, and cultural familiarity. Over the years, it was claimed by some in Guam that the territory has had to bear the brunt of this agreement in the form of public assistance programs and public education for those from the regions involved, and the federal government should compensate the states and territories affected by this type of migration. Over the years, Congress had appropriated "Compact Impact" aids to Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and Hawaii, and eventually this appropriation was written into each renewed Compact. Some, however, continue to claim the compensation is not enough or that the distribution of actual compensation received is significantly disproportionate.
In 2012 Michael Calabrese, Daniel Calarco, and Colin Richardson of "Slate" stated that the island has "tremendous bandwidth" and internet prices comparable to those of the U.S. Mainland due to being at the junction of undersea cables.
Guam is governed by a popularly elected governor and a unicameral 15-member legislature, whose members are known as senators. Its judiciary is overseen by the Supreme Court of Guam.
The District Court of Guam is the court of United States federal jurisdiction in the territory. Guam elects one delegate to the United States House of Representatives, currently Democrat Michael San Nicolas. The delegate does not have a vote on the final passage of legislation, but is accorded a vote in committee, and the privilege to speak to the House. U.S. citizens in Guam vote in a presidential straw poll for their choice in the U.S. Presidential general election, but since Guam has no votes in the Electoral College, the poll has no real effect. However, in sending delegates to the Republican and Democratic national conventions, Guam does have influence in the national presidential race. These delegates are elected by local party conventions.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, there was a significant movement in favor of this U.S. territory becoming a commonwealth, which would give it a level of self-government similar to Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands. In a 1982 plebiscite, voters indicated interest in seeking commonwealth status. However, the federal government rejected the version of a commonwealth that the government of Guam proposed, because its clauses were incompatible with the Territorial Clause (Art. IV, Sec. 3, cl. 2) of the U.S. Constitution. Other movements advocate U.S. statehood for Guam, union with the state of Hawaii, or union with the Northern Mariana Islands as a single territory, or independence.
A Commission on Decolonization was established in 1997 to educate the people of Guam about the various political status options in its relationship with the U.S.: statehood, free association and independence. The island has been considering another non-binding plebiscite on decolonization since 1998, however, the group was dormant for some years. In 2013, the Commission began seeking funding to start a public education campaign. There were few subsequent developments until late 2016. In early December 2016, the Commission scheduled a series of education sessions in various villages about the current status of Guam's relationship with the U.S. and the self-determination options that might be considered. The Commission's current Executive Director is Edward Alvarez and there are ten members. The group is also expected to release position papers on independence and statehood but the contents have not yet been completed.
The United Nations is in favor of greater self-determination for Guam and other such territories. The UN's Special Committee on Decolonization has agreed to endorse the Governor's education plan. The commission's May 2016 report states: "With academics from the University of Guam, [the Commission] was working to create and approve educational materials. The Office of the Governor was collaborating closely with the Commission" in developing educational materials for the public.
The United States Department of the Interior had approved a $300,000 grant for decolonization education, Edward Alvarez told the United Nations Pacific Regional Seminar in May 2016. "We are hopeful that this might indicate a shift in [United States] policy to its Non-Self-Governing Territories such as Guam, where they will be more willing to engage in discussions about our future and offer true support to help push us towards true self-governances and self-determination."
Guam is divided into 19 municipal villages:
The U.S. military maintains jurisdiction over its bases, which cover approximately , or 29% of the island's total land area:
The U.S. military has proposed building a new aircraft carrier berth on Guam and moving 8,600 Marines, and 9,000 of their dependents, to Guam from Okinawa, Japan. Including the required construction workers, this buildup would increase Guam's population by 45%. In a February 2010 letter, the United States Environmental Protection Agency sharply criticized these plans because of a water shortfall, sewage problems and the impact on coral reefs. By 2012, these plans had been cut to have only a maximum of 4,800 Marines stationed on the island, two thirds of whom would be there on a rotational basis without their dependents.
With the proposed increased military presence stemming from the upcoming preparation and relocation efforts of U.S. Marines from Okinawa, Japan to Guam slated to begin in 2010 and last for the next several years thereafter, the amount of total land that the military will control or tenant may grow to or surpass 40% of the entire landmass of Guam.
In January 2011, the Ike Skelton National Defense Authorization Act for FY2011 indicated that recent significant events will delay the deadline for realigning U.S. Marine Corps service members and their families from Okinawa to Guam. The transfer may be as late as 2020. In addition, the Defense Authorization Act cut approximately $320 million from the 2011 budget request.
Villagers and the military community are interconnected in many ways. Many villagers serve in the military or are retired. Many active duty personnel and Defense Department civilians also live in the villages outside of the military installation areas. The military and village communities have "adoption" programs where Guam's population and military personnel stationed on Guam perform community service projects.
Most of the island has state-of-the-art mobile phone services and high-speed internet widely available through either cable or DSL. Guam was added to the North American Numbering Plan (NANP) in 1997 (country code 671 became NANP area code 671), removing the barrier of high-cost international long-distance calls to the U.S. mainland.
Guam is also a major hub for submarine cables between the Western U.S., Hawaii, Australia and Asia. Guam currently serves twelve submarine cables, with most continuing to China.
In 1899, the local postage stamps were overprinted "Guam" as was done for the other former Spanish colonies, but this was discontinued shortly thereafter and regular U.S. postage stamps have been used ever since. Because Guam is also part of the U.S. Postal System (postal abbreviation: GU, ZIP code range: 96910–96932), mail to Guam from the U.S. mainland is considered domestic and no additional charges are required. Private shipping companies, such as FedEx, UPS, and DHL, however, have no obligation to do so, and do not regard Guam as domestic.
The speed of mail traveling between Guam and the states varies depending on size and time of year. Light, first-class items generally take less than a week to or from the mainland, but larger first-class or Priority items can take a week or two. Fourth-class mail, such as magazines, are transported by sea after reaching Hawaii. Most residents use post office boxes or private mail boxes, although residential delivery is becoming increasingly available. Incoming mail not from the Americas should be addressed to "Guam" instead of "USA" to avoid being routed the long way through the U.S. mainland and possibly charged a higher rate (especially from Asia).
The Commercial Port of Guam is the island's lifeline because most products must be shipped into Guam for consumers. It receives the weekly calls of the Hawaii-based shipping line Matson, Inc. whose container ships connect Guam with Honolulu, Hawaii, Los Angeles, California, Oakland, California and Seattle, Washington. The port is also the regional transhipment hub for over 500,000 customers throughout the Micronesian region. The port is the shipping and receiving point for containers designated for the island's U.S. Department of Defense installations, Andersen Air Force Base and Commander, Naval Forces Marianas and eventually the Third Marine Expeditionary Force.
Guam is served by the Antonio B. Won Pat International Airport. The island is outside the United States customs zone, so Guam is responsible for establishing and operating its own customs and quarantine agency and jurisdiction. Therefore, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection only carries out immigration (but not customs) functions. Since Guam is under federal immigration jurisdiction, passengers arriving directly from the United States skip immigration and proceed directly to Guam Customs and Quarantine.
However, due to the Guam and CNMI visa waiver program for certain countries, an eligibility pre-clearance check is carried on Guam for flights to the States. For travel from the Northern Mariana Islands to Guam, a pre-flight passport and visa check is performed before boarding the flight to Guam. On flights from Guam to the Northern Mariana Islands, no immigration check is performed. Traveling between Guam and the States through a foreign point, however, does require a passport.
Most residents travel within Guam using personally owned vehicles. The local government currently outsources the only public bus system (Guam Regional Transit Authority), and some commercial companies operate buses between tourist-frequented locations.
Believed to be a stowaway on a U.S. military transport near the end of World War II, the brown tree snake ("Boiga irregularis") was accidentally introduced to Guam, which previously had no native species of snake. It nearly eliminated the native bird population. The problem was exacerbated because the snake has no natural predators on the island. The brown tree snake, known locally as the "kulebla", is native to northern and eastern coasts of Australia, Papua New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands. It is slightly venomous, but relatively harmless to human beings; it is nocturnal. Although some studies have suggested a high density of these serpents on Guam, residents rarely see them. The United States Department of Agriculture has trained detector dogs to keep the snakes out of the island's cargo flow. The United States Geological Survey also has dogs that can detect snakes in forested environments around the region's islands.
Before the introduction of the brown tree snake, Guam was home to several endemic bird species. Among them were the Guam rail (or "ko'ko"' bird in Chamorro) and the Guam flycatcher, both were once common throughout the island. Today the flycatcher is entirely extinct and the Guam rail is critically endangered and they are bred in captivity by the Division of Aquatic and Wildlife Resources. The devastation caused by the snake has been significant over the past several decades. As many as twelve bird species are believed to have been driven to extinction. However, some of the birds still thrive and are common on other islands at the subspecies level in the Marianas, including Saipan. According to many elders, ko'ko' birds were common in Guam before World War II.
Other bird species threatened by the brown tree snake include the Mariana crow, the Mariana swiftlet, and the Micronesian starling, though populations are present on other islands, including Rota.
Guam is said to have many more insects and 40 times more spiders than neighboring islands, because their natural predators birds are severely diminished, and the forests are almost completely silent due to lack of birdsong.
An infestation of the coconut rhinoceros beetle (CRB), "Oryctes rhinoceros", was detected on Guam on September 12, 2007. CRB is not known to occur in the United States except in American Samoa. Delimiting surveys performed September 13–25, 2007, indicated that the infestation was limited to Tumon Bay and Faifai Beach, an area of approximately . Guam Department of Agriculture (GDA) placed quarantine on all properties within the Tumon area on October 5 and later expanded the quarantine to about on October 25; approximately radius in all directions from all known locations of CRB infestation. CRB is native to Southern Asia and distributed throughout Asia and the Western Pacific including Sri Lanka, Upolu, Samoa, American Samoa, Palau, New Britain, West Irian, New Ireland, Pak Island and Manus Island (New Guinea), Fiji, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Mauritius, and Reunion.
From the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries, the Spanish introduced pigs, dogs, chickens, the Philippine deer ("Rusa mariannus"), black francolins, and carabao (a subspecies of water buffalo), which have cultural significance. Herds of carabao obstruct military base operations and harm native ecosystems. After birth control and adoption efforts were ineffective, the U.S. military began culling the herds in 2002 leading to organized protests from island residents.
Other introduced species include cane toads introduced in 1937, the giant African snail (an agricultural pest introduced during World War II by Japanese occupation troops) and more recently frog species which could threaten crops in addition to providing additional food for the brown tree snake population. Reports of loud chirping frogs native to Puerto Rico and known as coquí, that may have arrived from Hawaii, have led to fears that the noise could threaten Guam's tourism.
Guam has no native amphibian species, but now a total of eight amphibian species has been established in Guam. "Litoria fallax" (native to the eastern coast of Australia) has been present in Guam since 1968, and "Rhinella marina" (the cane toad) was brought to the island in 1937. The other 6 amphibian species, namely "Hylarana guentheri" (native to mainland Asia), "Microhyla pulchra" (native to mainland Asia), "Polypedates braueri" (endemic to Taiwan), "Eleutherodactylus planirostris" (native to the Caribbean), "Fejervarya cancrivora" (the Guam variety being most closely related to "F. cancrivora" found in Taiwan), and "Fejervarya limnocharis" (native to Southeast Asia), have been in Guam since 2003. Many species were likely inadvertently introduced via shipping cargo, especially from Taiwan, mainland China, and Southeast Asia.
Introduced feral pigs and deer, over-hunting, and habitat loss from human development are also major factors in the decline and loss of Guam's native plants and animals.
Invading animal species are not the only threat to Guam's native flora. Tinangaja, a virus affecting coconut palms, was first observed on the island in 1917 when copra production was still a major part of Guam's economy. Though coconut plantations no longer exist on the island, the dead and infected trees that have resulted from the epidemic are seen throughout the forests of Guam.
During the past century, the dense forests of northern Guam have been largely replaced by thick "tangan-tangan" brush ("Leucaena leucocephala"). Much of Guam's foliage was lost during World War II. In 1947, the U.S. military is thought to have planted tangan-tangan by seeding the island from the air to prevent erosion. Tangan-tangan was present on the island before 1905.
In southern Guam, non-native grass species dominate much of the landscape. Although the colorful and impressive flame tree ("Delonix regia") is found throughout the Marianas, the tree on Guam has been largely decimated.
The Coconut rhinoceros beetle (CRB) infestation has become an epidemic event of palm tree damage on Guam. The CRB infects palm trees by burrowing into the tips of the palms, effectively killing the plant by destroying the shoot apical meristem during the process. While the grubs and larvae of CRB do no actual harm to palms, they populate and grow within the damaged crowns of the palm trees, which is a specific mating habit of Guam CRBs.
A possible solution to the crisis, which has been ecologically analyzed in Western Samoa, would be the introduction of CRB predators. Centipedes, "Scolopendra Morsitans," have been found to seek out and eat the larvae of the beetle in logs and other breeding grounds. Manual insertion of the centipedes, or introduction of volatile attractors within the plant, may cause a significant dent in Guam's CRB mortality. The introduction of terpene, fatty acids, or other nitrogenous compound metabolites may allow palm trees to attract CRB-predators such as the centipede through an indirect defense response, which is triggered by mechanoreceptors activating secondary metabolite transcribers via an action potential pathway.
A secondary solution could be introducing metal hyperaccumulation into the palm population on Guam's beaches. Plants that accumulate extra inorganic minerals, such as iron, nickel, or zinc, indirectly deter herbivory by depositing excess materials in certain sections of the plants. While the excess inorganic materials may not directly affect adult CRBs (as minerals would not be deposited in the meristem sections of the plant), it may create an inhospitable and toxic environment for the immature CRBs that are growing in the trees.
Wildfires plague the forested areas of Guam every dry season despite the island's humid climate. Most fires are caused by humans with 80% resulting from arson. Poachers often start fires to attract deer to the new growth. Invasive grass species that rely on fire as part of their natural life cycle grow in many regularly burned areas. Grasslands and "barrens" have replaced previously forested areas leading to greater soil erosion. During the rainy season, sediment is carried by the heavy rains into the Fena Lake Reservoir and Ugum River, leading to water quality problems for southern Guam. Eroded silt also destroys the marine life in reefs around the island. Soil stabilization efforts by volunteers and forestry workers (planting trees) have had little success in preserving natural habitats.
Efforts have been made to protect Guam's coral reef habitats from pollution, eroded silt and overfishing, problems that have led to decreased fish populations. This has both ecological and economic value, as Guam is a significant vacation spot for scuba divers. In recent years, the Department of Agriculture, Division of Aquatic and Wildlife Resources has established several new marine preserves where fish populations are monitored by biologists. These are located at Pati Point, Piti Bomb Holes, Sasa Bay, Achang Reef Flat, and Tumon Bay. Before adopting U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards, portions of Tumon Bay were dredged by the hotel chains to provide a better experience for hotel guests. Tumon Bay has since been made into a preserve. A federal Guam National Wildlife Refuge in northern Guam protects the decimated sea turtle population in addition to a small colony of Mariana fruit bats.
Harvest of sea turtle eggs was a common occurrence on Guam before World War II. The green sea turtle ("Chelonia mydas") was harvested legally on Guam before August 1978, when it was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The hawksbill sea turtle ("Eretmochelys imbricata") has been on the endangered list since 1970. In an effort to ensure protection of sea turtles on Guam, routine sightings are counted during aerial surveys and nest sites are recorded and monitored for hatchlings.
The University of Guam (UOG) and Guam Community College, both fully accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, offer courses in higher education. UOG is a member of the exclusive group of only 106 land-grant institutions in the entire United States. Pacific Islands University is a small Christian liberal arts institution nationally accredited by the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools. They offer courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.
The Guam Department of Education serves the entire island of Guam. In 2000, 32,000 students attended Guam's public schools, including 26 elementary schools, eight middle schools, and six high schools and alternative schools. Guam Public Schools have struggled with problems such as high dropout rates and poor test scores. Guam's educational system has always faced unique challenges as a small community located from the U.S. mainland with a very diverse student body including many students who come from backgrounds without traditional American education. An economic downturn in Guam since the mid-1990s has compounded the problems in schools.
Before September 1997, the U.S. Department of Defense partnered with Guam Board of Education. In September 1997, the DoDEA opened its own schools for children of military personnel. DoDEA schools, which also serve children of some federal civilian employees, had an attendance of 2,500 in 2000. DoDEA Guam operates three elementary/middle schools and one high school.
Guam Public Library System operates the Nieves M. Flores Memorial Library in Hagåtña and five branch libraries.
The Government of Guam maintains the island's main health care facility, Guam Memorial Hospital, in Tamuning. U.S. board certified doctors and dentists practice in all specialties. In addition, the U.S. Naval Hospital in Agana Heights serves active-duty members and dependents of the military community. There is one subscriber-based air ambulance located on the island, CareJet, which provides emergency patient transportation across Guam and surrounding islands. A private hospital, the Guam Regional Medical City, opened its doors in early 2016.
Over the years, a number of films have been shot on Guam, including "Shiro's Head" (directed by the Muna brothers) and the government-funded "" (2004). Although set on Guam, "No Man Is an Island" (1962) was not shot there, but instead shot in the Philippines. Likewise, in the 2015 film "Pixels", the scene of the first alien attack takes place at Andersen AFB.
Notes
Further reading | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11974 |
Game Boy family
The Game Boy family is a line of handheld game consoles developed, manufactured, released and marketed by Nintendo, consisting of the Game Boy and its revisions, the Game Boy Color and the Game Boy Advance family. The product line has sold over 200 million units worldwide.
The original Game Boy (ゲームボーイ, "Gēmu Bōi") and Game Boy Color combined sold 118.69 million units worldwide. All versions of the Game Boy Advance family combined have sold 81.51 million units. All Game Boy systems combined have sold 200.20 million units worldwide.
The Game Boy line was succeeded by the Nintendo DS line. A number of Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance games have been rereleased digitally through the Virtual Console service for the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U.
Nintendo's Game Boy handheld was first released in 1989. The gaming device was the brainchild of long-time Nintendo employee Gunpei Yokoi, who was the person behind the "Ultra Hand", an expanding arm toy created and produced by Nintendo in 1970, long before Nintendo would enter the video game market. Yokoi was also responsible for the Game & Watch series of handhelds when Nintendo made the move from toys to video games.
When Yokoi designed the original Game Boy, he knew that to be successful, the system needed to be small, light, inexpensive, and durable, as well as have a varied, recognizable library of games upon its release. By following this simple mantra, the Game Boy line managed to gain a vast following despite technically superior alternatives which would have color graphics instead. This is also apparent in the name (conceived by Shigesato Itoi), which connotes a smaller "sidekick" companion to Nintendo's consoles.
Game Boy continues its success to this day and many at Nintendo have dedicated the handheld in Yokoi's memory. Game Boy celebrated its 15th anniversary in 2004, which nearly coincided with the 20-year anniversary of the original Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). To celebrate, Nintendo released the Classic NES Series and an NES controller-themed color scheme for the Game Boy Advance SP.
In 2006, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said on the rumored demise of the Game Boy brand: "No, it's not true after all. What we are repeatedly saying is that for whichever platform, we are always conducting research and development for the new system, be it the Game Boy, or new console or whatever. And what we just told the reporter was that in thinking about the current situation where we are enjoying great sales with the DS and that we are now trying to launch the Wii, it's unthinkable for us to launch any new platform for the handheld system, including the new version of the GBA... Perhaps they misunderstood a part of this story, but as far as the handheld market is concerned [right now] we really want to focus on more sales of the DS; that's all" until Nintendo ceased the production of the Game Boy Advance games and handheld system in North America on May 15, 2010.
The original gray Game Boy was first released in Japan on April 21, 1989. Based on a Z80 processor, it has a black and green reflective LCD screen, an eight-way directional pad, two action buttons (A and B), and Start and Select buttons with the controls being identical to the NES controller. It plays games from ROM-based media contained in cartridges (sometimes called carts or Game Paks). Its graphics are 8-bit (similar to the NES).
The game that pushed the Game Boy into the upper reaches of success was "Tetris". Tetris was widely popular, and on the handheld format could be played anywhere. It came packaged with the Game Boy, and broadened its reach; adults and children alike were buying Game Boys in order to play "Tetris". Releasing "Tetris" on the Game Boy was selected as #4 on GameSpy's "25 Smartest Moments in Gaming".
The original Game Boy was one of the first cartridge-based systems that supported more than four players at one time (via the link port). In fact, it has been shown that the system could support 16 simultaneous players. However, this feature was only supported in "Faceball 2000".
In 1995, the "Play it Loud" version of the original Game Boy was released in six different colors; black, red, yellow, green, blue, white and clear. With sports variations in between.
The Game Boy Pocket is a redesigned version of the original Game Boy having the same features. It was released in 1996. Notably, this variation is smaller and lighter. It comes in seven different colors; red, yellow, green, black, clear, silver, blue, and pink.
Another notable improvement over the original Game Boy is a black-and-white display screen, rather than the green-tinted display of the original Game Boy, that also featured improved response time for less blurring during motion. The Game Boy Pocket takes two AAA batteries as opposed to four AA batteries for roughly ten hours of gameplay. The first model of the Game Boy Pocket did not have an LED to show battery levels, but the feature was added due to public demand.
In April 1998, a variant of the Game Boy Pocket named Game Boy Light was exclusively released in Japan. The differences between the original Game Boy Pocket and the Game Boy Light is that the Game Boy Light takes on two AA batteries for approximately 20 hours of gameplay (when playing without using the light), rather than two AAA batteries, and it has an electroluminescent screen that can be turned on or off. This electroluminescent screen gave games a blue-green tint and allowed the use of the unit in darkened areas. Playing with the light on would allow about 12 hours of play. The Game Boy Light also comes in six different colors; silver, gold, yellow for the "Pokémon" edition, translucent yellow, clear and translucent red for the "Astro Boy" edition. The Game Boy Light was superseded by the Game Boy Color six months later and was the only Game Boy to have a backlit screen until the release of the Game Boy Advance SP AGS-101 model in 2005.
First released in Japan on October 21, 1998, the Game Boy Color (abbreviated as GBC) added a (slightly smaller) color screen to a form factor similar in size to the Game Boy Pocket. It also has double the processor speed, three times as much memory, and an infrared communications port. Technologically, it was likened to the 8-bit NES video game console from the 1980s although the Game Boy Color has a much larger color palette (56 simultaneous colors out of 32,768 possible) which had some classic NES ports and newer titles. It comes in seven different colors; Clear purple, purple, red, blue, green, yellow and silver for the "Pokémon" edition. Like the Game Boy Light, the Game Boy Color takes on two AA batteries. It was the final handheld to have 8-bit graphics.
A major component of the Game Boy Color is its near-universal backward compatibility; that is, a Game Boy Color is able to read older Game Boy cartridges and even play them in a selectable color palette (similar to the Super Game Boy). The only black and white Game Boy games known to be incompatible are "Road Rash" and "Joshua & the Battle of Jericho". Backwards compatibility became a major feature of the Game Boy line, since it allowed each new launch to begin with a significantly larger library than any of its competitors. Some games written specifically for the Game Boy Color can be played on older model Game Boys, whereas others cannot (see the Game Paks section for more information).
In Japan, on March 21, 2001, Nintendo released a significant upgrade to the Game Boy line. The Game Boy Advance (also referred to as GBA) featured a 32 bit 16.8 MHz ARM. It included a Z80 processor and a switch activated by inserting a Game Boy or Game Boy Color game into the slot for backward compatibility, and had a larger, higher resolution screen. Controls were slightly modified with the addition of "L" and "R" shoulder buttons. Like the Game Boy Light and Game Boy Color, the Game Boy Advance takes on two AA batteries. The system was technically likened to the SNES and showed its power with successful ports of SNES titles such as "Super Mario Advance 2", "", "" and "Donkey Kong Country". There were also new titles that could be found only on the GBA, such as "", "", "Wario Land 4", "" and more. A widely criticized drawback of the Game Boy Advance is that the screen is not backlit, making viewing difficult in some conditions. The Game Paks for the GBA are roughly half the length of original Game Boy cartridges and Game Boy Color cartridges, and so older Game Paks would stick out of the top of the unit. When playing older games, the GBA provides the option to play the game at the standard equal square resolution of the original screen or the option to stretch it over the wider GBA screen. The selectable color palettes for the original Game Boy games are identical to what it was on the Game Boy Color. The only Game Boy Color games known to be incompatible are "Pocket Music" and "Chee-Chai Alien". It was the final handheld to require regular batteries.
First released in Japan on February 14, 2003, the Game Boy Advance SP—Nintendo model AGS-001—resolved several problems with the original Game Boy Advance model. It featured a new smaller clamshell design with a flip-up screen, a switchable internal frontlight, a rechargeable battery for the first time, and the only notable issue is the omission of the headphone jack, which requires a special adapter, purchased separately. In September 2005, Nintendo released the Game Boy Advance SP model AGS-101, that featured a high quality backlit screen instead of a frontlit, similar to the Game Boy Micro screen but larger. It was the final Game Boy and last handheld to have backwards compatibility with Game Boy and Game Boy Color games.
The third form of Game Boy Advance system, the Game Boy Micro is four and a half inches wide (10 cm), two inches tall (5 cm), and weighs 2.8 ounces (80 g). By far the smallest Game Boy created, it has approximately the same dimensions as an original NES controller pad. Its screen is approximately 2/3 the size of the SP and GBA screens while maintaining the same resolution (240×160 pixels) but now has a higher quality backlit display with adjustable brightness. Included with the system are two additional faceplates which can be swapped to give the system a new look; Nintendo of America sold additional faceplates on its online store. In Europe, the Game Boy Micro comes with a single faceplate. In Japan, a special "Mother 3" limited edition Game Boy Micro was released with the game in the "Mother 3 Deluxe Box". Unlike the Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Advance SP, the Game Boy Micro is unable to play any original Game Boy or Game Boy Color games, only playing Game Boy Advance titles (with the exception of the Nintendo e-Reader, discontinued in America, but still available in Japan).
Each video game is stored on a plastic cartridge, officially called a "Game Pak" by Nintendo. All cartridges, excluding those for Game Boy Advance, measure 5.8 by 6.5 cm. The cartridge provides the code and game data to the console's CPU. Some cartridges include a small battery with SRAM, flash memory chip, or EEPROM, which allows game data to be saved when the console is turned off. If the battery runs out in a cartridge, then the save data will be lost, however, it is possible to replace the battery with a new battery. To do this, the cartridge must be unscrewed, opened up, and the old battery would be removed and replaced. This may require desoldering the dead battery and soldering the replacement in place. Before 2003, Nintendo used round, flat watch batteries for saving information on the cartridges. These batteries were replaced in newer cartridges because they could only live for a certain amount of time.
The cartridge is inserted into the console cartridge slot. If the cartridge is removed while the power is on, and the Game Boy does not automatically reset, the game freezes; the Game Boy may exhibit unexpected behavior, such as rows of zeros appearing on the screen, the sound remaining at the same pitch as was emitted the instant the game was pulled out, saved data may be corrupted, and hardware may be damaged. This applies to most video game consoles that use cartridges.
The original Game Boy power switch was designed to prevent the player from being able to remove the cartridge while the power is on. Cartridges intended only for Game Boy Color (and not for the original Game Boy) lack the "notch" for the locking mechanism present in the top of the original cartridges, preventing operation on an original Game Boy (the cartridge can be inserted, but the power switch cannot be moved to the "on" position). Even if this was bypassed by using a Game Boy Pocket, Game Boy Light, or Super Game Boy (and its Japanese-only follow-up), the game would not run, and an image on the screen would inform the user that the game is only compatible with Game Boy Color systems. One exception would be the Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble game: despite the game cartridge featuring a notch, enabling it to be inserted on the original Game Boy, the game displays an error message indicating that it only plays on Game Boy Color. "Chee Chai Alien" and "Pocket Music" are incompatible with Game Boy Advance models, displaying an error message indicating that they only play on Game Boy Color.
Game Boy Advance cartridges used a similar physical lock-out feature. Notches were located at the base of the cartridge's two back corners. One of these notches was placed as to avoid pressing a switch inside the cartridge slot to help stabilize it. When an older Game Boy or Game Boy Color game was inserted into the cartridge slot, the switch would be pressed down and the Game Boy Advance would start in Game Boy Color mode, while a Game Boy Advance cartridge would not touch the switch and the system would start in Game Boy Advance mode. The Nintendo DS replaced the switch with a solid piece of plastic that would allow Game Boy Advance cartridges to be inserted into Slot 2, but would prevent an older Game Boy or Game Boy Color cartridge from being inserted fully into the slot.
Excluding game-specific variations, there are four types of cartridges compatible with Game Boy systems:
The Game Boy, as with many other consoles, has had a number of releases from both first-party and unlicensed third-party accessories. The most notable being the Game Boy Camera (left) and the Game Boy Printer (right), which were released in 1998.
In addition to the Game Boy, special hardware has been released for various handhelds in the Game Boy line so they can be played on a television set.
In 1994, a special adapter cartridge for Nintendo's Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) was released called the Super Game Boy. The Super Game Boy allows game cartridges designed for use on the Game Boy to be played on a TV display using the SNES/Super Famicom controllers. When it was released in 1994, the Super Game Boy sold for about $60 in the United States. In the United Kingdom, it retailed for £49.99. The Super Game Boy's technical architecture is similar to that of a regular Game Boy, thus Game Boy games functioned on the native hardware rather than being emulated by the SNES. It was the precursor to the Game Boy Player on the Nintendo GameCube, which functioned in a similar manner.
A follow-up of the Super Game Boy, the Super Game Boy 2 was released only in Japan in 1998. The border is similar to that of actual Game Boy Pocket hardware, but it includes an actual link cable port, and the clock speed is slowed down to match that of the Game Boy.
The Game Boy Player is a device released in 2003 by Nintendo for the GameCube which enables Game Boy (although Super Game Boy enhancements are ignored), Game Boy Color, or Game Boy Advance cartridges to be played on a television. It connects via the high speed parallel port at the bottom of the GameCube and requires use of a boot disc to access the hardware. Unlike devices such as Datel's Advance Game Port, the Game Boy Player does not use software emulation, but instead uses physical hardware nearly identical to that of a Game Boy Advance.
Approximately two thousand games are available for the Game Boy, which can be attributed in part to its sales in the amount of millions, a well-documented design, and a typically short development cycle.
The Nintendo DS and Nintendo DS Lite are able to play the large library of Game Boy Advance games (though the Nintendo DSi, Nintendo DSi XL, Nintendo 3DS, and Nintendo 2DS lack a GBA game cartridge slot). However, the DS consoles do not have a GBA game link connector, and so cannot play multiplayer GBA games (except for the few that are multiplayer on a single GBA) or link to the GameCube. The DS is not backward-compatible with Game Paks for the original Game Boy or the Game Boy Color. With homebrew development on the Nintendo DS, full speed Game Boy and Game Boy Color emulation has been achieved as well as the ability to scale the smaller Game Boy screen image to the full DS screen.
Numerous musical acts have appropriated the Game Boy as a musical instrument (Game Boy music), using software such as nanoloop or Little Sound DJ.
Certain games released for the Game Boy and Game Boy Color handheld consoles are available via the Virtual Console service on the Nintendo 3DS. Game Boy Advance games were thought to be as well due to the 3DS not being compatible, but it was just a mistranslation. However, ten Game Boy Advance games were released for Nintendo 3DS ambassadors, as in Nintendo 3DS owners who logged into the 3DS eShop before the major August 2011 price drop. The Virtual Console GBA features of releases are limited, and there are no plans to release them to the public. However, starting from April 2014, Nintendo has been releasing Game Boy Advance games as Virtual Console titles via the Nintendo eShop for the Wii U. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11979 |
Gemini 10
Gemini 10 (officially Gemini X) was a 1966 crewed spaceflight in NASA's Gemini program. It was the 8th crewed Gemini flight, the 16th crewed American flight, and the 24th spaceflight of all time (includes X-15 flights over ).
Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin had originally been named the backup crew, but after Charles Bassett and Elliot See died in a T-38 crash, they were moved to the backup crew for Gemini 9 and Alan Bean and Clifton Williams were moved to the Gemini 10 flight.
Gemini 10 was designed to achieve rendezvous and docking with an Agena Target Vehicle (ATV), and EVA. It was also planned to dock with the ATV from the Gemini 8 mission. This Agena's battery power had failed months earlier, and an approach and docking would demonstrate the ability to rendezvous with a passive object. It would be also the first mission to fire the Agena's own rocket, allowing them to reach higher orbits.
Gemini 10 established that radiation at high altitude was not a problem. After docking with their Agena booster in low orbit, Young and Collins used it to climb temporarily to . After leaving the first Agena, they then rendezvoused with the derelict Agena left over from the aborted Gemini 8 flight—thus executing the program's first double rendezvous. With no electricity on board the second Agena, the rendezvous was accomplished with eyes only—no radar.
After the rendezvous, Collins spacewalked over to the dormant Agena at the end of a tether, making him the first person to meet another spacecraft in orbit. Collins then retrieved a cosmic dust-collecting panel from the side of the Agena. As he was concentrating on keeping his tether clear of the Gemini and Agena, Collins' Hasselblad camera worked itself free and drifted away, so he was unable to take photographs during the spacewalk.
The Agena launched perfectly for the second time, after problems had occurred with the targets for Gemini 6 and 9. Gemini 10 followed 100 minutes later and entered a orbit. They were behind the Agena. Two anomalous events occurred during the launch. At liftoff, a propellant fill umbilical became snared with its release lanyard. It ripped out of the LC-19 service tower and remained attached to the second stage during ascent. Tracking camera footage also showed that the first stage oxidizer tank dome ruptured after staging and released a cloud of nitrogen tetroxide. The telemetry package on the first stage had been disabled at staging, so visual evidence was the only data available. Film review of the Titan II ICBM launches found at least seven other instances of post-staging tank ruptures, most likely caused by flying debris, second stage engine exhaust, or structural bending. NASA finally decided that this phenomenon did not pose any safety risk to the astronauts and took no corrective action.
Collins was unable to use the sextant for navigation as it did not seem to work as expected. At first he mistook airglow as the real horizon when trying to make some fixes on stars. When the image didn't seem right he tried another instrument, but this was not practical to use as it had a very small field of view.
They had a backup in the form of the computers on the ground. They made their first burn to put them into a orbit. However Young didn't realize that during the next burn, he had the spacecraft turned slightly, which meant that they introduced an out-of-plane error. This meant two extra burns were necessary, and by the time they had docked with the Agena, 60% of their fuel had been consumed. It was decided to keep the Gemini docked to the Agena as long as possible, as this would mean that they could use the fuel on board the Agena for attitude control.
The first burn of the Agena engine lasted 80 seconds and put them in a orbit. This was the highest a person had ever been, although the record was soon surpassed by Gemini 11, which went to over . This burn was quite a ride for the crew. Because the Gemini and Agena docked nose-to-nose, the forces experienced were "eyeballs out" as opposed to "eyeballs in" for a launch from Earth. The crew took a couple of pictures when they reached apogee but were more interested in what was going on in the spacecraft — checking the systems and watching the radiation dosage meter.
After this they had their sleep period which lasted for eight hours and then they were ready for another busy day. The crew's first order of business was to make a second burn with the Agena engine to put them into the same orbit as the Gemini 8 Agena. This was at 20:58 UTC on July 19 and lasted 78 seconds and took off their speed, putting them into a orbit. They made one more burn of the Agena to circularize their orbit to .
The first of two EVAs on Gemini 10 was a standup EVA, where Collins would stand in the open hatch and take photographs of stars as part of experiment S-13. They used a 70 mm general purpose camera to image the southern Milky Way in ultraviolet. After orbital sunrise Collins photographed a color plate on the side of the spacecraft (MSC-8) to see whether film reproduced colors accurately in space. He reentered the spacecraft six minutes early when both astronauts found that their eyes were irritated, which was caused by a minor leak of lithium hydroxide in the astronauts' oxygen supply. After repressurizing the cabin, they ran the oxygen at high rates and flushed the environment system.
After the exercise of the EVA Young and Collins slept in their second 'night' in space. The next 'morning' they started preparing for the second rendezvous and another EVA.
After undocking from their Agena, the crew thought they sighted the Gemini 8 Agena. It however turned out to be their own Agena away, while their target was away. It wasn't until just over away that they saw it as a faint star. After a few more correction burns, they were station-keeping away from the Gemini 8 Agena. They found the Agena to be very stable and in good condition.
At 48 hours and 41 minutes into the mission, the second EVA began. Collins' first task was to retrieve a Micrometeorite Collector (S-12) from the side of the spacecraft. This he accomplished with some difficulty (similar to that encountered by Eugene Cernan on Gemini 9A). The collector floated out of the cabin at some time during the EVA, and was lost.
Collins next traveled over to the Agena and tried to grab onto the docking cone but found this impossible as it was smooth and had no grip. He used a nitrogen-propelled Hand-Held Maneuvering Unit (HHMU) to move himself towards the Gemini and then back to the Agena. This time he was able to grab hold of some wire bundles and retrieved the Micrometeorite Collector (S-10) from the Agena. He decided against replacing it as a piece of shroud had come loose on the Agena which could have snared the umbilical, and returning to the Gemini was deemed the safest course of action.
The last tasks remaining on this EVA were to test out the HHMU, test orbital mechanics using a tether between the Gemini and Agena, and for Young in the spacecraft to translate over to a passive Collins. However, due to low propellant quantity remaining, combined with intermittent telemetry to monitor it, these fuel costly manoeuvres were abandoned and the EVA was finished after only 39 minutes. During this time, it took the crew eight minutes to close the hatch as they had some difficulty with the umbilical. It was jettisoned along with the chestpack used by Collins an hour later when they opened the hatch for the third and final time.
There were ten other experiments that the crew performed during the mission. Three were interested in radiation: MSC-3 was the Tri-Axis Magnetometer which measured levels in the South Atlantic Anomaly. There was also MSC-6, a beta spectrometer, which measured potential radiation doses for Apollo missions, and MSC-7, a bremsstrahlung spectrometer which detected radiation flux as a function of energy when the spacecraft passed through the South Atlantic Anomaly.
S-26 investigated the ion and electron wake of the spacecraft. This provided limited results due to the lack of fuel for attitude control, but found that electron and ion temperatures were higher than expected and it registered shock effects during docking and undocking.
The S-5 and S-6 experiments were performed, which were previously carried on Gemini 9A; these were Synoptic Terrain and Synoptic Weather photography respectively. There was also S-1 which was intended to image the Zodiacal light. All of these experiments were of little use as the film used was only half as sensitive as Gemini 9A and the dirty windows lowered the transmission of light by a factor of six.
The crew also tried to perform D-5, a navigation experiment. They were only able to track five stars, with six needed for accurate measurements. The last experiment, D-10, was to investigate an ion-sensing attitude control system. This experiment measured the attitude of the spacecraft from the flow of ions and electrons around the spacecraft in orbit. The results from this experiment showed the system to be accurate and responsive.
The last day of the mission was short and retrofire came at 70 hours and 10 minutes into the mission. They landed only away from the intended landing site and were recovered by .
The Gemini 10 mission was supported by the following U.S. Department of Defense resources: 9,067 personnel, 78 aircraft and 13 ships.
The patch is simple in design but highly symbolic. The main feature is a large X with a Gemini and Agena orbiting around it. The two stars have a variety of meanings: the two rendezvous attempts, Castor and Pollux in Gemini or the two crew members. This is one of the few crew patches without the crew's name. It is able to be displayed "upside down" but is correctly shown with the spacecraft to the right. It was designed by Young's first wife, Barbara.
For many years the spacecraft was the centerpiece of a space exhibition at Norsk Teknisk Museum, Oslo, Norway. It was returned on request in 2002.
The spacecraft is currently on display at the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, Kansas. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11982 |
Gardening
Gardening is the practice of growing and cultivating plants as part of horticulture. In gardens, ornamental plants are often grown for their flowers, foliage, or overall appearance; useful plants, such as root vegetables, leaf vegetables, fruits, and herbs, are grown for consumption, for use as dyes, or for medicinal or cosmetic use. Gardening is considered by many people to be a relaxing activity.
Gardening ranges in scale from fruit orchards, to long boulevard plantings with one or more different types of shrubs, trees, and herbaceous plants, to residential back gardens including lawns and foundation plantings, and to container gardens grown inside or outside. Gardening may be very specialized, with only one type of plant grown, or involve a variety of plants in mixed plantings. It involves an active participation in the growing of plants, and tends to be labor-intensive, which differentiates it from farming or forestry.
Forest gardening, a forest-based food production system, is the world's oldest form of gardening. Forest gardens originated in prehistoric times along jungle-clad river banks and in the wet foothills of monsoon regions. In the gradual process of families improving their immediate environment, useful tree and vine species were identified, protected and improved while undesirable species were eliminated. Eventually foreign species were also selected and incorporated into the gardens.
After the emergence of the first civilizations, wealthy individuals began to create gardens for aesthetic purposes. Ancient Egyptian tomb paintings from the New Kingdom (around 1500 BC) provide some of the earliest physical evidence of ornamental horticulture and landscape design; they depict lotus ponds surrounded by symmetrical rows of acacias and palms. A notable example of ancient ornamental gardens were the Hanging Gardens of Babylon—one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World —while ancient Rome had dozens of gardens.
Wealthy ancient Egyptians used gardens for providing shade. Egyptians associated trees and gardens with gods, believing that their deities were pleased by gardens. Gardens in ancient Egypt were often surrounded by walls with trees planted in rows. Among the most popular species planted were date palms, sycamores, fir trees, nut trees, and willows. These gardens were a sign of higher socioeconomic status. In addition, wealthy ancient Egyptians grew vineyards, as wine was a sign of the higher social classes. Roses, poppies, daisies and irises could all also be found in the gardens of the Egyptians.
Assyria was also renowned for its beautiful gardens. These tended to be wide and large, some of them used for hunting game—rather like a game reserve today—and others as leisure gardens. Cypresses and palms were some of the most frequently planted types of trees.
Ancient Roman gardens were laid out with hedges and vines and contained a wide variety of flowers—acanthus, cornflowers, crocus, cyclamen, hyacinth, iris, ivy, lavender, lilies, myrtle, narcissus, poppy, rosemary and violets—as well as statues and sculptures. Flower beds were popular in the courtyards of rich Romans.
The Middle Age represented a period of decline in gardens for aesthetic purposes, with regard to gardening. After the fall of Rome, gardening was done for the purpose of growing medicinal herbs and/or decorating church altars. Monasteries carried on a tradition of garden design and intense horticultural techniques during the medieval period in Europe.
Generally, monastic garden types consisted of kitchen gardens, infirmary gardens, cemetery orchards, cloister garths and vineyards. Individual monasteries might also have had a "green court", a plot of grass and trees where horses could graze, as well as a cellarer's garden or private gardens for obedientiaries, monks who held specific posts within the monastery.
Islamic gardens were built after the model of Persian gardens and they were usually enclosed by walls and divided in four by watercourses. Commonly, the centre of the garden would have a reflecting pool or pavilion. Specific to the Islamic gardens are the mosaics and glazed tiles used to decorate the rills and fountains that were built in these gardens.
By the late 13th century, rich Europeans began to grow gardens for leisure and for medicinal herbs and vegetables. They surrounded the gardens by walls to protect them from animals and to provide seclusion. During the next two centuries, Europeans started planting lawns and raising flowerbeds and trellises of roses. Fruit trees were common in these gardens and also in some, there were turf seats. At the same time, the gardens in the monasteries were a place to grow flowers and medicinal herbs but they were also a space where the monks could enjoy nature and relax.
The gardens in the 16th and 17th century were symmetric, proportioned and balanced with a more classical appearance. Most of these gardens were built around a central axis and they were divided into different parts by hedges. Commonly, gardens had flowerbeds laid out in squares and separated by gravel paths.
Gardens in Renaissance were adorned with sculptures, topiary and fountains. In the 17th century, knot gardens became popular along with the hedge mazes. By this time, Europeans started planting new flowers such as tulips, marigolds and sunflowers.
Cottage gardens, which emerged in Elizabethan times, appear to have originated as a local source for herbs and fruits. One theory is that they arose out of the Black Death of the 1340s, when the death of so many laborers made land available for small cottages with personal gardens. According to the late 19th-century legend of origin, these gardens were originally created by the workers that lived in the cottages of the villages, to provide them with food and herbs, with flowers planted among them for decoration. Farm workers were provided with cottages that had architectural quality set in a small garden—about —where they could grow food and keep pigs and chickens.
Authentic gardens of the yeoman cottager would have included a beehive and livestock, and frequently a pig and sty, along with a well. The peasant cottager of medieval times was more interested in meat than flowers, with herbs grown for medicinal use rather than for their beauty. By Elizabethan times there was more prosperity, and thus more room to grow flowers. Even the early cottage garden flowers typically had their practical use—violets were spread on the floor (for their pleasant scent and keeping out vermin); calendulas and primroses were both attractive and used in cooking. Others, such as sweet William and hollyhocks, were grown entirely for their beauty.
In the 18th century gardens were laid out more naturally, without any walls. This style of smooth undulating grass, which would run straight to the house, clumps, belts and scattering of trees and his serpentine lakes formed by invisibly damming small rivers, were a new style within the English landscape, a "gardenless" form of landscape gardening, which swept away almost all the remnants of previous formally patterned styles. The English landscape garden usually included a lake, lawns set against groves of trees, and often contained shrubberies, grottoes, pavilions, bridges and follies such as mock temples, Gothic ruins, bridges, and other picturesque architecture, designed to recreate an idyllic pastoral landscape. This new style emerged in England in the early 18th century, and spread across Europe, replacing the more formal, symmetrical garden à la française of the 17th century as the principal gardening style of Europe. The English garden presented an idealized view of nature. They were often inspired by paintings of landscapes by Claude Lorraine and Nicolas Poussin, and some were Influenced by the classic Chinese gardens of the East, which had recently been described by European travelers. The work of Lancelot 'Capability' Brown was particularly influential. Also, in 1804 the Horticultural Society was formed.
Gardens of the 19th century contained plants such as the monkey puzzle or Chile pine. This is also the time when the so-called "gardenesque" style of gardens evolved. These gardens displayed a wide variety of flowers in a rather small space. Rock gardens increased in popularity in the 19th century.
Residential gardening takes place near the home, in a space referred to as the garden. Although a garden typically is located on the land near a residence, it may also be located on a roof, in an atrium, on a balcony, in a windowbox, on a patio or vivarium.
Gardening also takes place in non-residential green areas, such as parks, public or semi-public gardens (botanical gardens or zoological gardens), amusement parks, along transportation corridors, and around tourist attractions and garden hotels. In these situations, a staff of gardeners or groundskeepers maintains the gardens.
People can express their political or social views in gardens, intentionally or not. The lawn vs. garden issue is played out in urban planning as the debate over the "land ethic" that is to determine urban land use and whether hyper hygienist bylaws (e.g. weed control) should apply, or whether land should generally be allowed to exist in its natural wild state. In a famous Canadian Charter of Rights case, "Sandra Bell vs. City of Toronto", 1997, the right to cultivate all native species, even most varieties deemed noxious or allergenic, was upheld as part of the right of free expression.
Community gardening comprises a wide variety of approaches to sharing land and gardens.
People often surround their house and garden with a hedge. Common hedge plants are privet, hawthorn, beech, yew, leyland cypress, hemlock, arborvitae, barberry, box, holly, oleander, forsythia and lavender. The idea of open gardens without hedges may be distasteful to those who enjoy privacy.
The Slow Food movement has sought in some countries to add an edible school yard and garden classrooms to schools, e.g. in Fergus, Ontario, where these were added to a public school to augment the kitchen classroom. Garden sharing, where urban landowners allow gardeners to grow on their property in exchange for a share of the harvest, is associated with the desire to control the quality of one's food, and reconnect with soil and community.
In US and British usage, the production of ornamental plantings around buildings is called "landscaping", "landscape maintenance" or "grounds keeping", while international usage uses the term "gardening" for these same activities.
Also gaining popularity is the concept of "Green Gardening" which involves growing plants using organic fertilizers and pesticides so that the gardening process – or the flowers and fruits produced thereby – doesn't adversely affect the environment or people's health in any manner.
Gardening for beauty is likely nearly as old as farming for food, however for most of history for the majority of people there was no real distinction since the need for food and other useful products trumped other concerns. Small-scale, subsistence agriculture (called hoe-farming) is largely indistinguishable from gardening. A patch of potatoes grown by a Peruvian peasant or an Irish smallholder for personal use could be described as either a garden or a farm. Gardening for average people evolved as a separate discipline, more concerned with aesthetics, recreation and leisure,
under the influence of the pleasure gardens of the wealthy. Meanwhile, farming has evolved (in developed countries) in the direction of commercialization, economics of scale, and monocropping.
In respect to its food-producing purpose, gardening is distinguished from farming chiefly by scale and intent. Farming occurs on a larger scale, and with the production of salable goods as a major motivation. Gardening happens on a smaller scale, primarily for pleasure and to produce goods for the gardener's own family or community. There is some overlap between the terms, particularly in that some moderate-sized vegetable growing concerns, often called market gardening, can fit in either category.
The key distinction between gardening and farming is essentially one of scale; gardening can be a hobby or an income supplement, but farming is generally understood as a full-time or commercial activity, usually involving more land and quite different practices. One distinction is that gardening is labor-intensive and employs very little infrastructural capital, sometimes no more than a few tools, e.g. a spade, hoe, basket and watering can. By contrast, larger-scale farming often involves irrigation systems, chemical fertilizers and harvesters or at least ladders, e.g. to reach up into fruit trees. However, this distinction is becoming blurred with the increasing use of power tools in even small gardens.
Monty Don has speculated on an atavistic connection between present-day gardeners and pre-modern peasantry.
The term precision agriculture is sometimes used to describe gardening using intermediate technology (more than tools, less than harvesters), especially of organic varieties. Gardening is effectively scaled up to feed entire villages of over 100 people from specialized plots. A variant is the community garden which offers plots to urban dwellers; see further in allotment (gardening).
There is a wide range of garden ornaments and accessories available in the market for both the professional gardener and the amateur to exercise their creativity. These are used to add decoration or functionality, and may be made from a wide range of materials such as copper, stone, wood, bamboo, stainless steel, clay, stained glass, concrete, or iron. Examples include trellis, garden furniture, statues, outdoor fireplaces, fountains, rain chains, urns, bird baths and feeders, wind chimes, and garden lighting such as candle lanterns and oil lamps. The use of these items can be part of the expression of a gardener's gardening personality.
Garden design is considered to be an art in most cultures, distinguished from gardening, which generally means "garden maintenance". Garden design can include different themes such as perennial, butterfly, wildlife, Japanese, water, tropical, or shade gardens.
In Japan, Samurai and Zen monks were often required to build decorative gardens or practice related skills like flower arrangement known as "ikebana". In 18th-century Europe, country estates were refashioned by landscape gardeners into formal gardens or landscaped park lands, such as at Versailles, France, or Stowe, England. Today, landscape architects and garden designers continue to produce artistically creative designs for private garden spaces. In the US, professional landscape designers are certified by the Association of Professional Landscape Designers.
Garden pests are generally plants, fungi, or animals (frequently insects) that engage in activity that the gardener considers undesirable. A pest may crowd out desirable plants, disturb soil, stunt the growth of young seedlings, steal or damage fruit, or otherwise kill plants, hamper their growth, damage their appearance, or reduce the quality of the edible or ornamental portions of the plant. Aphids, spider mites, slugs, snails, ants, birds, and even cats are commonly considered to be garden pests.
Because gardeners may have different goals, organisms considered "garden pests" vary from gardener to gardener. "Tropaeolum speciosum", for example, may be considered a desirable and ornamental garden plant, or it may be considered a pest if it seeds and starts to grow where it is not wanted. As another example, in lawns, moss can become dominant and be impossible to eradicate. In some lawns, lichens, especially very damp lawn lichens such as "Peltigera lactucfolia" and "P. membranacea", can become difficult to control and are considered pests.
There are many ways by which unwanted pests are removed from a garden. The techniques vary depending on the pest, the gardener's goals, and the gardener's philosophy. For example, snails may be dealt with through the use of a chemical pesticide, an organic pesticide, hand-picking, barriers, or simply growing snail-resistant plants.
Pest control is often done through the use of pesticides, which may be either organic or artificially synthesized. Pesticides may affect the ecology of a garden due to their effects on the populations of both target and non-target species. For example, unintended exposure to some neonicotinoid pesticides has been proposed as a factor in the recent decline in honey bee populations. A mole vibrator can deter mole activity in a garden.
Other means of control include the removal of infected plants, using fertilizers and biostimulants to improve the health and vigour of plants so they better resist attack, practising crop rotation to prevent pest build-up, using companion planting, and practising good garden hygiene, such as disinfecting tools and clearing debris and weeds which may harbour pests.
Garden guns are smooth bore shotguns specifically made to fire .22 caliber snake shot, and are commonly used by gardeners and farmers for pest control. Garden guns are short range weapons that can do little harm past to , and they're relatively quiet when fired with snake shot, compared to a standard ammunition. These guns are especially effective inside of barns and sheds, as the snake shot will not shoot holes in the roof or walls, or more importantly injure livestock with a ricochet. They are also used for pest control at airports, warehouses, stockyards, etc. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11984 |
Graffiti
Graffiti (both singular and plural; the singular graffito is very rare in English except in archeology) is writing or drawings made on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire.
In modern times, spray paint and marker pens have become commonly used graffiti materials, and there are many different types and styles of graffiti; it is a rapidly developing art form.
Graffiti is a controversial subject. In most countries, marking or painting property without permission is considered by property owners and civic authorities as defacement and vandalism, which is a punishable crime, citing the use of graffiti by street gangs to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities. Graffiti has become visualized as a growing urban "problem" for many cities in industrialized nations, spreading from the New York City subway system in the early 1970s to the rest of the United States and Europe and other world regions. On the other hand, graffiti artists, particularly marginalized artists with no access to mainstream media, resist this viewpoint to display their art or political views in public locations.
The life of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat illustrates the subjective nature of the public response to graffiti. He started out as a street graffiti artist chased by authorities, and later one of his paintings sold for over $100,000,000.
Both "graffiti" and its occasional singular form "graffito" are from the Italian word "graffiato" ("scratched"). "Graffiti" is applied in art history to works of art produced by scratching a design into a surface. A related term is "sgraffito", which involves scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another beneath it. This technique was primarily used by potters who would glaze their wares and then scratch a design into it. In ancient times graffiti were carved on walls with a sharp object, although sometimes chalk or coal were used. The word originates from Greek —"graphein"—meaning "to write".
The term "graffiti" referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, and such, found on the walls of ancient sepulchres or ruins, as in the Catacombs of Rome or at Pompeii. Use of the word has evolved to include any graphics applied to surfaces in a manner that constitutes vandalism.
The only known source of the Safaitic language, an ancient form of Arabic, is from graffiti: inscriptions scratched on to the surface of rocks and boulders in the predominantly basalt desert of southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD.
The first known example of "modern style" graffiti survives in the ancient Greek city of Ephesus (in modern-day Turkey). Local guides say it is an advertisement for prostitution. Located near a mosaic and stone walkway, the graffiti shows a handprint that vaguely resembles a heart, along with a footprint, a number, and a carved image of a woman's head.
The ancient Romans carved graffiti on walls and monuments, examples of which also survive in Egypt. Graffiti in the classical world had different connotations than they carry in today's society concerning content. Ancient graffiti displayed phrases of love declarations, political rhetoric, and simple words of thought, compared to today's popular messages of social and political ideals.
The eruption of Vesuvius preserved graffiti in Pompeii, which includes Latin curses, magic spells, declarations of love, insults, alphabets, political slogans, and famous literary quotes, providing insight into ancient Roman street life. One inscription gives the address of a woman named Novellia Primigenia of Nuceria, a prostitute, apparently of great beauty, whose services were much in demand. Another shows a phallus accompanied by the text, "mansueta tene" ("handle with care").
Disappointed love also found its way onto walls in antiquity:
Ancient tourists visiting the 5th-century citadel at Sigiriya in Sri Lanka scribbled over 1800 individual graffiti there between the 6th and 18th centuries. Etched on the surface of the Mirror Wall, they contain pieces of prose, poetry, and commentary. The majority of these visitors appear to have been from the elite of society: royalty, officials, professions, and clergy. There were also soldiers, archers, and even some metalworkers. The topics range from love to satire, curses, wit, and lament. Many demonstrate a very high level of literacy and a deep appreciation of art and poetry. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there. One reads:
Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems. Yazid al-Himyari, an Umayyad Arab and Persian poet, was most known for writing his political poetry on the walls between Sajistan and Basra, manifesting a strong hatred towards the Umayyad regime and its "walis", and people used to read and circulate them very widely.
Historic forms of graffiti have helped gain understanding into the lifestyles and languages of past cultures. Errors in spelling and grammar in these graffiti offer insight into the degree of literacy in Roman times and provide clues on the pronunciation of spoken Latin. Examples are "CIL" IV, 7838: "Vettium Firmum / aed"[ilem] "quactiliar"[ii] "rog"[ant]. Here, "qu" is pronounced "co". The 83 pieces of graffiti found at "CIL" IV, 4706-85 are evidence of the ability to read and write at levels of society where literacy might not be expected. The graffiti appear on a peristyle which was being remodeled at the time of the eruption of Vesuvius by the architect Crescens. The graffiti were left by both the foreman and his workers. The brothel at "CIL" VII, 12, 18–20 contains more than 120 pieces of graffiti, some of which were the work of the prostitutes and their clients. The gladiatorial academy at "CIL" IV, 4397 was scrawled with graffiti left by the gladiator Celadus Crescens ("Suspirium puellarum Celadus thraex": "Celadus the Thracian makes the girls sigh.")
Another piece from Pompeii, written on a tavern wall about the owner of the establishment and his questionable wine:
It was not only the Greeks and Romans who produced graffiti: the Maya site of Tikal in Guatemala contains examples of ancient Maya graffiti. Viking graffiti survive in Rome and at Newgrange Mound in Ireland, and a Varangian scratched his name (Halvdan) in runes on a banister in the Hagia Sophia at Constantinople. These early forms of graffiti have contributed to the understanding of lifestyles and languages of past cultures.
Graffiti, known as Tacherons, were frequently scratched on Romanesque Scandinavian church walls.
When Renaissance artists such as Pinturicchio, Raphael, Michelangelo, Ghirlandaio, or Filippino Lippi descended into the ruins of Nero's Domus Aurea, they carved or painted their names and returned to initiate the "grottesche" style of decoration.
There are also examples of graffiti occurring in American history, such as Independence Rock, a national landmark along the Oregon Trail.
Later, French soldiers carved their names on monuments during the Napoleonic in the 1790s. Lord Byron's survives on one of the columns of the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion in Attica, Greece.
Contemporary graffiti style has been heavily influenced by hip hop culture and the myriad international styles derived from Philadelphia and New York City Subway graffiti, however, there are many other traditions of notable graffiti in the twentieth century. Graffiti have long appeared on building walls, in latrines, railroad boxcars, subways, and bridges.
The oldest known example of modern graffiti are the "monikers" found on traincars created by hobos and railworkers since the late 1800s. The Bozo Texino monikers were documented by filmmaker Bill Daniel in his 2005 film, "Who is Bozo Texino?".
Some graffiti have their own poignancy. In World War II, an inscription on a wall at the fortress of Verdun was seen as an illustration of the US response twice in a generation to the wrongs of the Old World:
During World War II and for decades after, the phrase "Kilroy was here" with an accompanying illustration was widespread throughout the world, due to its use by American troops and ultimately filtering into American popular culture. Shortly after the death of Charlie Parker (nicknamed "Yardbird" or "Bird"), graffiti began appearing around New York with the words "Bird Lives". The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchistic, and situationist slogans such as "L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire" ("Boredom is counterrevolutionary") expressed in painted graffiti, poster art, and stencil art. At the time in the US, other political phrases (such as "Free Huey" about Black Panther Huey Newton) became briefly popular as graffiti in limited areas, only to be forgotten. A popular graffito of the early 1970s was "Dick Nixon Before He Dicks You", reflecting the hostility of the youth culture to that US president.
Rock and roll graffiti is a significant subgenre. A famous graffito of the twentieth century was the inscription in the London tube reading "Clapton is God" in a link to the guitarist Eric Clapton. The phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington station on the Underground in the autumn of 1967. The graffito was captured in a photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall.
Graffiti also became associated with the anti-establishment punk rock movement beginning in the 1970s. Bands such as Black Flag and Crass (and their followers) widely stenciled their names and logos, while many punk night clubs, squats, and hangouts are famous for their graffiti. In the late 1980s the upside down Martini glass that was the tag for punk band Missing Foundation was the most ubiquitous graffito in lower Manhattan
In 1979, graffitists Lee Quiñones and Fab 5 Freddy were given a gallery opening in Rome by art dealer Claudio Bruni. For many outside of New York, it was their first encounter with their art form. Fab5 Freddy's friendship with Debbie Harry influenced Blondie's single "Rapture" (Chrysalis, 1981), the video of which featured Jean-Michel Basquiat, and offered many their first glimpse of a depiction of elements of graffiti in hip hop culture. JaJaJa toured Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, and Holland with a large graffiti canvas as a backdrop. Charlie Ahearn's independently released fiction film "Wild Style" (Wild Style, 1983), the early PBS documentary "Style Wars" (1983), hit songs such as "The Message" and "Planet Rock" and their accompanying music videos (both 1982) contributed to a growing interest outside New York in all aspects of hip hop.
"Style Wars" depicted not only famous graffitists such as Skeme, Dondi, MinOne, and ZEPHYR, but also reinforced graffiti's role within New York's emerging hip-hop culture by incorporating famous early break-dancing groups such as Rock Steady Crew into the film and featuring rap in the soundtrack. Although many officers of the New York City Police Department found this film to be controversial, Style Wars is still recognized as the most prolific film representation of what was going on within the young hip hop culture of the early 1980s. Fab5 Freddy and Futura 2000 took hip hop graffiti to Paris and London as part of the New York City Rap Tour in 1983. Hollywood also paid attention, consulting writers such as PHASE 2 as it depicted the culture and gave it international exposure in movies such as "Beat Street" (Orion, 1984).
This period also saw the emergence of the new stencil graffiti genre. Some of the first examples were created in 1981 by graffitists Blek le Rat in Paris, in 1982 by Jef Aerosol in Tours (France); by 1985 stencils had appeared in other cities including New York City, Sydney, and Melbourne, where they were documented by American photographer Charles Gatewood and Australian photographer Rennie Ellis.
With the popularity and legitimization of graffiti has come a level of commercialization. In 2001, computer giant IBM launched an advertising campaign in Chicago and San Francisco which involved people spray painting on sidewalks a peace symbol, a heart, and a penguin (Linux mascot), to represent "Peace, Love, and Linux." IBM paid Chicago and San Francisco collectively US$120,000 for punitive damages and clean-up costs.
In 2005, a similar ad campaign was launched by Sony and executed by its advertising agency in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Miami, to market its handheld PSP gaming system. In this campaign, taking notice of the legal problems of the IBM campaign, Sony paid building owners for the rights to paint on their buildings "a collection of dizzy-eyed urban kids playing with the PSP as if it were a skateboard, a paddle, or a rocking horse".
Marc Ecko, an urban clothing designer, has been an advocate of graffiti as an art form during this period, stating that "Graffiti is without question the most powerful art movement in recent history and has been a driving inspiration throughout my career."
Graffiti have become a common stepping stone for many members of both the art and design communities in North America and abroad. Within the United States graffitists such as Mike Giant, Pursue, Rime, Noah, and countless others have made careers in skateboard, apparel, and shoe design for companies such as DC Shoes, Adidas, Rebel8, Osiris, or Circa Meanwhile, there are many others such as DZINE, Daze, Blade, and The Mac who have made the switch to being gallery artists, often not even using their initial medium, spray paint.
Tristan Manco wrote that Brazil "boasts a unique and particularly rich, graffiti scene ... [earning] it an international reputation as the place to go for artistic inspiration." Graffiti "flourishes in every conceivable space in Brazil's cities." Artistic parallels "are often drawn between the energy of São Paulo today and 1970s New York." The "sprawling metropolis," of São Paulo has "become the new shrine to graffiti;" Manco alludes to "poverty and unemployment ... [and] the epic struggles and conditions of the country's marginalised peoples," and to "Brazil's chronic poverty," as the main engines that "have fuelled a vibrant graffiti culture." In world terms, Brazil has "one of the most uneven distributions of income. Laws and taxes change frequently." Such factors, Manco argues, contribute to a very fluid society, riven with those economic divisions and social tensions that underpin and feed the "folkloric vandalism and an urban sport for the disenfranchised," that is South American graffiti art.
Prominent Brazilian graffitists include Os Gêmeos, Boleta, Nunca, Nina, Speto, Tikka, and T.Freak. Their artistic success and involvement in commercial design ventures has highlighted divisions within the Brazilian graffiti community between adherents of the cruder transgressive form of "pichação" and the more conventionally artistic values of the practitioners of "grafite".
Graffiti in the Middle East is emerging slowly, with pockets of taggers operating in the various 'Emirates' of the United Arab Emirates, in Israel, and in Iran. The major Iranian newspaper "Hamshahri" has published two articles on illegal writers in the city with photographic coverage of Iranian artist A1one's works on Tehran walls. Tokyo-based design magazine, "PingMag", has interviewed A1one and featured photographs of his work. The Israeli West Bank barrier has become a site for graffiti, reminiscent in this sense of the Berlin Wall. Many graffitists in Israel come from other places around the globe, such as JUIF from Los Angeles and DEVIONE from London. The religious reference "נ נח נחמ נחמן מאומן" ("Na Nach Nachma Nachman Meuman") is commonly seen in graffiti around Israel.
There are also a large number of graffiti influences in Southeast Asian countries that mostly come from modern Western culture, such as Malaysia, where graffiti have long been a common sight in Malaysia's capital city, Kuala Lumpur. Since 2010, the country has begun hosting a street festival to encourage all generations and people from all walks of life to enjoy and encourage Malaysian street culture.
The modern-day graffitists can be found with an arsenal of various materials that allow for a successful production of a piece. This includes such techniques as scribing. However, spray paint in aerosol cans is the number one medium for graffiti. From this commodity comes different styles, technique, and abilities to form master works of graffiti. Spray paint can be found at hardware and art stores and comes in virtually every color.
Stencil graffiti is created by cutting out shapes and designs in a stiff material (such as cardboard or subject folders) to form an overall design or image. The stencil is then placed on the "canvas" gently and with quick, easy strokes of the aerosol can, the image begins to appear on the intended surface.
Modern graffiti art often incorporates additional arts and technologies. For example, Graffiti Research Lab has encouraged the use of projected images and magnetic light-emitting diodes (throwies) as new media for graffitists. Yarnbombing is another recent form of graffiti. Yarnbombers occasionally target previous graffiti for modification, which had been avoided among the majority of graffitists.
Some of the most common styles of graffiti have their own names. A tag is the most basic writing of an artist's name; it is simply a handstyle. A graffiti writer's tag is his or her personalized signature. Tagging is often the example given when opponents of graffiti refer to any acts of handstyle graffiti writing (it is by far the most common form of graffiti). Tags can contain subtle and sometimes cryptic messages, and may incorporate the artist's crew initials or other letters.
One form of tagging, known as pissing, involves taking a refillable fire-extinguisher and replacing the contents with paint, allowing for tags as high as approximately . Aiming and keeping a handstyle steady in this form of tagging is very difficult, usually coming out wavy and sloppy.
Another form is the throw-up, also known as a bombing, which is normally painted very quickly with two or three colors, sacrificing aesthetics for speed. Throw-ups can also be outlined on a surface with one color. A piece is a more elaborate representation of the artist's name, incorporating more stylized letters, usually incorporating a much larger range of colors. This is more time-consuming and increases the likelihood of the artist getting caught.
A blockbuster or roller is a large piece, almost always done in a block-shaped style, done simply to cover a large area solidly with two contrasting colors, sometimes with the whole purpose of blocking other writers from painting on the same wall. These are usually accomplished with extended paint rollers and gallons of cheap exterior paint.
A more complex style is wildstyle, a form of graffiti usually involving interlocking letters and connecting points. These pieces are often harder to read by non-graffitists as the letters merge into one another in an often-undecipherable manner.
Some artists also use self-adhesive stickers as a quick way to do catch ups. While certain critics from within graffiti culture consider this lazy, stickers can be quite detailed in their own right and often, are used in conjunction with other materials. Sticker tags are commonly executed on blank postage stickers, as these can easily be acquired with no cost on the writer's part.
Many graffitists believe that doing complex pieces involves too great an investment of time to justify the practice. Doing a piece can take (depending on experience and size) from 30 minutes to months on end, as was the case for Saber MSK while working on the world's largest graffiti piece on the LA river.
Another graffitists can go over a piece in a matter of minutes with a simple throw-up. This was exemplified by the writer "CAP" in the documentary "Style Wars", who, other writers complain, ruins pieces with his quick throw ups. This became known as capping and often is done when there is a "beef", or conflict between writers.
A number of recent examples of graffiti make use of hashtags.
Theories on the use of graffiti by avant-garde artists have a history dating back at least to the Asger Jorn, who in 1962 painting declared in a graffiti-like gesture "the avant-garde won't give up".
Many contemporary analysts and even art critics have begun to see artistic value in some graffiti and to recognize it as a form of public art. According to many art researchers, particularly in the Netherlands and in Los Angeles, that type of public art is, in fact an effective tool of social emancipation or, in the achievement of a political goal.
In times of conflict, such murals have offered a means of communication and self-expression for members of these socially, ethnically, or racially divided communities, and have proven themselves as effective tools in establishing dialog and thus, of addressing cleavages in the long run. The Berlin Wall was also extensively covered by graffiti reflecting social pressures relating to the oppressive Soviet rule over the GDR.
Many artists involved with graffiti are also concerned with the similar activity of stenciling. Essentially, this entails stenciling a print of one or more colors using spray-paint. Recognized while exhibiting and publishing several of her coloured stencils and paintings portraying the Sri Lankan Civil War and urban Britain in the early 2000s, graffitists Mathangi Arulpragasam, aka M.I.A., has also become known for integrating her imagery of political violence into her music videos for singles "Galang" and "Bucky Done Gun", and her cover art. Stickers of her artwork also often appear around places such as London in Brick Lane, stuck to lamp posts and street signs, she having become a muse for other graffitists and painters worldwide in cities including Seville.
Many graffitists choose to protect their identities and remain anonymous or to hinder prosecution.
With the commercialization of graffiti (and hip hop in general), in most cases, even with legally painted "graffiti" art, graffitists tend to choose anonymity. This may be attributed to various reasons or a combination of reasons. Graffiti still remains the one of four hip hop elements that is not considered "performance art" despite the image of the "singing and dancing star" that sells hip hop culture to the mainstream. Being a graphic form of art, it might also be said that many graffitists still fall in the category of the introverted archetypal artist.
Banksy is one of the world's most notorious and popular street artists who continues to remain faceless in today's society. He is known for his political, anti-war stencil art mainly in Bristol, England, but his work may be seen anywhere from Los Angeles to Palestine. In the UK, Banksy is the most recognizable icon for this cultural artistic movement and keeps his identity a secret to avoid arrest. Much of Banksy's artwork may be seen around the streets of London and surrounding suburbs, although he has painted pictures throughout the world, including the Middle East, where he has painted on Israel's controversial West Bank barrier with satirical images of life on the other side. One depicted a hole in the wall with an idyllic beach, while another shows a mountain landscape on the other side. A number of exhibitions also have taken place since 2000, and recent works of art have fetched vast sums of money. Banksy's art is a prime example of the classic controversy: vandalism vs. art. Art supporters endorse his work distributed in urban areas as pieces of art and some councils, such as Bristol and Islington, have officially protected them, while officials of other areas have deemed his work to be vandalism and have removed it.
Pixnit is another artist who chooses to keep her identity from the general public. Her work focuses on beauty and design aspects of graffiti as opposed to Banksy's anti-government shock value. Her paintings are often of flower designs above shops and stores in her local urban area of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Some store owners endorse her work and encourage others to do similar work as well. "One of the pieces was left up above Steve's Kitchen, because it looks pretty awesome"- Erin Scott, the manager of New England Comics in Allston, Massachusetts.
Graffiti often has a reputation as part of a subculture that rebels against authority, although the considerations of the practitioners often diverge and can relate to a wide range of attitudes. It can express a political practice and can form just one tool in an array of resistance techniques. One early example includes the anarcho-punk band Crass, who conducted a campaign of stenciling anti-war, anarchist, feminist, and anti-consumerist messages throughout the London Underground system during the late 1970s and early 1980s. In Amsterdam graffiti was a major part of the punk scene. The city was covered with names such as "De Zoot", "Vendex", and "Dr Rat". To document the graffiti a punk magazine was started that was called "Gallery Anus". So when hip hop came to Europe in the early 1980s there was already a vibrant graffiti culture.
The student protests and general strike of May 1968 saw Paris bedecked in revolutionary, anarchistic, and situationist slogans such as "L'ennui est contre-révolutionnaire" ("Boredom is counterrevolutionary") and "Lisez moins, vivez plus" ("Read less, live more"). While not exhaustive, the graffiti gave a sense of the 'millenarian' and rebellious spirit, tempered with a good deal of verbal wit, of the strikers.
The developments of graffiti art which took place in art galleries and colleges as well as "on the street" or "underground", contributed to the resurfacing in the 1990s of a far more overtly politicized art form in the subvertising, culture jamming, or tactical media movements. These movements or styles tend to classify the artists by their relationship to their social and economic contexts, since, in most countries, graffiti art remains illegal in many forms except when using non-permanent paint. Since the 1990s with the rise of Street Art, a growing number of artists are switching to non-permanent paints and non-traditional forms of painting.
Contemporary practitioners, accordingly, have varied and often conflicting practices. Some individuals, such as Alexander Brener, have used the medium to politicize other art forms, and have used the prison sentences enforced on them as a means of further protest.
The practices of anonymous groups and individuals also vary widely, and practitioners by no means always agree with each other's practices. For example, the anti-capitalist art group the Space Hijackers did a piece in 2004 about the contradiction between the capitalistic elements of Banksy and his use of political imagery.
Territorial graffiti marks urban neighborhoods with tags and logos to differentiate certain groups from others. These images are meant to show outsiders a stern look at whose turf is whose. The subject matter of gang-related graffiti consists of cryptic symbols and initials strictly fashioned with unique calligraphies. Gang members use graffiti to designate membership throughout the gang, to differentiate rivals and associates and, most commonly, to mark borders which are both territorial and ideological.
Graffiti has been used as a means of advertising both legally and illegally. Bronx-based TATS CRU has made a name for themselves doing legal advertising campaigns for companies such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Toyota, and MTV. In the UK, Covent Garden's Boxfresh used stencil images of a Zapatista revolutionary in the hopes that cross referencing would promote their store.
Smirnoff hired artists to use reverse graffiti (the use of high pressure hoses to clean dirty surfaces to leave a clean image in the surrounding dirt) to increase awareness of their product.
Graffiti may also be used as an offensive expression. This form of graffiti may be difficult to identify, as it is mostly removed by the local authority (as councils which have adopted strategies of criminalization also strive to remove graffiti quickly). Therefore, existing racist graffiti is mostly more subtle and at first sight, not easily recognized as "racist". It can then be understood only if one knows the relevant "local code" (social, historical, political, temporal, and spatial), which is seen as heteroglot and thus a 'unique set of conditions' in a cultural context.
By making the graffiti less explicit (as adapted to social and legal constraints), these drawings are less likely to be removed, but do not lose their threatening and offensive character.
Elsewhere, activists in Russia have used painted caricatures of local officials with their mouths as potholes, to show their anger about the poor state of the roads. In Manchester, England a graffitists painted obscene images around potholes, which often resulted in their being repaired within 48 hours.
In the early 1980s, the first art galleries to show graffitists to the public were Fashion Moda in the Bronx, Now Gallery and Fun Gallery, both in the East Village, Manhattan.
A 2006 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum displayed graffiti as an art form that began in New York's outer boroughs and reached great heights in the early 1980s with the work of Crash, Lee, Daze, Keith Haring, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. It displayed 22 works by New York graffitists, including Crash, Daze, and Lady Pink. In an article about the exhibition in the magazine "Time Out", curator Charlotta Kotik said that she hoped the exhibition would cause viewers to rethink their assumptions about graffiti. Terrance Lindall, an artist and executive director of the Williamsburg Art and Historic Center, said regarding graffiti and the exhibition:
"Graffiti is revolutionary, in my opinion", he says, "and any revolution might be considered a crime. People who are oppressed or suppressed need an outlet, so they write on walls—it's free."
From the 1970s onwards, Burhan Dogancay photographed urban walls all over the world; these he then archived for use as sources of inspiration for his painterly works. The project today known as "Walls of the World" grew beyond even his own expectations and comprises about 30,000 individual images. It spans a period of 40 years across five continents and 114 countries. In 1982, photographs from this project comprised a one-man exhibition titled "Les murs murmurent, ils crient, ils chantent..." (The walls whisper, shout and sing...) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
In Australia, art historians have judged some local graffiti of sufficient creative merit to rank them firmly within the arts. Oxford University Press's art history text "Australian Painting 1788–2000" concludes with a long discussion of graffiti's key place within contemporary visual culture, including the work of several Australian practitioners.
Between March and April 2009, 150 artists exhibited 300 pieces of graffiti at the Grand Palais in Paris — a clear acceptance of the art form into the French art world.
Figurines by KAWS, featuring icons of pop culture, often with crossed-out eyes, run in limited editions and sell for thousands of dollars.
Spray paint has many negative environmental effects. The paint contains toxic chemicals, and the can uses volatile hydrocarbon gases to spray the paint onto a surface.
Volatile organic compound (VOC) leads to ground level ozone formation and most of graffiti related emissions are VOCs. A 2010 paper estimates 4,862 tons of VOCs were released in the United States in activities related to graffiti.
In China, Mao Zedong in the 1920s used revolutionary slogans and paintings in public places to galvanise the country's communist revolution.
Based on different national conditions, many people believe that China's attitude towards Graffiti is fierce, but in fact, according to Lance Crayon's film "Spray Paint Beijing: Graffiti in the Capital of China", Graffiti is accepted by many people in Beijing, China, and even the police do not make much interference. But politically and religiously sensitive graffiti is not allowed.
In Hong Kong, Tsang Tsou Choi was known as the "King of Kowloon" for his calligraphy graffiti over many years, in which he claimed ownership of the area. Now some of his work is preserved officially.
In Taiwan, the government has made some concessions to graffitists. Since 2005 they have been allowed to freely display their work along some sections of riverside retaining walls in designated "Graffiti Zones". From 2007, Taipei's department of cultural affairs also began permitting graffiti on fences around major public construction sites. Department head Yong-ping Lee (李永萍) stated, "We will promote graffiti starting with the public sector, and then later in the private sector too. It's our goal to beautify the city with graffiti". The government later helped organize a graffiti contest in Ximending, a popular shopping district. graffitists caught working outside of these designated areas still face fines up to NT$6,000 under a department of environmental protection regulation. However, Taiwanese authorities can be relatively lenient, one veteran police officer stating anonymously, "Unless someone complains about vandalism, we won't get involved. We don't go after it proactively."
In 1993, after several expensive cars in Singapore were spray-painted, the police arrested a student from the Singapore American School, Michael P. Fay, questioned him, and subsequently charged him with vandalism. Fay pleaded guilty to vandalizing a car in addition to stealing road signs. Under the 1966 Vandalism Act of Singapore, originally passed to curb the spread of communist graffiti in Singapore, the court sentenced him to four months in jail, a fine of S$3,500 (US$2,233), and a caning. "The New York Times" ran several editorials and op-eds that condemned the punishment and called on the American public to flood the Singaporean embassy with protests. Although the Singapore government received many calls for clemency, Fay's caning took place in Singapore on 5 May 1994. Fay had originally received a sentence of six strokes of the cane, but the presiding president of Singapore, Ong Teng Cheong, agreed to reduce his caning sentence to four lashes.
In South Korea, Park Jung-soo was fined two million South Korean won by the Seoul Central District Court for spray-painting a rat on posters of the G-20 Summit a few days before the event in November 2011. Park alleged that the initial in "G-20" sounds like the Korean word for "rat", but Korean government prosecutors alleged that Park was making a derogatory statement about the president of South Korea, Lee Myung-bak, the host of the summit. This case led to public outcry and debate on the lack of government tolerance and in support of freedom of expression. The court ruled that the painting, "an ominous creature like a rat" amounts to "an organized criminal activity" and upheld the fine while denying the prosecution's request for imprisonment for Park.
In Europe, community cleaning squads have responded to graffiti, in some cases with reckless abandon, as when in 1992 in France a local Scout group, attempting to remove modern graffiti, damaged two prehistoric paintings of bison in the Cave of Mayrière supérieure near the French village of Bruniquel in Tarn-et-Garonne, earning them the 1992 Ig Nobel Prize in archeology.
In September 2006, the European Parliament directed the European Commission to create urban environment policies to prevent and eliminate dirt, litter, graffiti, animal excrement, and excessive noise from domestic and vehicular music systems in European cities, along with other concerns over urban life.
The Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003 became Britain's latest anti-graffiti legislation. In August 2004, the Keep Britain Tidy campaign issued a press release calling for zero tolerance of graffiti and supporting proposals such as issuing "on the spot" fines to graffiti offenders and banning the sale of aerosol paint to anyone under the age of 16. The press release also condemned the use of graffiti images in advertising and in music videos, arguing that real-world experience of graffiti stood far removed from its often-portrayed 'cool' or 'edgy' image.
To back the campaign, 123 MPs (including then Prime Minister Tony Blair), signed a charter which stated: "Graffiti is not art, it's crime. On behalf of my constituents, I will do all I can to rid our community of this problem."
In the UK, city councils have the power to take action against the owner of any property that has been defaced under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 (as amended by the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005) or, in certain cases, the Highways Act. This is often used against owners of property that are complacent in allowing protective boards to be defaced so long as the property is not damaged.
In July 2008, a conspiracy charge was used to convict graffitists for the first time. After a three-month police surveillance operation, nine members of the DPM crew were convicted of conspiracy to commit criminal damage costing at least £1 million. Five of them received prison sentences, ranging from eighteen months to two years. The unprecedented scale of the investigation and the severity of the sentences rekindled public debate over whether graffiti should be considered art or crime.
Some councils, like those of Stroud and Loerrach, provide approved areas in the town where graffitists can showcase their talents, including underpasses, car parks, and walls that might otherwise prove a target for the 'spray and run.'
In Budapest, Hungary, both a city-backed movement called "I Love Budapest" and a special police division tackle the problem, including the provision of approved areas.
In an effort to reduce vandalism, many cities in Australia have designated walls or areas exclusively for use by graffitists. One early example is the "Graffiti Tunnel" located at the Camperdown Campus of the University of Sydney, which is available for use by any student at the university to tag, advertise, poster, and create "art". Advocates of this idea suggest that this discourages petty vandalism yet encourages artists to take their time and produce great art, without worry of being caught or arrested for vandalism or trespassing. Others disagree with this approach, arguing that the presence of legal graffiti walls does not demonstrably reduce illegal graffiti elsewhere. Some local government areas throughout Australia have introduced "anti-graffiti squads", who clean graffiti in the area, and such crews as BCW (Buffers Can't Win) have taken steps to keep one step ahead of local graffiti cleaners.
Many state governments have banned the sale or possession of spray paint to those under the age of 18 (age of majority). However, a number of local governments in Victoria have taken steps to recognize the cultural heritage value of some examples of graffiti, such as prominent political graffiti. Tough new graffiti laws have been introduced in Australia with fines of up to A$26,000 and two years in prison.
Melbourne is a prominent graffiti city of Australia with many of its lanes being tourist attractions, such as Hosier Lane in particular, a popular destination for photographers, wedding photography, and backdrops for corporate print advertising. The Lonely Planet travel guide cites Melbourne's street as a major attraction. All forms of graffiti, including sticker art, poster, stencil art, and wheatpasting, can be found in many places throughout the city. Prominent street art precincts include; Fitzroy, Collingwood, Northcote, Brunswick, St. Kilda, and the CBD, where stencil and sticker art is prominent. As one moves farther away from the city, mostly along suburban train lines, graffiti tags become more prominent. Many international artists such as Banksy have left their work in Melbourne and in early 2008 a perspex screen was installed to prevent a Banksy stencil art piece from being destroyed, it has survived since 2003 through the respect of local street artists avoiding posting over it, although it has recently had paint tipped over it.
In February 2008 Helen Clark, the New Zealand prime minister at that time, announced a government crackdown on tagging and other forms of graffiti vandalism, describing it as a destructive crime representing an invasion of public and private property. New legislation subsequently adopted included a ban on the sale of paint spray cans to persons under 18 and increases in maximum fines for the offence from NZ$200 to NZ$2,000 or extended community service. The issue of tagging become a widely debated one following an incident in Auckland during January 2008 in which a middle-aged property owner stabbed one of two teenage taggers to death and was subsequently convicted of manslaughter.
Graffiti databases have increased in the past decade because they allow vandalism incidents to be fully documented against an offender and help the police and prosecution charge and prosecute offenders for multiple counts of vandalism. They also provide law enforcement the ability to rapidly search for an offender's moniker or tag in a simple, effective, and comprehensive way. These systems can also help track costs of damage to city to help allocate an anti-graffiti budget. The theory is that when an offender is caught putting up graffiti, they are not just charged with one count of vandalism; they can be held accountable for all the other damage for which they are responsible. This has two main benefits for law enforcement. One, it sends a signal to the offenders that their vandalism is being tracked. Two, a city can seek restitution from offenders for all the damage that they have committed, not merely a single incident. These systems give law enforcement personnel real-time, street-level intelligence that allows them not only to focus on the worst graffiti offenders and their damage, but also to monitor potential gang violence that is associated with the graffiti.
Many restrictions of civil gang injunctions are designed to help address and protect the physical environment and limit graffiti. Provisions of gang injunctions include things such as restricting the possession of marker pens, spray paint cans, or other sharp objects capable of defacing private or public property; spray painting, or marking with marker pens, scratching, applying stickers, or otherwise applying graffiti on any public or private property, including, but not limited to the street, alley, residences, block walls, and fences, vehicles or any other real or personal property. Some injunctions contain wording that restricts damaging or vandalizing both public and private property, including but not limited to any vehicle, light fixture, door, fence, wall, gate, window, building, street sign, utility box, telephone box, tree, or power pole.
To help address many of these issues, many local jurisdictions have set up graffiti abatement hotlines, where citizens can call in and report vandalism and have it removed. San Diego's hotline receives more than 5,000 calls per year, in addition to reporting the graffiti, callers can learn more about prevention. One of the complaints about these hotlines is the response time; there is often a lag time between a property owner calling about the graffiti and its removal. The length of delay should be a consideration for any jurisdiction planning on operating a hotline. Local jurisdictions must convince the callers that their complaint of vandalism will be a priority and cleaned off right away. If the jurisdiction does not have the resources to respond to complaints in a timely manner, the value of the hotline diminishes. Crews must be able to respond to individual service calls made to the graffiti hotline as well as focus on cleanup near schools, parks, and major intersections and transit routes to have the biggest impact. Some cities offer a reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of suspects for tagging or graffiti related vandalism. The amount of the reward is based on the information provided, and the action taken.
When the police use search warrants in connection with a vandalism investigation they are often seeking judicial approval to look for items such as cans of spray paint and nozzles from other kinds of aerosol sprays, etching tools, or other sharp or pointed objects used to etch or scratch glass and other hard surfaces, such as permanent marking pens and markers or paint sticks; evidence of membership or affiliation with any gang or tagging crew, paraphernalia to include any reference to "(tagger's name)," and any drawings, writings, objects, or graffiti depicting taggers' names, initials, logos, monikers, slogans, or mention of tagging crew membership; any newspaper clippings relating details of or referring to any graffiti crime. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11985 |
Godzilla
Godzilla is depicted as an enormous, destructive, prehistoric sea monster awakened and empowered by nuclear radiation. With the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the "Lucky Dragon 5" incident still fresh in the Japanese consciousness, Godzilla was conceived as a metaphor for nuclear weapons. As the film series expanded, some stories took on less serious undertones, portraying Godzilla as an antihero, or a lesser threat who defends humanity. Several post-1984 "Godzilla" films shifted the character's portrayal to themes including Japan's forgetfulness over its imperial past, natural disasters and the human condition.
Godzilla has been featured alongside many supporting characters. It has faced human opponents such as the JSDF, or other monsters, including King Ghidorah, Mechagodzilla and Gigan. Godzilla sometimes has allies, such as Rodan, Mothra and Anguirus, and offspring, such as Minilla and Godzilla Junior. Godzilla has also fought characters from other franchises in crossover media, such as the RKO Pictures/Universal Studios movie monster King Kong, as well as various Marvel Comics characters, including S.H.I.E.L.D., the Fantastic Four and the Avengers.
is a portmanteau of the Japanese words: and , owing to the fact that in one planning stage, Godzilla was described as "a cross between a gorilla and a whale", due to its size, power and aquatic origin. One popular story is that "Gojira" was actually the nickname of a corpulent stagehand at Toho Studio. Kimi Honda, the widow of the director, dismissed this in a 1998 BBC documentary devoted to Godzilla, "The backstage boys at Toho loved to joke around with tall stories".
Godzilla's name was written in ateji as , where the kanji are used for phonetic value and not for meaning. The Japanese pronunciation of the name is ; the Anglicized form is , with the first syllable pronounced like the word "god" and the rest rhyming with "gorilla". In the Hepburn romanization system, Godzilla's name is rendered as "Gojira", whereas in the Kunrei romanization system it is rendered as "Gozira".
During the development of the American version of "Godzilla Raids Again" (1955), Godzilla's name was changed to "Gigantis", a move initiated by producer Paul Schreibman, who wanted to create a character distinct from Godzilla.
Within the context of the Japanese films, Godzilla's exact origins vary, but it is generally depicted as an enormous, violent, prehistoric sea monster awakened and empowered by nuclear radiation. Although the specific details of Godzilla's appearance have varied slightly over the years, the overall impression has remained consistent. Inspired by the fictional "Rhedosaurus" created by animator Ray Harryhausen for the film "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms", Godzilla's iconic character design was conceived as that of an amphibious reptilian monster based around the loose concept of a dinosaur with an erect standing posture, scaly skin, an anthropomorphic torso with muscular arms, lobed bony plates along its back and tail, and a furrowed brow.
Art director Akira Watanabe combined attributes of a "Tyrannosaurus", an "Iguanodon", a "Stegosaurus" and an alligator to form a sort of blended chimera, inspired by illustrations from an issue of "Life" magazine. To emphasise the monster's relationship with the atomic bomb, its skin texture was inspired by the keloid scars seen on survivors in Hiroshima. The basic design has a reptilian visage, a robust build, an upright posture, a long tail and three rows of serrated plates along the back. In the original film, the plates were added for purely aesthetic purposes, in order to further differentiate Godzilla from any other living or extinct creature. Godzilla is sometimes depicted as green in comics, cartoons and movie posters, but the costumes used in the movies were usually painted charcoal grey with bone-white dorsal plates up until the film "Godzilla 2000: Millennium".
In the original Japanese films, Godzilla and all the other monsters are referred to with gender-neutral pronouns equivalent to "it", while in the English dubbed versions, Godzilla is explicitly described as a male, such as in the title of "Godzilla, King of the Monsters!". In the 1998 film "Godzilla", the monster is referred to as a male and is depicted laying eggs through parthenogenesis. In the Legendary "Godzilla" films, Godzilla is referred to as a male.
Godzilla's allegiance and motivations have changed from film to film to suit the needs of the story. Although Godzilla does not like humans, it will fight alongside humanity against common threats. However, it makes no special effort to protect human life or property and will turn against its human allies on a whim. It is not motivated to attack by predatory instinct: it does not eat people and instead sustains itself on nuclear radiation and an omnivorous diet. When inquired if Godzilla was "good or bad", producer Shogo Tomiyama likened it to a Shinto "God of Destruction" which lacks moral agency and cannot be held to human standards of good and evil. "He totally destroys everything and then there is a rebirth. Something new and fresh can begin."
Godzilla's signature weapon is its "atomic heat beam" (also known as "atomic breath"), nuclear energy that it generates inside of its body, uses electromagnetic force to concentrate it into a laser-like high velocity projectile and unleashes from its jaws in the form of a blue or red radioactive beam. Toho's special effects department has used various techniques to render the beam, from physical gas-powered flames to hand-drawn or computer-generated fire. Godzilla is shown to possess immense physical strength and muscularity. Haruo Nakajima, the actor who played Godzilla in the original films, was a black belt in judo and used his expertise to choreograph the battle sequences.
Godzilla is amphibious: it has a preference for traversing Earth's hydrosphere when in hibernation or migration, can breathe underwater and is described in the original film by the character Dr. Yamane as a transitional form between a marine and a terrestrial reptile. Godzilla is shown to have great vitality: it is immune to conventional weaponry thanks to its rugged hide and ability to regenerate, and as a result of surviving a nuclear explosion, it cannot be destroyed by anything less powerful. It is an electromagnetic pulse-producing organ in its body which generates an asymmetrical permeable shield making it impervious to all damage except for a short period when the organ recycles.
Various non-canonical films, television shows, comics and games have depicted Godzilla with additional powers, such as an atomic pulse, magnetism, precognition, fireballs, an electric bite, superhuman speed, laser beams emitted from its eyes and even flight.
Godzilla has a distinctive disyllabic roar (transcribed in several comics as "Skreeeonk!"), which was created by composer Akira Ifukube, who produced the sound by rubbing a pine-tar-resin-coated glove along the string of a contrabass and then slowing down the playback. In the American version of "Godzilla Raids Again" (1955) titled "Gigantis the Fire Monster", Godzilla's iconic roar was mostly substituted with that of the monster Anguirus. From "The Return of Godzilla" (1984) to "Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah" (1991), Godzilla was given a deeper and more threatening-sounding roar than in previous films, though this change was reverted from "Godzilla vs. Mothra" (1992) onwards. For the 2014 American film, sound editors Ethan Van der Ryn and Erik Aadahl refused to disclose the source of the sounds used for their Godzilla's roar. Aadahl described the two syllables of the roar as representing two different emotional reactions, with the first expressing fury and the second conveying the character's soul.
Godzilla's size is inconsistent, changing from film to film, and even from scene to scene, for the sake of artistic license. The miniature sets and costumes were typically built at a – scale and filmed at 240 frames per second to create the illusion of great size. In the original 1954 film, Godzilla was scaled to be tall. This was done so Godzilla could just peer over the largest buildings in Tokyo at the time. In the 1956 American version, Godzilla is estimated to be tall, because producer Joseph E. Levine felt that 50 m did not sound "powerful enough".
As the series progressed Toho would rescale the character, eventually making Godzilla as tall as . This was done so that it would not be dwarfed by the newer, bigger buildings in Tokyo's skyline, such as the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building which Godzilla destroyed in the film "Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah" (1991). Supplementary information, such as character profiles, would also depict Godzilla as weighing between .
In the American film "Godzilla" (2014) from Legendary Pictures, Godzilla was scaled to be and weighing , making it the largest film version at that time. Director Gareth Edwards wanted Godzilla "to be so big as to be seen from anywhere in the city, but not too big that he couldn't be obscured". For "Shin Godzilla" (2016), Godzilla was made even taller than the Legendary version, at . In "" (2017), Godzilla's height was increased further still to , the tallest height for the character to date. In "" (2019), Godzilla's height was increased to from the 2014 incarnation.
Godzilla's appearance has traditionally been portrayed in the films by an actor wearing a latex costume, though the character has also been rendered in animatronic, stop-motion and computer-generated form. Taking inspiration from "King Kong", special effects artist Eiji Tsuburaya had initially wanted Godzilla to be portrayed via stop-motion, but prohibitive deadlines and a lack of experienced animators in Japan at the time made suitmation more practical.
The first suit consisted of a body cavity made of thin wires and bamboo wrapped in chicken wire for support and covered in fabric and cushions, which were then coated in latex. The first suit was held together by small hooks on the back, though subsequent Godzilla suits incorporated a zipper. Its weight was in excess of . Prior to 1984, most Godzilla suits were made from scratch, thus resulting in slight design changes in each film appearance. The most notable changes during the 1960s-70s were the reduction in Godzilla's number of toes and the removal of the character's external ears and prominent fangs, features which would later be reincorporated in the Godzilla designs from "The Return of Godzilla" (1984) onward. The most consistent Godzilla design was maintained from "Godzilla vs. Biollante" (1989) to "Godzilla vs. Destoroyah" (1995), when the suit was given a cat-like face and double rows of teeth.
Several suit actors had difficulties in performing as Godzilla, due to the suits' weight, lack of ventilation and diminished visibility. Kenpachiro Satsuma in particular, who portrayed Godzilla from 1984 to 1995, described how the Godzilla suits he wore were even heavier and hotter than their predecessors because of the incorporation of animatronics. Satsuma himself suffered numerous medical issues during his tenure, including oxygen deprivation, near-drowning, concussions, electric shocks and lacerations to the legs from the suits' steel wire reinforcements wearing through the rubber padding.
The ventilation problem was partially solved in the suit used in 1994's "Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla", which was the first to include an air duct, which allowed suit actors to last longer during performances. In "The Return of Godzilla" (1984), some scenes made use of a 16-foot high robotic Godzilla (dubbed the "Cybot Godzilla") for use in close-up shots of the creature's head. The Cybot Godzilla consisted of a hydraulically-powered mechanical endoskeleton covered in urethane skin containing 3,000 computer operated parts which permitted it to tilt its head and move its lips and arms.
In "Godzilla" (1998), special effects artist Patrick Tatopoulos was instructed to redesign Godzilla as an incredibly fast runner. At one point, it was planned to use motion capture from a human to create the movements of the computer-generated Godzilla, but it was said to have ended up looking too much like a man in a suit. Tatopoulos subsequently reimagined the creature as a lean, digitigrade bipedal, iguana-like creature that stood with its back and tail parallel to the ground, rendered via CGI.
Several scenes had the monster portrayed by stuntmen in suits. The suits were similar to those used in the Toho films, with the actors' heads being located in the monster's neck region, and the facial movements controlled via animatronics. However, because of the creature's horizontal posture, the stuntmen had to wear metal leg extenders, which allowed them to stand off the ground with their feet bent forward. The film's special effects crew also built a scale animatronic Godzilla for close-up scenes, whose size outmatched that of Stan Winston's "T. rex" in "Jurassic Park". Kurt Carley performed the suitmation sequences for the adult Godzilla.
In "Godzilla" (2014), the character was portrayed entirely via CGI. Godzilla's design in the reboot was intended to stay true to that of the original series, though the film's special effects team strove to make the monster "more dynamic than a guy in a big rubber suit." To create a CG version of Godzilla, the Moving Picture Company (MPC) studied various animals such as bears, Komodo dragons, lizards, lions and wolves which helped the visual effects artists visualize Godzilla's body structure like that of its underlying bone, fat and muscle structure as well as the thickness and texture of its scales. Motion capture was also used for some of Godzilla's movements. T.J. Storm provided the performance capture for Godzilla by wearing sensors in front of a green screen. Storm reprised the role of Godzilla in "", portraying the character through performance capture. In "Shin Godzilla", a majority of the character was portrayed via CGI, with Mansai Nomura portraying Godzilla through motion capture.
Godzilla is one of the most recognizable symbols of Japanese popular culture worldwide, and remains an important facet of Japanese films, embodying the "kaiju" subset of the "tokusatsu" genre. Godzilla's vaguely humanoid appearance and strained, lumbering movements endeared it to Japanese audiences, who could relate to Godzilla as a sympathetic character, despite its wrathful nature. Audiences respond positively to the character because it acts out of rage and self-preservation and shows where science and technology can go wrong.
In 1967, the Keukdong Entertainment Company of South Korea, with production assistance from Toei Company, produced "Yongary, Monster from the Deep", a reptilian monster who invades South Korea to consume oil. The film and character has often been branded as an imitation of Godzilla.
Godzilla has been considered a filmographic metaphor for the United States, as well as an allegory of nuclear weapons in general. The earlier "Godzilla" films, especially the original, portrayed Godzilla as a frightening nuclear-spawned monster. Godzilla represented the fears that many Japanese held about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the possibility of recurrence.
As the series progressed, so did Godzilla, changing into a less destructive and more heroic character. "Ghidorah" (1964) was the turning point in Godzilla's transformation from villain to hero, by pitting him against a greater threat to humanity, King Ghidorah. Godzilla has since been viewed as an anti-hero. Roger Ebert cites Godzilla as a notable example of a villain-turned-hero, along with King Kong, Jaws ("James Bond"), the Terminator, and "Rambo".
Godzilla is considered "the original radioactive superhero" due to his accidental radioactive origin story predating Spider-Man (1962 debut), though Godzilla did not become a hero until "Ghidorah" in 1964. By the 1970s, Godzilla came to be viewed as a superhero, with the magazine "King of the Monsters" in 1977 describing Godzilla as "Superhero of the '70s." Godzilla had surpassed Superman and Batman to become "the most universally popular superhero of 1977" according to Donald F. Glut. Godzilla was also voted the most popular movie monster in "The Monster Times" poll in 1973, beating Count Dracula, King Kong, the Wolf Man, the Mummy, the Creature From the Black Lagoon, and the Frankenstein Monster.
In 1996, Godzilla received the MTV Lifetime Achievement Award, as well as being given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2004 to celebrate the premiere of the character's 50th anniversary film, "". Godzilla's pop-cultural impact has led to the creation of numerous parodies and tributes, as seen in media such as "Bambi Meets Godzilla", which was ranked as one of the "50 greatest cartoons", two episodes of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" and the song "Godzilla" by Blue Öyster Cult. Godzilla has also been used in advertisements, such as in a commercial for Nike, where Godzilla lost an oversized one-on-one game of basketball to a giant version of NBA player Charles Barkley. The commercial was subsequently adapted into a comic book illustrated by Jeff Butler. Godzilla has also appeared in a commercial for Snickers candy bars, which served as an indirect promo for the 2014 movie. Godzilla's success inspired the creation of numerous other monster characters, such as Gamera, Reptilicus of Denmark, Yonggary of South Korea, Pulgasari of North Korea, Gorgo of the United Kingdom and the Cloverfield monster of the United States.
Godzilla's fame and saurian appearance has influenced the scientific community. "Gojirasaurus" is a dubious genus of coelophysid dinosaur, named by paleontologist and admitted Godzilla fan Kenneth Carpenter. "Dakosaurus" is an extinct marine crocodile of the Jurassic Period, which researchers informally nicknamed "Godzilla". Paleontologists have written tongue-in-cheek speculative articles about Godzilla's biology, with Ken Carpenter tentatively classifying it as a ceratosaur based on its skull shape, four-fingered hands and dorsal scutes, and paleontologist Darren Naish expressing skepticism while commenting on Godzilla's unusual morphology.
Godzilla's ubiquity in pop-culture has led to the mistaken assumption that the character is in the public domain, resulting in litigation by Toho to protect their corporate asset from becoming a generic trademark. In April 2008, Subway depicted a giant monster in a commercial for their Five Dollar Footlong sandwich promotion. Toho filed a lawsuit against Subway for using the character without permission, demanding $150,000 in compensation. In February 2011, Toho sued Honda for depicting a fire-breathing monster in a commercial for the Honda Odyssey. The monster was never mentioned by name, being seen briefly on a video screen inside the minivan. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society christened a vessel the "MV Gojira". Its purpose is to target and harass Japanese whalers in defense of whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. The "MV Gojira" was renamed the in May 2011, due to legal pressure from Toho. Gojira is the name of a French death metal band, formerly known as Godzilla; legal problems forced the band to change their name. In May 2015, Toho launched a lawsuit against Voltage Pictures over a planned picture starring Anne Hathaway. Promotional material released at the Cannes Film Festival used images of Godzilla.
Steven Spielberg cited "Godzilla" as an inspiration for "Jurassic Park" (1993), specifically "Godzilla, King of the Monsters!" (1956), which he grew up watching. Spielberg described "Godzilla" as "the most masterful of all the dinosaur movies because it made you believe it was really happening." "Godzilla" also influenced the Spielberg film "Jaws" (1975). "Godzilla" has also been cited as an inspiration by filmmakers Martin Scorsese and Tim Burton.
The main-belt asteroid 101781 Gojira, discovered by American astronomer Roy Tucker at the Goodricke-Pigott Observatory in 1999, was named in honor of the creature. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 11 July 2018 ().
To encourage tourism in April 2015 the central Shinjuku ward of Tokyo named Godzilla an official cultural ambassador. During an unveiling of a giant Godzilla bust at Toho headquarters, Shinjuku mayor Kenichi Yoshizumi stated "Godzilla is a character that is the pride of Japan." The mayor extended a residency certificate to an actor in a rubber suit representing Godzilla, but as the suit's hands were not designed for grasping, it was accepted on Godzilla's behalf by a Toho executive. Reporters noted that Shinjuku ward has been flattened by Godzilla in three Toho movies. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11986 |
King Kong vs. Godzilla
The project began with a story outline that featured King Kong battling a giant Frankenstein monster, written by Willis H. O'Brien. O'Brien handed the outline to producer John Beck for development. Behind O'Brien's back and without his knowledge, Beck would eventually take the project to Toho to produce the film, replacing the Frankenstein monster with Godzilla and scrapping O'Brien's story.
"King Kong vs. Godzilla" was released theatrically in Japan on August 11, 1962. The film remains the most attended "Godzilla" film in the franchise to date, and is credited with encouraging Toho to prioritize the continuation of the Godzilla series after seven years of dormancy. A heavily edited version was released by Universal International Inc. theatrically in the United States on June 26, 1963.
Mr. Tako, head of Pacific Pharmaceuticals, is frustrated with the television shows his company is sponsoring and wants something to boost his ratings. When a doctor tells Tako about a giant monster he discovered on the small Faro Island, Tako believes that it would be a brilliant idea to use the monster to gain publicity. Tako immediately sends two men, Sakurai and Kinsaburo, to find and bring back the monster. Meanwhile, the American submarine "Seahawk" gets caught in an iceberg. The iceberg collapses, unleashing Godzilla (who, in the Japanese version, had been trapped within since 1955), who then destroys the submarine and a nearby Arctic military base.
On Faro Island, a gigantic octopus crawls ashore and attacks the native village. The mysterious Faro monster, revealed to be King Kong, arrives and defeats the octopus. Kong then drinks some red berry juice that immediately puts him to sleep. Sakurai and Kinsaburo place Kong on a large raft and begin to transport him back to Japan. Mr. Tako arrives on the ship transporting Kong, but a JSDF ship stops them and orders them to return Kong to Faro Island. Meanwhile, Godzilla arrives in Japan and begins terrorizing the countryside. Kong wakes up and breaks free from the raft. Reaching the mainland, Kong confronts Godzilla and proceeds to throw giant rocks at Godzilla. Godzilla is not fazed by King Kong's rock attack and uses its atomic breath to burn him. Kong retreats after realizing that he is not yet ready to take on Godzilla and his atomic breath.
The JSDF digs a large pit laden with explosives and poison gas and lures Godzilla into it, but Godzilla is unharmed. They next string up a barrier of power lines around the city filled with 1,000,000 volts of electricity (50,000 volts were tried in the first film, but failed to turn the monster back), which prove effective against Godzilla. Kong then approaches Tokyo and tears through the power lines, feeding off the electricity, which seems to make him stronger. Kong then enters Tokyo and captures Fumiko, Sakurai's sister. The JSDF launches capsules full of the Faro Island berry juice in gas form, which puts Kong to sleep, and are able to rescue Fumiko. The JSDF then decides to transport Kong via balloons to Godzilla, in hopes that they will kill each other.
The next morning, Kong is dropped next to Godzilla at the summit of Mount Fuji and the two engage in a final battle. Godzilla initially has the advantage due to his atomic breath and nearly kills Kong. After knocking Kong out with a devastating dropkick and tail smacks to the head, Godzilla begins burning the foliage around Kong trying to cremate him. Suddenly a bolt of lightning from thunder clouds strike King Kong reviving him and charging him up. The monsters resume their fight, making their way towards the coastline and destroying Atami Castle before falling off a cliff together into the Pacific Ocean. After an underwater battle, only Kong resurfaces from the water, and he begins to swim back towards his island home. There is no sign of Godzilla, but the JSDF speculates that it is possible that he survived.
The film had its roots in an earlier concept for a new "King Kong" feature developed by Willis O'Brien, animator of the original stop-motion Kong. Around 1960, O'Brien came up with a proposed treatment, King Kong Meets Frankenstein, where Kong would fight against a giant Frankenstein Monster in San Francisco. O'Brien took the project (which consisted of some concept art and a screenplay treatment) to RKO to secure permission to use the King Kong character. During this time, the story was renamed King Kong vs. the Ginko when it was believed that Universal had the rights to the Frankenstein name (it actually only had the rights to the monster's makeup design by Jack Pierce). O'Brien was introduced to producer John Beck, who promised to find a studio to make the film (at this point in time, RKO was no longer a production company). Beck took the story treatment and had George Worthing Yates flesh it out into a screenplay. The story was slightly altered and the title changed to King Kong vs. Prometheus, returning the name to the original Frankenstein concept ("The Modern Prometheus" was the alternate title of the original novel). Unfortunately, the cost of stop-motion animation discouraged potential studios from putting the film into production. After shopping the script around overseas, Beck eventually attracted the interest of the Japanese studio Toho, which had long wanted to make a "King Kong" film. After purchasing the script, they decided to replace the Frankenstein creature with Godzilla to be King Kong's opponent and would have Shinichi Sekizawa rewrite Yates's script. The studio thought that it would be the perfect way to celebrate its 30th year in production. It was one of five big banner releases for the company to celebrate the anniversary alongside "Sanjuro", "", "Lonely Lane", and "Born in Sin". John Beck's dealings with Willis O'Brien's project were done behind his back, and O'Brien was never credited for his idea. Merian C. Cooper was bitterly opposed to the project, stating in a letter addressed to his friend Douglas Burden, "I was indignant when some Japanese company made a belittling thing, to a creative mind, called "King Kong vs. Godzilla". I believe they even stooped so low as to use a man in a gorilla suit, which I have spoken out against so often in the early days of "King Kong"". In 1963, he filed a lawsuit to enjoin distribution of the movie against John Beck, as well as Toho and Universal (the film's U.S. copyright holder) claiming that he outright owned the King Kong character, but the lawsuit never went through, as it turned out he was not Kong's sole legal owner as he had previously believed.
Ishiro Honda wanted the theme of the movie to be a satire of the television industry in Japan. In April 1962, TV networks and their various sponsors started producing outrageous programming and publicity stunts to grab audiences attention after two elderly viewers reportedly died at home while watching a violent wrestling match on TV. The various rating wars between the networks and banal programming that followed this event caused widespread debate over how TV would effect Japanese culture with Soichi Oya stating TV was creating "a nation of 100 million idiots". Honda stated "People were making a big deal out of ratings, but my own view of TV shows was that they did not take the viewer seriously, that they took the audience for granted...so I decided to show that through my movie" and "the reason I showed the monster battle through the prism of a ratings war was to depict the reality of the times". Honda addressed this by having a pharmaceutical company sponsor a TV show and going to extremes for a publicity stunt for ratings by capturing a giant monster stating "All a medicine company would have to do is just produce good medicines you know? But the company doesn't think that way. They think they will get ahead of their competitors if they use a monster to promote their product.". Honda would work with screenwriter Shinichi Sekizawa on developing the story stating that "Back then Sekizawa was working on pop songs and TV shows so he really had a clear insight into television".
Special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya was planning on working on other projects at this point in time such as a new version of a fairy tale film script called "Kaguyahime" ("Princess Kaguya"), but he postponed those to work on this project with Toho instead since he was such a huge fan of King Kong. He stated in an early 1960s interview with the Mainichi Newspaper, "But my movie company has produced a very interesting script that combined King Kong and Godzilla, so I couldn't help working on this instead of my other fantasy films. The script is special to me; it makes me emotional because it was "King Kong" that got me interested in the world of special photographic techniques when I saw it in 1933."
Eiji Tsuburaya had a stated intention to move the Godzilla series in a lighter direction. This approach was not favoured by most of the effects crew, who "couldn't believe" some of the things Tsuburaya asked them to do, such as Kong and Godzilla volleying a giant boulder back and forth. But Tsuburaya wanted to appeal to children's sensibilities and broaden the genre's audience. This approach was favoured by Toho and to this end, "King Kong vs. Godzilla" has a much lighter tone than the previous two "Godzilla" films and contains a great deal of humor within the action sequences. With the exception of the next film, "Mothra vs. Godzilla", this film began the trend to portray Godzilla and the monsters with more and more anthropomorphism as the series progressed, to appeal more to younger children. Ishirō Honda was not a fan of the dumbing down of the monsters. Years later, Honda stated in an interview. "I don't think a monster should ever be a comical character." "The public is more entertained when the great King Kong strikes fear into the hearts of the little characters." The decision was also taken to shoot the film in a (2.35:1) scope ratio (Tohoscope) and to film in color (Eastman Color), marking both monsters' first widescreen and color portrayals. Additionally, the theatrical release was accompanied by both a true 4.0 stereophonic soundtrack, and a regular monaural mix.
Toho had planned to shoot this film on location in Sri Lanka, but had to forgo that (and scale back on production costs) because it ended up paying RKO roughly ¥80 million ($220,000) for the rights to the King Kong character. The bulk of the film was shot on Izu Ōshima (an island near Japan) instead. The movie's production budget came out to ¥150,000,000.
Suit actors Shoichi Hirose (King Kong) and Haruo Nakajima (Godzilla) were given mostly free rein by Eiji Tsuburaya to choreograph their own moves. The men would rehearse for hours and would base their moves on that from professional wrestling (a sport that was growing in popularity in Japan), in particular the movies of Toyonobori.
During pre-production, Eiji Tsuburaya had toyed with the idea of using Willis O'Brien's stop-motion technique instead of the suitmation process used in the first two "Godzilla" films, but budgetary concerns prevented him from using the process, and the more cost efficient suitmation was used instead. However, some brief stop motion was used in a couple of quick sequences. One of these sequences was animated by Koichi Takano who was a member of Eiji Tsuburaya's crew.
A brand new Godzilla suit was designed for this film and some slight alterations were done to its overall appearance. These alterations included the removal of its tiny ears, three toes on each foot rather than four, enlarged central dorsal fins and a bulkier body. These new features gave Godzilla a more reptilian/dinosaurian appearance. Outside of the suit, a meter high model and a small puppet were also built. Another puppet (from the waist up) was also designed that had a nozzle in the mouth to spray out liquid mist simulating Godzilla's atomic breath. However the shots in the film where this prop was employed (far away shots of Godzilla breathing its atomic breath during its attack on the Arctic Military base) were ultimately cut from the film. These cut scenes can be seen in the Japanese theatrical trailer. Finally, a separate prop of Godzilla's tail was also built for close up practical shots when its tail would be used (such as the scene where Godzilla trips Kong with its tail). The tail prop would be swung offscreen by a stage hand.
Sadamasa Arikawa (who worked with Eiji Tsuburaya) said that the sculptors had a hard time coming up with a King Kong suit that appeased Tsuburaya. The first suit was rejected for being too fat with long legs giving Kong what the crew considered an almost cute look. A few other designs were done before Tsuburaya would approve the final look that was ultimately used in the film. The suit's body design was a team effort by brothers Koei Yagi and Kanji Yagi and was covered with expensive yak hair, which Eizo Kaimai hand-dyed brown. Because RKO instructed that the face must be different from the original's design, sculptor Teizo Toshimitsu based Kong's face on the Japanese macaque rather than a gorilla, and designed two separate masks. As well, two separate pairs of arms were also created. One pair were extended arms that were operated by poles inside the suit to better give Kong a gorilla-like illusion, while the other pair were at normal arms length and featured gloves that were used for scenes that required Kong to grab items and wrestle with Godzilla. Suit actor Hirose had to be sewn into the suit in order to hide the zipper. This would force him to be trapped inside the suit for large amounts of time and would cause him much physical discomfort. In the scene where Kong drinks the berry juice and falls asleep, he was trapped in the suit for three hours. Hirose stated in an interview "Sweat came pouring out like a flood and it got into my eyes too. When I came out, I was pale all over". Besides the suit with the two separate arm attachments, a meter high model and a puppet of Kong (used for closeups) were also built. As well, a huge prop of Kong's hand was built for the scene where he grabs Mie Hama (Fumiko) and carries her off.
For the attack of the giant octopus, four live octopuses were used. They were forced to move among the miniature huts by having hot air blown onto them. After the filming of that scene was finished, three of the four octopuses were released. The fourth became special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya's dinner. Along with the live animals, two rubber octopus props were built, with the larger one being covered with plastic wrap to simulate mucous. Some stop-motion tentacles were also created for the scene where the octopus grabs a native and tosses him.
Since King Kong was seen as the bigger draw and since Godzilla was still a villain at this point in the series, the decision was made to not only give King Kong top billing but also to present him as the winner of the climactic fight. While the ending of the film does look somewhat ambiguous, Toho confirmed that King Kong was indeed the winner in their 1962–63 English-language film program "Toho Films Vol. 8", which states in the film's plot synopsis, "A spectacular duel is arranged on the summit of Mt. Fuji and King Kong is victorious. But after he has won..."
When John Beck sold the "King Kong vs. Prometheus" script to Toho (which became "King Kong vs. Godzilla"), he was given exclusive rights to produce a version of the film for release in non-Asian territories. He was able to line up a couple of potential distributors in Warner Bros. and Universal-International even before the film began production. Beck, accompanied by two Warner Bros. representatives, attended at least two private screenings of the film on the Toho Studios lot before it was released in Japan.
John Beck enlisted the help of two Hollywood writers, Paul Mason and Bruce Howard, to write a new screenplay. After discussions with Beck, the two wrote the American version and worked with editor Peter Zinner to remove scenes, recut others, and change the sequence of several events. To give the film more of an American feel, Mason and Howard decided to insert new footage that would convey the impression that the film was actually a newscast. The television actor Michael Keith played newscaster Eric Carter, a United Nations reporter who spends much of the time commenting on the action from the U.N. Headquarters via an International Communications Satellite (ICS) broadcast. Harry Holcombe was cast as Dr. Arnold Johnson, the head of the Museum of Natural History in New York City, who tries to explain Godzilla's origin and his and Kong's motivations. The new footage, directed by Thomas Montgomery, was shot in three days.
Beck and his crew were able to obtain library music from a host of older films (music tracks that had been composed by Henry Mancini, Hans J. Salter, and even a track from Heinz Roemheld). These films include "Creature from the Black Lagoon", "Bend of the River", "Untamed Frontier", "The Golden Horde", "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man", "Man Made Monster", "Thunder on the Hill", "While the City Sleeps", "Against All Flags", "The Monster That Challenged the World", "The Deerslayer" and music from the TV series "Wichita Town". Cues from these scores were used to almost completely replace the original Japanese score by Akira Ifukube and give the film a more Western sound. They also obtained stock footage from the film "The Mysterians" from RKO (the film's US copyright holder at the time) which was used to not only represent the ICS, but which was also utilized during the film's climax. Stock footage of a massive earthquake from "The Mysterians" was employed to make the earthquake caused by Kong and Godzilla's plummet into the ocean much more violent than the tame tremor seen in the Japanese version. This added footage features massive tidal waves, flooded valleys, and the ground splitting open swallowing up various huts.
Beck spent roughly $15,500 making his English version and sold the film to Universal-International for roughly $200,000 on April 29, 1963. The film opened in New York on June 26 of that year.
Starting in 1963, Toho's international sales booklets began advertising an English dub of "King Kong vs. Godzilla" alongside Toho-commissioned, uncut international dubs of movies such as "Giant Monster Varan" and "The Last War". By association, it is thought that this "King Kong vs. Godzilla" dub is an uncut, English-language international version not known to have been released on home video.
In Japan, this film has the highest box office attendance figures of all of the "Godzilla" films to date. It sold 11.2 million tickets during its initial theatrical run, accumulating in distribution earnings (rentals). The film was the fourth highest-grossing film in Japan that year behind "The Great Wall (Shin no shikōtei)", "Sanjuro", and "" and was Toho's second biggest moneymaker. The film was re-released twice as part of the "Champion Matsuri" (東宝チャンピオンまつり), a film festival that ran from 1969 through 1978 that featured numerous films packaged together and aimed at children, first in 1970, and then again in 1977, to coincide with the Japanese release of "King Kong". After two theatrical re-releases through 1977, the film accumulated a lifetime figure of 12.6 million tickets sold, with distribution rental earnings of ().
After its theatrical re-releases, the film was screened two more times at specialty festivals. In 1979, to celebrate Godzilla's 25th anniversary, the film was reissued as part of a triple bill festival known as "The Godzilla Movie Collection" ("Gojira Eiga Zenshu"). It played alongside "Invasion of Astro-Monster" and "Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla". This release is known among fans for its exciting and dynamic movie poster featuring all the main kaiju from these three films engaged in battle. Then in 1983, the film was screened as part of "The Godzilla Resurrection Festival" ("Gojira no Fukkatsu"). This large festival featured 10 Godzilla/kaiju films in all. ("Godzilla", "King Kong vs. Godzilla", "Mothra vs. Godzilla", "Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster", "Invasion of Astro-Monster", "Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla", "Rodan", "Mothra", "Atragon", and "King Kong Escapes").
In North America, "King Kong vs. Godzilla" premiered in New York City on June 26, 1963. It grossed $2.7 million, accumulating a profit (via rentals) of $1.25 million. The film was also released in many international markets. In Germany, it was known as "Die Rückkehr des King Kong (The Return of King Kong)" and in Italy as "Il Trionfo Di King Kong (The Triumph of King Kong)". In France, where it was called "King Kong Contre Godzilla", it drew 554,695 box office admissions.
The Japanese version of this film was released numerous times through the years by Toho on different home video formats. The film was first released on VHS in 1985 and again in 1991. It was released on LaserDisc in 1986 and 1991, and then again in 1992 in its truncated 74-minute form as part of a laserdisc box set called the "Godzilla Toho Champion Matsuri". Toho then released the film on DVD in 2001. They released it again in 2005 as part of the Godzilla Final Box DVD set, and again in 2010 as part of the Toho Tokusatsu DVD Collection. This release was volume #8 of the series and came packaged with a collectible magazine that featured stills, behind the scenes photos, interviews, and more. In the summer of 2014, the film was released for the first time on Blu-ray as part of the company releasing the entire series on the Blu-Ray format for Godzilla's 60th anniversary.
The American version was released on VHS by GoodTimes Entertainment (which acquired the license of some of Universal's film catalogue) in 1987, and then on DVD to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the film's U.S release in 1998. Both of these releases were full frame. Universal Studios released the English-language version of the film on DVD in widescreen as part of a two-pack bundle with "King Kong Escapes" in 2005, and then on its own as an individual release on September 15, 2009. They then re-released the film on Blu-Ray on April 1, 2014, along with "King Kong Escapes". This release sold $749,747 worth of Blu-Rays. FYE released an exclusive Limited Edition Steelbook version of this Blu-ray on September 10, 2019.
In 2019, the Japanese and American versions were included in a Blu-ray box set released by the Criterion Collection, which included all 15 films from the franchise's Shōwa era.
The original Japanese version of "King Kong vs. Godzilla" is infamous for being one of the most poorly-preserved "tokusatsu" films. In 1970, director Ishiro Honda prepared an edited version of the film for the Toho Champion Festival, a children's matinee program that showcased edited re-releases of older kaiju films along with cartoons and then-new kaiju films. Honda cut 24 minutes from the film's original negative and, as a result, the highest quality source for the cut footage was lost. For years, all that was thought to remain of the uncut 1962 version was a faded, heavily damaged 16mm element from which rental prints had been made. 1980s restorations for home video integrated the 16mm deleted scenes into the 35mm Champion cut, resulting in wildly inconsistent picture quality.
In 1991, Toho issued a restored laserdisc incorporating the rediscovery of a reel of 35mm trims of the deleted footage. The resultant quality was far superior to previous reconstructions, but not perfect; an abrupt cut caused by missing frames at the beginning or end of a trim is evident whenever the master switches between the Champion cut and a 35mm trim within the same shot. This laserdisc master was utilized for Toho's 2001 DVD release with few changes.
In 2014, Toho released a new restoration of the film on Blu-Ray, which utilized the 35mm edits once again, but only those available for reels 2-7 of the film were able to be located. The remainder of video for the deleted portions was sourced from the earlier Blu-Ray of the U.S. version, in addition to the previous 480i 1991 laserdisc master. On July 14, 2016, a 4K restoration of a completely 35mm sourced version of the film aired on "The Godzilla First Impact", a series of 4K broadcasts of Godzilla films on the Nihon Eiga Senmon Channel.
Due to the film's great box office success, Toho planned to produce a sequel almost immediately. The sequel was simply called "Continuation: King Kong vs. Godzilla". However the project was ultimately cancelled.
Also due to the great box office success of this film, Toho was convinced to build a franchise around the character of Godzilla and started producing sequels on a yearly basis. The next project was to pit Godzilla against another famous movie monster icon: a giant Frankenstein Monster. In 1963, Kaoru Mabuchi (a.k.a. Takeshi Kimura) wrote a script called "Frankenshutain tai Gojira". Ultimately, Toho rejected the script and the next year pitted Mothra against Godzilla instead in the 1964 film "Mothra vs. Godzilla". This began an intra-company style crossover where kaiju from other Toho kaiju films would be brought into the Godzilla series.
Toho was eager to build a series around their version of King Kong, but were refused by RKO. They worked with the character again in 1967 though, when they helped Rankin/Bass co produce their film "King Kong Escapes" (which was loosely based on a cartoon series R/B had produced). That film, however, was not a sequel to "King Kong vs. Godzilla".
Henry G. Saperstein (whose company UPA co-produced the 1965 film "Frankenstein vs. Baragon" (a.k.a. "Frankenstein Conquers the World" in the U.S.) and the 1966 sequel film "The War of the Gargantuas" with Toho) was so impressed with the octopus sequence that he requested the creature to appear in these two productions. The giant octopus appeared in an alternate ending in "Frankenstein Conquers the World" that was intended specifically for the American market, but was ultimately never used. The creature did reappear at the beginning of the film's sequel "The War of the Gargantuas" this time being retained in the finished film.
Even though it was only featured in this one film (although it was used for a couple of brief shots in "Mothra vs. Godzilla"), this Godzilla suit was always one of the more popular designs among fans from both sides of the Pacific. It formed the basis for some early merchandise in the U.S. in the 1960s, such as a popular model kit by Aurora Plastics Corporation, and a popular board game by Ideal Toys. This game was released alongside a King Kong game in 1963 to coincide with the U.S. theatrical release of the film.
The King Kong suit from this film was redressed into the giant monkey Goro for episode 2 ("GORO and Goro") of the television show Ultra Q. Afterwards, it was reused for the water scenes (although it was given a new mask/head) for "King Kong Escapes". Scenes of the giant octopus attack were reused in black and white for episode 23 ("Fury of the South Seas") of Ultra Q.
In 1992 (to coincide with the company's 60th anniversary), Toho wanted to remake this film as Godzilla vs. King Kong as part of the Heisei series of "Godzilla" films. However, according to the late Tomoyuki Tanaka, it proved to be difficult to obtain permission to use King Kong. Next, Toho thought to make Godzilla vs. Mechani-Kong but, (according to Koichi Kawakita), it was discovered that obtaining permission even to use the "likeness" of King Kong would be difficult. Mechani-Kong was replaced by Mechagodzilla, and the project eventually evolved into "Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II" in 1993.
In making "", the special effects crew was instructed to watch the giant octopus scene to get reference for the Kraken.
Through the years, the film has been referenced in various songs, advertising, television shows and comic books. It was referenced in Da Lench Mob's 1992 single "Guerillas in tha Mist". It was spoofed in advertising for a Bembos burger commercial from Peru, for Ridsect Lizard Repellant, and for the board game Connect 4. It was paid homage to in comic books by DC Comics, Bongo Comics, and Disney Comics. It was even spoofed in "The Simpsons" episode "Wedding for Disaster".
In 2015, Legendary Entertainment announced plans for a "Godzilla vs. Kong" film of their own (unrelated to Toho's version), to be released on May 21, 2021.
For many years, a popular myth has persisted that in the Japanese version of this film, Godzilla emerges as the winner. The myth originated in the pages of "Spacemen" magazine, a 1960s sister magazine to the influential publication "Famous Monsters of Filmland". In an article about the film, it is incorrectly stated that there were two endings and "If you see "King Kong vs Godzilla" in Japan, Hong Kong or some Oriental sector of the world, Godzilla wins!" The article was reprinted in various issues of "Famous Monsters of Filmland" in the years following, such as in issues #51 and #114. This misinformation would be accepted as fact and persist for decades. For example, a question in the "Genus III" edition of the popular board game "Trivial Pursuit" asked, "Who wins in the Japanese version of "King Kong vs. Godzilla"?" and stated that the correct answer was "Godzilla". Various media have repeated this falsehood, including the "Los Angeles Times".
But with the rise of home video, Westerners have increasingly been able to view the original version and the myth has been dispelled. The only differences between the two endings of the film are minor:
In 1993, comic book artist Arthur Adams wrote and drew a one-page story that appeared in the anthology "Urban Legends" #1, published by Dark Horse Comics, which dispels the popular misconception about the two versions of "King Kong vs. Godzilla". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11988 |
Ebirah, Horror of the Deep
During its development, "Ebirah, Horror of the Deep" was intended to feature King Kong, but the character was replaced by Godzilla. The film was released to theaters in Japan on December 17, 1966, and was released directly to television in the United States in 1968 under the title "Godzilla versus the Sea Monster".
After Yata is lost at sea, his brother Ryota steals a yacht with his two friends and a bank robber. However, the crew runs afoul of Ebirah, a giant lobster-like creature, and washes ashore on Letchi Island. There the Red Bamboo, a terrorist organization, manufactures heavy water for selling weapons of mass destruction; as well as a yellow liquid that keeps Ebirah at bay, presumably controlling it. The Red Bamboo has enslaved natives from nearby Infant Island to create the yellow liquid, the natives hoping that Mothra will awaken in her winged, adult form and rescue them.
In their efforts to avoid capture, Ryota and his friends, aided by Daiyo, a native girl, come across Godzilla who previously fought Ghidorah, is now sleeping within a cliffside cavern. The group devises a plan to defeat the Red Bamboo and escape the island. In the process, they awaken Godzilla using a makeshift lightning rod. Godzilla fights Ebirah, but the huge crustacean escapes. Godzilla is then attacked by a giant condor and a squadron of Red Bamboo fighter jets. Using his atomic ray, Godzilla destroys the jets and kills the giant bird.
The humans retrieve the missing Yata and free the enslaved natives as Godzilla begins to destroy the Red Bamboo's base of operations, smashing a tower that causes a countdown that will destroy the island in a nuclear explosion. Godzilla fights Ebirah and defeats it, ripping its claws off, forcing it to retreat back into the sea. The natives await for Mothra to carry them off in a large net. However, Godzilla challenges Mothra, (since the monsters previously battled in 1964) when she gets to the island. Mothra manages to repel Godzilla and save her people and the human heroes. Godzilla also escapes just before the bomb detonates and destroys the island.
The film was originally written to feature King Kong rather than Godzilla. The film's working title was Operation Robinson Crusoe: King Kong vs. Ebirah, and the project was rejected by Rankin/Bass Productions before being accepted by Toho, after which King Kong's role in the film was replaced by Godzilla. Despite the fact that Eiji Tsuburaya was given directorial credit for the special effects, Sadamasa Arikawa actually directed the special effects under the supervision of Tsuburaya, who had his own company, Tsuburaya Productions, at the time. Toho had decided to set the film on an island in order to cut back on special effects costs. Arikawa has cited the film as a frustrating experience, stating, "There were major limitations on the budget from the studio. Toho couldn't have made too many demands about the budget if Mr. Tsuburaya had been in charge. The studio knew I was also doing TV work then, so they must have figured I could produce the movie cheaply."
The underwater sequences were filmed on an indoor soundstage where the Godzilla and Ebirah suits were filmed through the glass of a water-filled aquarium, with some scenes of the Godzilla suit shot separately underwater as well. Haruo Nakajima (the suit performer for Godzilla) wore a wet suit under the Godzilla suit for every scene that required him to be in the water, which took a week to complete the water scenes, Nakajima stated, "I worked overtime until about eight o'clock everyday. Even though I wore a wet suit under the costume, I got cold. But I never got sick, because I was so tense during the filming."
This is the first of two "Godzilla" films in which a Pacific island is the primary setting, rather than a location inside Japan. The second and final one is "Son of Godzilla" (1967).
"Ebirah, Horror of the Deep" was released theatrically in Japan on December 17, 1966 where it was distributed by Toho.
The American version of the film was released directly to television by Continental Distributing in 1968 under the title "Godzilla Versus the Sea Monster". The film may have received theatrical distribution in the United States as a Walter Reade, Jr. Presentation, but this has not been confirmed.
The film was released on DVD on February 8, 2005 by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. The film was released on Blu-ray on May 6, 2014 by Kraken Releasing. In 2019, the Japanese version was included in a Blu-ray box set released by the Criterion Collection, which included all 15 films from the franchise's Shōwa era. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11992 |
Destroy All Monsters
In the film, humans have achieved world peace by the year 1999, and various giant monsters are confined to an area known as Monsterland. The monsters are freed from the area and are mind-controlled by aliens known as Kilaaks, who send them to attack major cities. When the monsters are freed from the Kilaaks' influence, the aliens send King Ghidorah to challenge the other monsters.
"Destroy All Monsters" was released theatrically in Japan on August 1, 1968. The film was released by American International Pictures with an English-language dub in the United States on May 23, 1969. Contemporary American reviews were generally negative, with praise mainly held for the climactic monster battle. The film has since been considered a favorite among "Godzilla" fans for its "audacious and simple story", "innovative action sequences", and a "memorably booming" score by Akira Ifukube.
At the close of the 20th century, all of the Earth's kaiju have been collected by the United Nations Science Committee and confined in an area known as Monster Island, located in the Ogasawara island chain. A special control center is constructed underneath the island to ensure that the monsters stay secure and to serve as a research facility to study them.
When communications with Monsterland are suddenly and mysteriously severed, and all of the monsters begin attacking world capitals, Dr. Yoshida of the UNSC orders Captain Yamabe and the crew of his spaceship, Moonlight SY-3, to investigate Ogasawara. There, they discover that the scientists, led by Dr. Otani, have become mind-controlled slaves of a feminine alien race identifying themselves as the Kilaaks, who reveal that they are in control of the monsters. Their leader demands that the human race surrender, or face total annihilation.
Godzilla attacks New York City, Rodan invades Moscow, Mothra (a larval offspring) lays waste to Beijing, Gorosaurus destroys Paris, (although Baragon was credited for its destruction), and Manda attacks London. These attacks were set in to motion to draw attention away from Japan, so that the aliens can establish an underground stronghold near Mt. Fuji in Japan. The Kilaaks then turn their next major attack onto Tokyo and, without serious opposition, become arrogant in their aims until the UNSC discover, after recovering the Kilaaks' monster mind-control devices from around the world, that they have switched to broadcasting the control signals from their base under the Moon's surface. In a desperate battle, the crew of the SY-3 destroys the Kilaak's lunar outpost and returns the alien control system to Earth.
With all of the monsters under the control of the UNSC, the Kilaaks unleash their secret weapon, King Ghidorah. The three-headed space dragon is dispatched to protect the alien stronghold at Mt. Fuji, and battles Godzilla, Minilla, Mothra, Rodan, Gorosaurus, Anguirus, and Kumonga. While seemingly invincible, King Ghidorah is eventually overpowered by the combined strength of the Earth monsters and is killed. Refusing to admit defeat, the Kilaaks produce their trump card, a burning monster they call the Fire Dragon, which begins to torch Tokyo and destroys the control center on Ogasawara. Suddenly, Godzilla attacks and destroys the Kilaaks' underground base, revealing that the Earth's monsters instinctively know who their enemies are. Captain Yamabe then pursues the Fire Dragon in the SY-3 and narrowly achieves victory for the human race. The Fire Dragon is revealed to be a flaming Kilaak saucer and is destroyed. With the Kilaaks defeated, Godzilla and the other monsters eventually return to Monster Island to live in peace.
Per the waning popularity of the "Godzilla" series, special effects director Sadamasa Arikawa noted that Toho were going to potentially end the "Godzilla" series as "Producer Tanaka figured that all the ideas had just run out."
The film was written by Takeshi Kimura and Ishirō Honda, making it the first "Godzilla" film since "Godzilla Raids Again" not written by Shinichi Sekizawa. Takeshi Kimura is credited to the pen name Kaoru Mabuchi in the film's credits. Kimura and Honda's script developed the concept of Monsterland (referred to as Monster Island in future films). As the films has several monsters who continuously return in the films, the location was developed to be a faraway island where the monsters are pacified. This tied other films not related to the "Godzilla" series within its universe, as creatures such as Manda (from "Atragon") and Varan ("Varan the Unbelievable") exist. The film features footage from "Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster" (1964), specifically King Ghidorah's fiery birth scene.
New monster suits for Godzilla and Anguirus were constructed for the film, while Rodan and King Ghidorah suits were modified from previous films, with King Ghidorah having less detail than he had in previous films.
"Destroy All Monsters" was released in Japan on 1 August 1968 where it was distributed by Toho. It was released on a double bill with a reissue of the film "Atragon". The film was reissued theatrically in Japan in 1972 where it was re-edited by Honda to a 74-minute running time and released with the title "Gojira: Dengeki Taisakusen" ( "Godzilla: Lightning Fast Strategy"). "Destroy All Monsters" continued the decline in ticket sales in Japan for the "Godzilla" series, earning 2.6 million in ticket sales. In comparison, "Invasion of Astro-Monster" brought in 3.8 million and "Son of Godzilla" collected 2.5 million.
The film was released in the United States by American International Pictures with an English-language dub on 23 May 1969. The film premiered in the United States in Cincinnati. American International Pictures hired Titra Studios to dub the film into English. The American version of the film remains relatively close to the Japanese original. Among the more notable removed elements include Akira Ifukube's title theme and a brief shot of Minilla shielding his eyes and ducking when King Ghidorah drops Anguirus from the sky. "Destroy All Monsters" was shown on American television until the early 1980s. It resurfaced on cable broadcast on the Sci-Fi Channel in 1996.
"Destroy All Monsters" was released on VHS by ADV Films in 1998 which featured English-dubbed dialogue from Toho's own international version of the film. In 2011, Tokyo Shock released the film on DVD and Blu-ray and in 2014 the company re-released it on DVD and Blu-ray. In 2019, the Japanese version and export English version were included in a Blu-ray box set released by the Criterion Collection, which included all 15 films from the franchise's Shōwa era.
From contemporary reviews, both "Variety" and "Monthly Film Bulletin" noted the film's best scenes involved the monsters together, while criticising the filmmaking. "Variety" reviewed the English-dubbed version of the film stating that it may appeal to "Sci-fi addicts and monster fans" while stating that the "plot is on comic strip level, special effects depend on obvious miniatures and acting (human) is from school of "Flash Gordon"" and that the film's strength relied on its "monster rally". The "Monthly Film Bulletin" opined that "the model work is poor, and as usual the script is junior comic-strip". Both reviews mentioned the monsters' final scene with "Variety" commenting that it was "clever" and the "Monthly Film Bulletin" stating that "apart from [the monsters] statutory devastation of world capitals [...] the monsters have disappointingly little to do until they get together in the last reel for a splendid battle" The "Monthly Film Bulletin" commented that the film was "almost worth sitting through the banalities for the final confrontation on Mount Fuji" noting the son of Godzilla "endearingly applauding from a safe distance" and "the victorious monsters performing a celebratory jig".
From retrospective reviews, Steve Biodrowski of "Cinefantastique" commented that the film "is too slim in its storyline, too thin in its characterizations, to be considered a truly great film [...] But for the ten-year-old living inside us all, it is entertainment of the most awesome sort." Matt Paprocki of "Blogcritics" said the film is "far from perfect" and "can be downright boring at times" but felt that "the destruction scenes make up for everything else" and "the final battle is an epic that simply can't be matched".
The film is considered a cult favorite among fans of the "Godzilla" franchise. In Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski's 2017 book covering Ishiro Honda's filmography, they expressed that "Destroy All Monsters" is now seen as the "last truly spirited entry" in Toho's initial series of "kaiju" films, due to "its audacious and simple story, a bounty of monsters and destruction, and a memorably booming soundtrack from Akira Ifukube".
"Godzilla" director Gareth Edwards previously expressed interest in making a sequel to his 2014 movie inspired by "Destroy All Monsters". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11994 |
Godzilla vs. Megalon
"Godzilla vs. Megalon" was released theatrically in Japan on March 17, 1973. It received a theatrical release in the United States in the summer of 1976 by Cinema Shares.
In the first part of 1971 (197X in the Japanese version), the most recent underground nuclear test, set off near the Aleutians, sends shockwaves as far across the globe as Monster Island in the South Pacific, disturbing monsters such as Godzilla, Anguirus, and Rodan.
For years, Seatopia, an undersea civilization, has been heavily affected by this nuclear testing conducted by the surface nations of the world. Upset by these tests, the Seatopians plan to unleash their civilization's beetle-styled god, Megalon, to destroy the surface world out of vengeance.
On the surface, an inventor named Goro Ibuki, his nephew Rokuro, and Goro's friend Hiroshi Jinkawa are off on an outing near a lake when Seatopia makes itself known to the Earth by drying up the lake the trio was relaxing nearby and using it as a base of operation. As they return home they are ambushed by agents of Seatopia who are trying to steal Jet Jaguar, a humanoid robot under construction by the trio of inventors. However the agents' first attempt is botched and they are forced to flee to safety.
Some time later, Jet Jaguar is completed but the trio of inventors are knocked unconscious by the returning Seatopian agents. The agents' plan is to use Jet Jaguar to guide and direct Megalon to destroy whatever city Seatopia commands him to do. Goro and Rokuro are sent to be killed, while Hiroshi is taken hostage. Megalon is finally released to the surface while Jet Jaguar is put under the control of the Seatopians and is used to guide Megalon to attack Tokyo with the Japan Self Defense Forces failing to defeat the monster. Eventually, the trio of heroes manage to escape their situation with the Seatopians and reunite to devise a plan to send Jet Jaguar to get Godzilla's help using Jet Jaguar's secondary control system.
After uniting with Japan's Defense Force, Goro manages to regain control of Jet Jaguar and sends the robot to Monster Island to bring Godzilla to fight Megalon. Without a guide to control his actions, Megalon flails around relentlessly and aimlessly fighting with the Defense Force and destroying the outskirts of Tokyo. The Seatopians learn of Jet Jaguar's turn and thus send out a distress call to their allies, the Space Hunter Nebula M aliens (from the previous film) to send the alien dinosaur Gigan to assist their allies.
As Godzilla journeys to fight Megalon, Jet Jaguar starts acting on his own and ignoring commands to the surprise of his inventors, and grows to gigantic proportions to face Megalon himself until Godzilla arrives. The battle is roughly at a standstill between robot and cyborg, until Gigan arrives and both Megalon and Gigan double team against Jet Jaguar. Godzilla finally arrives to assist Jet Jaguar and the odds become even. After a long and brutal fight, Gigan and Megalon both retreat and Godzilla and Jet Jaguar shake hands on a job well done. Jet Jaguar bids Godzilla farewell and Godzilla returns to his home on Monster Island. Jet Jaguar returns to his previous human-sized state and reverts back to being just a robot.
"Godzilla vs. Megalon" was originally planned as a non-"Godzilla" film, a solo vehicle for Jet Jaguar, which was the result of a contest Toho had for children in mid-to-late 1972. The winner of the contest was an elementary school student, who submitted the drawing of a robot called Red Arone. Red Arone was turned into a monster suit, but when the child was shown the suit, he became upset because the suit did not resemble his original design. The boy's original design was white but the costume was colored red, blue and yellow. Red Arone was used for publicity, but Toho had renamed the character Jet Jaguar and had special effects director Teruyoshi Nakano redesign the character, only keeping the colors from the Red Arone suit. The Red Arone suit had a different head and wings.
However, after doing some screen tests and storyboards, Toho figured Jet Jaguar would not be able to carry the film on his own, either in screen appearance or marketing value, so they shut the project down during pre-production. Nearly a month later, producer Tomoyuki Tanaka called in screenwriter Shinichi Sekizawa to revise the script to add Godzilla and Gigan. To make up for lost production time, the film was shot in a hasty three weeks. The production time totaled nearly six months from planning to finish.
The film had three early treatments, each written by Shinichi Sekizawa, one was titled "Godzilla vs. The Megalon Brothers: The Undersea Kingdom's Annihilation Strategy" which was completed in September 1972. The second was titled "Insect Monster Megalon vs. Godzilla: Undersea Kingdom's Annihilation Strategy", which was turned in on September 5, 1972, and the third draft was submitted in September 7, 1972.
According to Teruyoshi Nakano, the Godzilla suit used in this film (nicknamed the "Megaro-Goji" suit) was made in a week, making it the fastest Godzilla suit ever made to date. They did not have time to make the eyes work correctly, something they had more time to fix for Godzilla's five appearances on Toho's superhero TV series "Zone Fighter" (1973), which was produced around the same time.
The Megalon suit was one of the heaviest suits produced since the 1954 "Godzilla" suit, which made it even more difficult to raise the Megalon suit via wires in certain scenes up to the point where Nakano almost decided to scrap those scenes altogether. Since the film was shot in the winter, Katsuhiko Sasaki stated that director Jun Fukuda gave him and Yutaka Hayashi a shot of whiskey to warm them up.
The Gigan suit is similar to the previous design, but the suit was made thinner, less bulky, the horn on the head was less pointed, and the buzzsaw didn't move, since it was made of static pieces. This suit also has different-sized back fins, a more circular visor, scales running up the back/sides of the neck and longer legs compared to the original version.
Teruyoshi Nakano recalls how the film was rushed and that it took three weeks to shoot, stating, "It went into productions without enough preparation. There was no time to ask Mr. Sekizawa to write the script, so Mr. Sekizawa kind of thought up the general story and director Fukuda wrote the screenplay. The screenplay was completed right before crank-in".
Like previous Godzilla films, "Godzilla vs. Megalon" heavily employs stock footage from previous Toho Godzilla films such as "Mothra vs. Godzilla" (1964), "The War of the Gargantuas" (1966), "Ebirah, Horror of the Deep" (1966), "Destroy All Monsters" (1968), "Godzilla vs. Hedorah" (1971), and "Godzilla vs. Gigan" (1972).
In 1976, Cinema Shares gave "Godzilla vs. Megalon" a wide theatrical release in the United States and launched a massive marketing campaign for the film, along with the poster, buttons with one of the four monsters' faces on them were released. Given away at theatrical showings was a comic that told a simplified version of the film, which incorrectly named Jet Jaguar as "Robotman" and Gigan as "Borodan". These incorrect names were also featured in the U.S. trailer.
Initially, Cinema Shares screened Toho's international English version but to ensure a G rating, several cuts were made, which resulted in the film running three minutes shorter than the original version.
"Godzilla vs. Megalon" is the first Godzilla film to receive an American prime time network television premiere, where it was broadcast nationwide at 9:00 PM on NBC on March 15, 1977. However, to accommodate commercials, the film was only shown in a one-hour time slot, which resulted in the film being cut down to 48 minutes. John Belushi hosted the broadcast where he did some skits, all in a Godzilla suit.
Mel Maron (who was president of Cinema Shares at the time) chose to release "Godzilla vs. Megalon" because he saw Godzilla as a heroic figure by that point and felt the timing was right to show children a hero who was a friendly monster and not Superman.
The U.S. rights for the film eventually fell into the public domain in the late 1980s, which resulted in companies releasing poorly-cropped, fullscreen VHS tapes mastered from pan and scan sources. This also led to the film being featured in "Mystery Science Theater 3000". In 1988 New World Video intended to release the original uncut unedited version of the English dub but, declined the project, due to a lack of budget that was required for a full unedited release. However, despite this, the film was released uncut and in widescreen in 1992 by UK company Polygram Ltd as a double feature with "Godzilla vs. Gigan". In 1998 the film was again released by UK company, 4 Front Video. As of now it appears those are the only two VHS tapes on the film that are unedited and in high quality. It was also released on DVD by Power Multimedia in 1999 in Taiwan. Originally the Sci-Fi Channel showed the cut version, until finally in 2002 as Toho regained ownership of that title alongside "Godzilla vs. Gigan" and "Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla" (both of which also were released by Cinema Shares) and broadcast the film fully uncut for the first time in the U.S.
In 2019, the Japanese version and export English version were included in a Blu-ray box set released by the Criterion Collection, which included all 15 films from the franchise's Shōwa era.
In Japan, "Godzilla vs. Megalon" sold approximately 980,000 tickets. It was the first "Godzilla" film to sell less than one million admissions. It earned ¥220 million in Japan distribution income (rentals).
The film was a success in American theaters, earning $383,744 in its first three days in Texas and Louisiana alone. The film grossed about worldwide.
"Godzilla vs. Megalon" was released theatrically in America on May 9, 1976, though the "San Francisco Chronicle" indicates that it opened there in June, and "The New York Times" indicates that it opened in New York City on July 11. "The New York Times" film critic Vincent Canby, who a decade before had given a negative review to "Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster", gave "Godzilla vs. Megalon" a generally positive review. In his review on July 12, 1976, Canby said, ""Godzilla vs. Megalon" completes the canonization of Godzilla...It's been a remarkable transformation of character - the dragon has become St. George...It's wildly preposterous, imaginative and funny (often intentionally). It demonstrates the rewards of friendship, between humans as well as monsters, and it is gentle."
"Godzilla vs. Megalon" has attracted the ire of many "Godzilla" fans in the decades since its original release. The film contributed to the reputation of "Godzilla" films in the United States as cheap children's entertainment that should not be taken seriously. It has been described as "incredibly, undeniably, mind-numbingly bad" and one of the "poorer moments" in the history of kaiju films.
In particular, the special effects of the film have been heavily criticized. One review described the Godzilla costume as appearing to be "crossed with Kermit the Frog" and another sneeringly compared it to "Godzilla vs. Gigan", stating that it did "everything wrong that "Gigan" did, and then some." However, most of the criticism is of the lack of actual special effects work, as most of it consists of stock footage from previous films, including "Godzilla vs. Gigan" and "Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster", but a few pieces of effects work have garnered praise, specifically a scene where Megalon breaks through a dam and the draining of the lake.
The other aspects of the film have been similarly skewered. The acting is usually described as flat and generally poor, and as not improving, or sometimes, worsening, the already weak script. One part of the film, on the other hand, has garnered almost universal praise: Godzilla's final attack on Megalon, a flying kick. It has been called the saving grace of the film, and was made famous by the mock exclamations of shock and awe displayed on "Godzilla vs. Megalon"'s appearance on "Mystery Science Theater 3000". Through the end of season three to the middle of season five, that clip would be shown at the opening of each show.
Despite all this, the film is also one of the most widely seen "Godzilla "films in the United States — it was popular in its initial theatrical release, largely due to an aggressive marketing campaign, including elaborate posters of the two title monsters battling atop New York City's World Trade Center towers, presumably to capitalize on the hype surrounding the Dino De Laurentiis remake of "King Kong", which used a similar image for its own poster.
The film was released numerous times in the VHS format, mostly as videos from bargain basement studios that featured the edited TV version (which was wrongly assumed to be in the public domain for many years), while PolyGram and 4 Front released the unedited version of the film in 1992 and 1998, respectively. Some rumors have circulated that the film's original VHS releases in the States were uncut, but there is no evidence confirming or denying this.
Media Blasters acquired the DVD rights to both "Godzilla vs. Megalon" and "Destroy All Monsters". Both films were released under one of the company's divisions, Tokyo Shock. Media Blasters originally planned to release "Godzilla vs. Megalon" on DVD and Blu-ray on December 20, 2011; however, due to technical difficulties with the dubbing and Toho having yet to give its approval for the release, the DVD/Blu-ray release was delayed. Media Blasters finally released the film on August 14, 2012, but only on a bare-bones DVD and Blu-ray. Also, a manufacturing error led to several copies of the originally planned version featuring bonus content to be released by accident. These special features versions are incredibly rare and are not labelled differently from the standard version, making them nearly impossible to find. This release was commercially the first to remaster the film to its original full-length version. In 2019, the Japanese version and export English version were included in a Blu-ray box set released by the Criterion Collection, which included all 15 films from the franchise's Shōwa era. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=11998 |
Godzilla vs. Biollante
In the film, Godzilla battles a monster born from the cells of a plant and a woman, as corporations struggle for control over Godzilla cells. The idea originated from a public story-writing contest, and set a trend common to all Heisei era movies, in which Godzilla faces off against opponents capable of metamorphosing into new, progressively more powerful forms.
"Godzilla vs. Biollante" was released theatrically in Japan on December 16, 1989. It received a direct-to-video release in the United States in November 25, 1992 through HBO Video. Although it received generally positive reviews, the film was a disappointment at the Japanese box office. In Japan, it was followed by "Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah" in 1991.
In the aftermath of Godzilla's attack on Tokyo and later imprisonment at Mount Mihara, the monster's cells are secretly delivered to the Saradia Institute of Technology and Science, where they are to be merged with genetically modified plants in the hope of transforming Saradia's deserts into fertile land and ending the country's economic dependence on oil wells. Dr. Genshiro Shiragami and his daughter, Erika, are enlisted to aid with the project. However, a terrorist bombing destroys the institute's laboratory, ruining the cells and killing Erika.
In 1990, Shiragami has returned to Japan and merged some of Erika's cells with those of a rose in an attempt to preserve her soul. Scientist Kazuhito Kirishima and Lieutenant Goro Gondo of the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) are using the Godzilla cells they collected to create "Anti-Nuclear Energy Bacteria", hoping it can serve as a weapon against Godzilla should he return. They attempt to recruit Shiragami to aid them, but are rebuffed. Meanwhile, international tensions increase over the Godzilla cells, as they are coveted by both the Saradia Institute of Technology and Science and the American Bio-Major organization. An explosion from Mount Mihara causes tremors across the area, including Shiragami's home, badly damaging the roses. Shiragami agrees to join the JSDF's effort and is given access to the Godzilla cells, which he secretly merges with one of the roses. A night later, rival Bio-Major and Saradian agents break into Shiragami's lab, but are attacked by a large plant-like creature which later escapes to Lake Ashino and is named "Biollante" by Shiragami.
Bio-Major agents plant explosives around Mount Mihara and blackmails the Diet of Japan, warning the explosives will be detonated and thus free Godzilla if the cells are not handed over. Kirishima and Gondo attempt to trade, but Saradian agent SSS9 thwarts the attempt and escapes with the cells. The explosives are detonated, and Godzilla is released. He attempts to reach the nearest power plant to replenish his supply of nuclear energy, but Biollante calls out to him. Godzilla arrives at the lake to engage Biollante in a vicious battle, and emerges as the victor. Godzilla proceeds toward the power plant at Tsuruga, but psychic Miki Saegusa uses her powers to divert him toward Osaka instead. The city is quickly evacuated before Godzilla makes landfall. A team led by Gondo meet Godzilla at the central district and fire rockets infused with the anti-nuclear bacteria into his body. Gondo is killed in the process, and an unharmed Godzilla leaves.
Kirishima recovers the cells and returns them to the JSDF. Shiragami theorizes that if Godzilla's body temperature is increased, the bacteria should work against it. The JSDF erects microwave-emitting plates during an artificial thunderstorm, hitting Godzilla with lightning and heating up his body temperature during a battle in the mountains outside Osaka. Godzilla is only moderately affected, but Biollante arrives to engage him in battle once again. The fight ends after Godzilla fires an atomic heat ray inside Biollante's mouth. An exhausted Godzilla collapses on the beach, and Biollante disintegrates into the sky, forming an image of Erika among the stars. Shiragami, watching the scene, is killed by SSS9. Kirishima chases the assassin and, after a brief scuffle, SSS9 is killed by a microwave-emitting plate activated by Sho Kuroki. Godzilla reawakens and leaves for the ocean.
Tomoyuki Tanaka announced a sequel to "The Return of Godzilla" in 1985, but was skeptical of its possibilities, as the film had been of little financial benefit to Toho, and the failure of "King Kong Lives" following year convinced him that audiences were not ready for a continuation of the "Godzilla" series. He relented after the success of "Little Shop of Horrors", and proceeded to hold a public story contest for a possible script. In consideration of "The Return of Godzilla"'s marginal success in Japan, Tanaka insisted that the story focus on a classic monster vs. monster theme. Tanaka handed the five finalist entries to director Kazuki Ōmori, despite the two's initially hostile relationship; the latter had previously held Tanaka responsible for the decline in the "Godzilla" series' quality during the 1970s. Ōmori chose the entry of dentist Shinichiro Kobayashi, who wrote his story with the hypothetical death of his daughter in mind.
Kobayashi's submission was notable for its emphasis on dilemmas concerning biotechnology rather than nuclear energy, and revolved around a scientist grieving for his deceased daughter and attempting to keep her soul alive by merging her genes with those of a plant. The scientist's initial experiments would have resulted in the creation of a giant rat-like amphibian called Deutalios, which would have landed in Tokyo Bay and been killed by Godzilla. A female reporter investigating the scientist's activities would have suffered from psychic visions of plants with humanoid faces compelling her to infiltrate the scientist's laboratory. The scientist would have later confessed his intentions, and the finale would have had Godzilla battling a human-faced Biollante who defeats him by searing his flesh with acid.
Ōmori proceeded to modify the story into a workable script over a period of three years, using his background as a biologist to create a plausible plot involving genetic engineering and botany. In order to preserve the series' anti-nuclear message, he linked the creation of Biollante to the use of Godzilla cells, and replaced Kobayashi's journalist character with Miki Saegusa. He openly admitted that directing a "Godzilla" film was secondary to his desire to make a James Bond movie, and thus added elements of the spy film genre into the plot. Unlike the case with later, more committee-driven "Godzilla" films, Ōmori was given considerable leeway in writing and directing the film, which Toho staff later judged to have been an error resulting in a movie with a very narrow audience.
Koichi Kawakita, who had previously worked for Tsuburaya Productions, replaced Teruyoshi Nakano as head of the series' special effects unit after Toho became impressed at his work in "Gunhed". Kawakita made use of "Gunhead"'s special effects team Studio OX, and initially wanted to make Godzilla more animal-like, using crocodiles as references, but was berated by Tanaka, who declared Godzilla to be "a monster" rather than an animal. Kenpachiro Satsuma returned to portray Godzilla, hoping to improve his performance by making it less anthropomorphic than in previous films. Suitmaker Noboyuki Yasamaru created a Godzilla suit made specifically with Satsuma's measurements in mind, unlike the previous one which was initially built for another performer and caused Satsuma discomfort. The resulting 242 lb suit proved more comfortable than the last, having a lower center of gravity and more mobile legs. A second 176 lb suit was built for outdoor underwater scenes. The head's size was reduced, and the whites around the eyes removed. On the advice of story finalist Shinichiro Kobayashi, a double row of teeth was incorporated in the jaws. As with the previous film, animatronic models were used for close-up shots. These models were an improvement over the last, as they were made from the same molds used for the main costume, and included an articulated tongue and intricate eye motion. The suit's dorsal plates were filled with light bulbs for scenes in which Godzilla uses his atomic ray, thus lessening reliance on optical animation, though they electrocuted Satsuma the first time they were activated. Satsuma was also obliged to wear protective goggles when in the suit during scenes in which Godzilla battles the JSDF, as real explosives were used on set.
Designing and building the Biollante props proved problematic, as traditional suitmation techniques made realizing the requested design of the creature's first form difficult, and the resulting cumbersome model for Biollante's final form was met with disbelief from the special effects team. Biollante's first form was performed by Masao Takegami, who sat within the model's trunk area on a platform just above water level. While the creature's head movements were simple to operate, its vines were controlled by an intricate array of overhead wires which proved difficult for Satsuma to react to during combat scenes as they offered no tension, thus warranting Satsuma to feign receiving blows from them, despite not being able to perceive them. Biollante's final form was even more difficult to operate, as its vine network took hours to rig up on set. Visibility in both the Godzilla and final form Biollante suits was poor, thus causing difficulties for Takegami in aiming the creature's head when firing sap, which permanently stained anything it landed on.
While it was initially decided to incorporate stop motion animation into the film, the resulting sequences were scrapped, as Kawakita felt they failed to blend in with the live-action footage effectively. The film however became the first of its kind to use CGI, though its usage was limited to scenes involving computer generated schematics. The original cut of the movie had the first battle culminating in Biollante's spores falling around the hills surrounding Lake Ashino and blooming into fields of flowers, though this was removed as the flowers were out of scale.
Unlike the previous film, "Godzilla vs. Biollante" incorporates themes from Akira Ifukube's original "Gojira" theme, though the majority of the soundtrack was composed of original themes by Koichi Sugiyama. The score was orchestrated by conductor David Howell through the Kansai Philarmonic, though Howell himself had never viewed the movie, and thus was left to interpret what the scenes would consist of when conducting the orchestra.
After the film was released in Japan, Toho commissioned a Hong Kong company named Omni Productions to dub the film into English.
In early 1990, Toho entered discussions with Miramax to distribute the film. When talks broke off, Toho filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Federal Court, accusing Miramax of entering an oral agreement in June to pay Toho $500,000 to distribute the film. This lawsuit delayed the film's release for two years. An out of court settlement was reached with Miramax buying the rights to the film for an unreported figure. Miramax would have entertained thoughts of releasing the film in theaters, but in the end it was decided to release the film straight to home video instead. HBO released the film on VHS in 1992 and Laserdisc in 1993. Miramax utilized the uncut English international version of the film for this release.
"Godzilla vs. Biollante" was released on VHS by HBO Home Video on November 25, 1992. It was later released on Blu-ray and DVD by Miramax Echo Bridge on December 4, 2012. It was released as a double feature and 8-disk movie pack on both Blu-ray and DVD with "Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus" (2009) by Echo Bridge Home Entertainment in 2013. It was last released by Lionsgate on Blu-ray and DVD on October 7, 2014. Sometime afterwards, Toho took the English rights away from Miramax and the future of the film's availability remains uncertain.
In Japan, the film sold approximately 2 million tickets, grossing .
"Godzilla vs. Biollante" has received positive reviews, with praise for the story, music and visuals.
Ed Godziszewski of Monster Zero said the film is "by no means a classic" but felt that "for the first time in well over 20 years, a [Godzilla] script is presented with some fresh, original ideas and themes." Joseph Savitski of Beyond Hollywood said the film's music is "a major detraction", but added that it's "not only one of the most imaginative films in the series, but also the most enjoyable to watch." Japan Hero said, "[T]his is definitely a Godzilla movie not to be missed."
In their scholarly book "Japan's Green Monsters" on kaiju cinema, Rhoads and McCorkle offer an ecocritical assessment of "Godzilla vs. Biollante". The scholars focus on the film's critique of genetic engineering and biotechnology years before the subject appeared in more popular Hollywood blockbusters like Steven Spielberg's 1993 blockbuster "Jurassic Park". Rhoads and McCorkle counter prior reviews of the film and argue that "Godzilla vs. Biollante" possesses far deeper environmental messages than the obvious ones present on the film's surface.
In July 2014, in a poll reported by the , "Godzilla vs. Biollante" was selected as the best "Godzilla" film by a group of fans and judges.
Composer Akira Ifukube, who had refused to compose the film's score, stated on interview that he disliked the way Koichi Sugiyama had modernized his Godzilla theme, and defined the Saradia theme as "ridiculous", on account of it sounding more European than Middle Eastern. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12000 |
Terror of Mechagodzilla
Terror of Mechagodzilla, released in Japan as is a 1975 Japanese "kaiju" film directed by Ishirō Honda, written by Yukiko Takayama, and produced by Tomoyuki Tanaka and Henry G. Saperstein, with special effects by Teruyoshi Nakano. The film was produced and distributed by Toho; it is the 15th film in the "Godzilla" franchise, serving as a direct sequel to the 1974 film "Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla", and is the final film in the franchise's Shōwa period.
"Terror of Mechagodzilla" stars Katsuhiko Sasaki, Tomoko Ai, Akihiko Hirata, and Gorō Mutsumi, and features Toru Kawai, Ise Mori, and Tatsumi Nikamoto as the fictional monster characters Godzilla, Mechagodzilla 2, and Titanosaurus, respectively. The film was released theatrically in Japan on March 15, 1975. It received a limited release in the United States in 1978 by Bob Conn Enterprises under the title The Terror of Godzilla. The film remains the least financially successful entry in the "Godzilla" franchise to this day.
Continuing after the end of the events of "Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla", Interpol agents, led by Inspector Kusaka, search for the pieces of Mechagodzilla at the bottom of the Okinawan Sea. Using the submarine "Akatsuki", they hope to gather information on the robot's builders, the alien Simeons. The "Akatsuki" is suddenly attacked by a giant aquatic dinosaur called Titanosaurus and the crew vanishes.
Interpol starts an investigation into the incident. With the help of marine biologist Akira Ichinose, they trace Titanosaurus to a reclusive, mad scientist named Shinzô Mafune, who wants to destroy all mankind. While Ichinose is visiting his old home in the seaside forest of Manazuru, they meet Mafune's lone daughter, Katsura. She tells them that not only is her father dead, but she burned all of the notes about the giant dinosaur (at her father's request). Unbeknownst to them, Mafune is still alive and well. He is visited by his friend Tsuda, who is an aide to the alien leader Mugal. He is leading the project to quickly rebuild Mechagodzilla. Mugal offers their services to Mafune, so that his Titanosaurus and their Mechagodzilla 2 (which is even more powerful than the original) will be the ultimate weapons. They hope to wipe out mankind and rebuild the world for themselves, starting with Tokyo and branching out from there.
But things become complicated for both factions when Ichinose falls in love with Katsura and unwittingly gives her Interpol's information against Titanosaurus, the new Mechagodzilla and the aliens. It is also discovered that Katsura is actually a cyborg, due to undergoing surgery after nearly being killed during one of her father's experiments when she was a child, and Mugal still has uses for her. Meanwhile, Mafune is desperate to unleash Titanosaurus without the aliens' permission, so he releases it on Yokosuka one night. By then, Interpol discovers that supersonic waves are Titanosaurus' weakness. They have a supersonic wave oscillator ready, but Katsura sabotages the machine before they can use it. Fortunately, Godzilla arrives to fight off Titanosaurus and easily defeats him, causing him to retreat back to the sea.
Later, when Ichinose visits Katsura, he is captured by the aliens. Tied up, Ichinose can only watch as Mafune and the aliens unleash Mechagodzilla 2 and Titanosaurus on Tokyo, while Interpol struggles to repair their supersonic wave oscillator and the Japanese armed forces struggle to keep the two monsters at bay. Katsura, while being controlled by Mugal, ignores Ichinose's pleas and controls both the dinosaur and the robot as they destroy the city.
Godzilla comes to the rescue, although at first he is outmatched by the two titans. While Interpol distracts Titanosaurus with the repaired supersonic wave oscillator, Godzilla is able to focus on attacking Mechagodzilla 2. Interpol agents infiltrate the aliens' hideout, rescue Ichinose, and kill Mafune and many of the aliens. The remaining aliens attempt to escape in their ships, but Godzilla shoots them down with his atomic heat ray. The wounded Katsura, while being embraced by Ichinose, shoots herself in order to destroy Mechagodzilla 2's control device (which had been implanted in her body earlier by the aliens). This allows Godzilla to destroy the robot, which short-circuits and is tossed by him into a huge chasm made by the battle, after which Godzilla blasts it with his atomic heat ray, causing it to explode into little pieces of metal again, which are then buried within the chasm at the same time. Godzilla, with the help of the oscillator, then defeats Titanosaurus and heads back to the sea.
The original screenplay that Yukiko Takayama created after winning Toho's story contest for the next installment in the Godzilla series was picked by assistant producer Kenji Tokoro and was submitted for approval on July 1, 1974, less than four months after "Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla" was released.
The original concept is similar to the finished version of "Terror of Mechagodzilla", with many of the changes being budgetary in nature. The most obvious alteration is the removal of the two dinosaurs called the Titans, which merged to become Titanosaurus in the first draft. It was an interesting concept, although something that was also under-explained, considering the magnitude of such an occurrence of the creatures merging. Another noticeable change to the script is that of the final battle, which does not move to the countryside but instead would have reduced Tokyo to rubble during the ensuing conflict between the three monsters.
After her initial draft, Takayama submitted a revised version on October 14, 1974. This went through a third revision on December 4, and then yet another on December 28 of that same year before it was met with approval and filming began.
The film is one of the only "Godzilla" films with brief nudity. The scene occurs when Katsura is being operated on in order to have the control devise for Mechagodzilla 2 placed inside her body, at which point Katsura's breasts are exposed (although the body is actually a mannequin). This scene was cut in the U.S., both from the theatrical and TV versions of the film.
Director Ishiro Honda laments not being able to work with the story's writer, Yukiko Takayama, on other films, enjoying that a "woman's perspective was especially fresh" for the genre.
Kensho Yamashita was the chief assistant director on the project. He notes, though, that Honda never actually assigned any of the shooting to him, possibly because he was happy to be directing again after a long gap in his career and wanted to do the work himself.
Toho titled its English version of the film "Terror of Mechagodzilla" and had it dubbed into English in Hong Kong. This “international version” has never seen wide release in the United States, but has been issued on VHS in the United Kingdom by PolyGram Video Ltd. and on DVD in Taiwan by Power Multimedia.
The film was given a North American theatrical release in March 1978 by independent distributor Bob Conn Enterprises under the title "The Terror of Godzilla". Just as Cinema Shares had done with the previous three "Godzilla" movies, Bob Conn Enterprises chose to utilize the Toho-commissioned English dub instead of hiring a new crew to re-dub the film. "The Terror of Godzilla" was heavily edited to obtain a "G" rating from the MPAA. Several scenes with violent content were entirely removed, disrupting the flow of the narrative.
Henry G. Saperstein, who sold the theatrical rights to Bob Conn Enterprises, also released the film to television in late 1978, this time under Toho's international title, "Terror of Mechagodzilla". Unlike "The Terror of Godzilla", the television version remained mostly uncut, with only the shot of Katsura's naked breasts excised. Saperstein's editors also added a 10-minute prologue that served as a brief history of Godzilla, with footage from Saperstein's English versions of "Invasion of Astro-Monster" and "All Monsters Attack" (the latter of which utilized stock footage from both "Ebirah, Horror of the Deep" and "Son of Godzilla").
In the mid-1980s, the U.S. television version, "Terror of Mechagodzilla", was replaced by the theatrical edit, "The Terror of Godzilla", on television and home video. For some reason, the title was also changed to "Terror of Mechagodzilla". The 1994 Paramount release of "Terror of Mechagodzilla" listed a running time of 89 minutes on the slipcase, implying that this release would be the longer version first shown on American TV. The actual video cassette featured the edited theatrical version. In a 1995 interview with "G-Fan" magazine, Saperstein was surprised to hear about this mistake. In 1997 on Channel 4 in the U.K., three Godzilla movies were shown back to back late at night, starting with 'Godzilla vs. Megalon', 'Godzilla vs. Gigan' and then 'Terror of Mechagodzilla'; all were dubbed versions. This showing was uncut, including the Katsura nudity scene, but it did not have the Western-made prologue.
In the mid-2000s, the television version showed up again on Monsters HD, and in 2007, it made its home video debut as the U.S. version on the Classic Media DVD. Although the added prologue was originally framed for fullscreen television, it was cropped and shown in widescreen on the disc. The rest of the movie featured the audio from Saperstein's television version synced to video from the Japanese version.
The first article about the movie's storyline was published in a 1977 issue of "Japanese Giants" (published by Brad Boyle) and was written by Richard H. Campbell, creator of "The Godzilla Fan News Letter" (a.k.a. "The Gang").
In Japan, the film sold 980,000 tickets. Despite earning positive reviews, it would be the least-attended "Godzilla" film in Japan and also one of only two "Godzilla" films to sell less than 1 million tickets. This was part of a decline in attendance for monster movies as a whole and Toho put the production of monster movies on hold. Toho had no intention of permanently ending the "Godzilla" series. Throughout the remainder of the 1970s, several new Godzilla stories were submitted by various writers and producers. None of these films, however, were ultimately made. It was not until 1984 and "Godzilla"'s 30th anniversary that Toho would start production on a new Godzilla movie.
The film has been released several times on DVD in the United States. The first release, by Simitar Entertainment, was on May 6, 1998 in a fullscreen version under the title "The Terror of Godzilla". The second release, by First Classic Media and distributed by Sony Music Entertainment, was on September 17, 2002. It was released both individually and as part of the "Ultimate Godzilla DVD Collection" box set, the latter being released on the same day.
It was then re-released by Second Classic Media, this time distributed by Genius Entertainment, on November 20, 2007 both individually and as part of the "Godzilla Collection" box set on April 29, 2008.
In 2019, both the Japanese version and the export English version were included in a Blu-ray box set released by the Criterion Collection, which included all 15 films from the franchise's Shōwa era. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12001 |
Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah
The production crew of "Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah" remained largely unchanged from that of the previous film in the series, "Godzilla vs. Biollante". Because the previous installment was a box office disappointment, due to a lack of child viewership and alleged competition with the "Back to the Future" franchise, the producers of "Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah" were compelled to create a film with more fantasy elements, along with time travel.
"Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah" was the first "Godzilla" film since 1975's "Terror of Mechagodzilla" to feature a newly orchestrated score by Akira Ifukube. The film was released theatrically in Japan on December 14, 1991, and was followed by "Godzilla vs. Mothra" the following year. It was released direct-to-video in North America in 1998 by Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment. Though "Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah" was more financially successful than "Godzilla vs. Biollante", the film became somewhat controversial in the United States as a result of perceived anti-Americanism stemming from a scene where Godzilla kills several American soldiers.
In 1992, science fiction writer Kenichiro Terasawa is writing a book about Godzilla and learns of a group of Japanese soldiers stationed on Lagos Island during the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign. In February 1944, while threatened by American soldiers, the Japanese soldiers were saved by a mysterious dinosaur. He theorizes that the dinosaur was subsequently mutated into Godzilla in 1954 after a hydrogen bomb test on the island. Yasuaki Shindo, a wealthy businessman who commanded the Japanese soldiers on Lagos Island, confirms that the dinosaur did indeed exist.
Meanwhile, a UFO lands on Mount Fuji. When the Japanese army investigates, they are greeted by Wilson, Grenchiko, Emmy Kano and the android M-11. The visitors, known as the "Futurians", explain that they are humans from the year 2204, where Godzilla has completely destroyed Japan. The Futurians plan to travel back in time to 1944 and remove the dinosaur from Lagos Island before the island is irradiated in 1954, thus preventing the mutation of the creature into Godzilla. As proof of their story, Emmy presents a copy of Terasawa's book, which has not yet been completed in the present.
The Futurians, Terasawa, Miki Saegusa, and Professor Mazaki, board a time shuttle and travel back to 1944 to Lagos Island. There, as American forces land and engage the Japanese forces commanded by Shindo, the dinosaur attacks and kills the American soldiers. The American navy then bombs the dinosaur from the sea and gravely wounds it. After Shindo and his men leave the island, M-11 teleports the dinosaur from Lagos Island to the Bering Strait. Before returning to 1992, the Futurians secretly leave three small creatures called Dorats on Lagos Island, which are exposed to radiation from the hydrogen bomb test in 1954 and merge to become King Ghidorah, which then appears in present-day Japan. After returning to 1992, the Futurians use King Ghidorah to subjugate Japan and issue an ultimatum, but Japan refuses to surrender.
Feeling sympathy for the Japanese people, Emmy reveals to Terasawa the truth behind the Futurians' mission: in the future, Japan is an economic superpower that has surpassed the United States, Russia, and China. The Futurians traveled back in time in order to change history and prevent Japan's future economic dominance by creating King Ghidorah and using it to destroy present day Japan. At the same time, they also planned to erase Godzilla from history so it would not pose a threat to their plans. After M-11 brings Emmy back to the UFO, she reprograms the android so it will help her.
Terasawa discovers that a Russian nuclear submarine sank in the Bering Strait in the 1970s and released enough radiation to mutate the dinosaur into Godzilla. Shindo plans to use his nuclear submarine to rejuvenate Godzilla. En route to the Bering Strait, Shindo's submarine is destroyed by Godzilla, who absorbs its radiation and becomes larger and more powerful. Godzilla arrives in Japan and is met by King Ghidorah. They fight at equal strength, each immune to the other's attacks. With M-11 and Terasawa's aid, Emmy sabotages the UFO's control over King Ghidorah, causing the three-headed monster to lose focus during the battle. Godzilla eventually ends the battle by blasting off Ghidorah's middle head. Before sending King Ghidorah crashing into the ocean, Godzilla destroys the UFO, killing Wilson and Grenchiko before turning its attention on Tokyo, destroying the city and killing Shindo.
Emmy travels to the future with M-11 and returns to the present day with Mecha-King Ghidorah, a cybernetic version of King Ghidorah. The cybernetic Ghidorah blasts Godzilla with energy beams, which proves useless. Godzilla then counters by relentlessly blasting Ghidorah with its atomic breath before Ghidorah launches clamps to restrain Godzilla. Ghidorah carries Godzilla out of Japan, but Godzilla breaks from its restraints and causes Ghidorah to send both crashing into the ocean. Emmy then returns to the future but not before informing Terasawa that she is his descendant.
At the bottom of the ocean, Godzilla awakens and roars over Ghidorah's remains before swimming away.
Although the previously filmed "Godzilla vs. Biollante" had been the most expensive "Godzilla" film produced at the time, its low audience attendance and loss of revenue convinced executive producer and "Godzilla" series creator Tomoyuki Tanaka to revitalize the series by bringing back iconic monsters from pre-1984 "Godzilla" movies, specifically Godzilla's archenemy King Ghidorah.
"Godzilla vs. Biollante" director and writer Kazuki Ōmori had initially hoped to start a standalone series centered on Mothra, and was in the process of rewriting a 1990 script for the unrealized film "Mothra vs. Bagan". The film was ultimately scrapped by Toho, under the assumption that, unlike Godzilla, Mothra would have been a difficult character to market overseas. The planning stages for a sequel to "Godzilla vs. Biollante" were initially hampered by Tanaka's deteriorating health, thus prompting the takeover of Shōgo Tomiyama as producer. The new producer felt that the financial failure of "Godzilla vs. Biollante" was due to the plot being too sophisticated for child audiences, and thus intended to return some of the fantasy elements of the pre-1984 "Godzilla" films to the series. Ōmori himself blamed the lackluster performance of "Godzilla vs. Biollante" on competition with "Back to the Future Part II", and thus concluded that audiences wanted plots involving time travel. His approach to the film also differed from "Godzilla vs. Biollante" in his greater emphasis on developing the personalities of the monsters rather than the human characters.
Akira Ifukube agreed to compose the film's score on the insistence of his daughter, after as he was dissatisfied with the way his compositions had been treated in "Godzilla vs. Biollante".
The Godzilla suits used in "Godzilla vs. Biollante" were reused in "Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah", though with slight modifications. The original suit used for land-based and full body shots had its head replaced with a wider and flatter one, and the body cut in half. The upper half was used in scenes where Godzilla emerges from the sea and during close-ups during the character's first fight with King Ghidorah. The suit used previously for scenes set at sea was modified with rounder shoulders, a more prominent chest, and an enhanced face, and was used throughout the majority of the film's Godzilla scenes.
The redesigned King Ghidorah featured much more advanced wirework puppetry than its predecessors, and effects team leader Koichi Kawakita designed the "Godzillasaurus" as a more paleontologically accurate-looking dinosaur than Godzilla itself as a nod to American filmmakers aspiring to direct their own "Godzilla" films with the intention of making the monster more realistic. Ōmori's original draft specified that the dinosaur that would become Godzilla was a "Tyrannosaurus", though this was rejected by creature designer Shinji Nishikawa, who stated that he "couldn't accept that a tyrannosaur could become Godzilla". The final suit combined features of "Tyrannosaurus" with Godzilla, and real octopus blood was used during the bombardment scene. Because the Godzillasaurus' arms were much smaller than Godzilla's, suit performer Wataru Fukuda had to operate them with levers within the costume. The creature's distress calls were recycled Gamera cries.
The Columbia/TriStar Home Video DVD version was released in 1998 as a single disc double feature with "Godzilla vs. Mothra". The picture was full frame (1.33:1) [NTSC] and the audio in English (2.0). There were no subtitles. Extras included the trailer for "Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah" and "Godzilla vs. Mothra".
The Sony Blu-ray version was released on May 6, 2014 as a two-disc double feature with "Godzilla vs. Mothra". The picture was MPEG-4 AVC (1.85:1) [1080p] and the audio was in Japanese and English (DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0). Subtitles were added in English, English SDH and French. Extras included the theatrical trailer and three teasers in HD with English subtitles.
Joseph Savitski of "Beyond Hollywood" said "This entry in the popular monster series is a disappointing and flawed effort unworthy of the “Godzilla” name."
The film was considered controversial at the time of its release, being contemporary to a period of between America and Japan, but mainly due to its fictional World War II depictions. Gerald Glaubitz of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association appeared alongside director Kazuki Ōmori on "Entertainment Tonight" and condemned the film as being in "very poor taste" and detrimental to American-Japanese relations, allegations that Ōmori denied, stating that the American extras in the film had been "happy about being crushed and squished by Godzilla." Ishirō Honda also criticized Ōmori, stating that the scene in question went "too far". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12002 |
Godzilla vs. Mothra
Originally conceived as a standalone Mothra film entitled "Mothra vs. Bagan", the film is notable for its return to a more fantasy-based, family-oriented atmosphere, evocative of older "Godzilla" films. Although he did not return as director, Ōmori continued his trend of incorporating Hollywood elements into his screenplay, in this case nods to the "Indiana Jones" franchise.
"Godzilla vs. Mothra" was released theatrically in Japan on December 12, 1992, and was followed by "Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II" the following year. "Godzilla vs. Mothra" was released direct-to-video in the United States in 1998 by Columbia Tristar Home Video under the title "Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle for Earth". The film was the second highest-grossing film in Japan in 1993, with "Jurassic Park" being the highest-grossing.
In mid-1992, following the events of "Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah", a meteoroid crashes in the Ogasawara Trench and awakens Godzilla. Six months later, explorer Takuya Fujito is detained after stealing an ancient artifact. Later, a representative of the Japanese Prime Minister offers to have Takuya's charges dropped if he explores Infant Island with his ex-wife, Masako Tezuka and Kenji Ando, the secretary of the rapacious Marutomo company. After the trio arrives on the island, they find a cave containing a depiction of two giant insects in battle. Further exploration leads them to a giant egg and a pair of diminutive humanoids called Cosmos, who identify the egg as belonging to Mothra.
The Cosmos tell of an ancient civilization that tried to control the Earth's climate, thus provoking the Earth into creating Battra, which became uncontrollable, and started to harm the very planet that created him. Mothra, another earth protector, fought an apocalyptic battle with Battra, who eventually lost. The Cosmos explain how the meteoroid uncovered Mothra's egg, and may have awoken Battra, who is still embittered over humanity's interference in the Earth's natural order.
The Marutomo company sends a freighter to Infant Island to pick up the egg, ostensibly to protect it. As they are sailing, Godzilla surfaces and heads toward the newly hatched Mothra larva. Battra, also as a larva, soon appears and joins the fight, allowing Mothra to retreat. The battle between Godzilla and Battra is eventually taken underwater, where the force of the battle causes a giant crack on the Philippine Sea Plate that swallows the two.
Masako and Takuya later discover Ando's true intentions when he kidnaps the Cosmos and takes them to Marutomo headquarters, where the CEO intends to use them for publicity purposes. Mothra enters Tokyo in an attempt to rescue the Cosmos, but is attacked by the JSDF. The wounded Mothra heads for the National Diet Building and starts constructing a cocoon around herself. Meanwhile, Godzilla surfaces from Mount Fuji.
Both Mothra and Battra attain their imago forms and converge at Yokohama Cosmo World. Godzilla interrupts the battle and attacks Battra. The two moths decide to join forces against Godzilla. Eventually, Mothra and Battra overwhelm Godzilla and carry him over the ocean. Godzilla bites Battra's neck and fires his atomic breath into the wound, killing Battra. A tired Mothra drops Godzilla and the lifeless Battra into the water below, sealing Godzilla below the surface by creating a mystical glyph with scales from her wings. The next morning, the Cosmos explain that Battra had been waiting many years to destroy an even larger meteoroid that would threaten the Earth in 1999. Mothra had promised she would stop the future collision if Battra were to die, and she and the Cosmos leave Earth as the humans bid farewell.
The idea of shooting a movie featuring a revamped Mothra dated back to a screenplay written in 1990 by Akira Murao entitled "Mothra vs. Bagan", which revolved around a vengeful dragon called Bagan who sought to destroy humanity for its abuse of the Earth's resources, only to be defeated by Mothra, the goddess of peace. The screenplay was revised by Kazuki Ōmori after the release of "Godzilla vs. Biollante", though the project was ultimately scrapped by Toho, under the assumption that Mothra was a character born purely out of Japanese culture, and thus would have been difficult to market overseas unlike the more internationally recognized Godzilla.
After the success of "Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah", producer Shōgo Tomiyama and "Godzilla" series creator Tomoyuki Tanaka proposed resurrecting King Ghidorah in a film entitled "Ghidorah's Counterattack", but relented when polls demonstrated that Mothra was more popular with women, who comprised the majority of Japan's population. Tomiyama replaced Ōmori with Takao Okawara as director, but maintained Ōmori as screenwriter. Hoping to maintain as much of "Mothra vs. Bagan" as possible, Ōmori reconceptualized Bagan as Badora, a dark twin to Mothra. The character was later renamed Battra (a portmanteau of "battle" and "Mothra"), as the first name was disharmonious in Japanese. Tomiyama had intended to feature "Mothra" star Frankie Sakai, but was unable to because of scheduling conflicts. The final battle between Godzilla, Mothra and Battra was originally meant to have a more elaborate conclusion; as in the final product, Godzilla would have been transported to sea, only to kill Battra and plunge into the ocean. However, the site of their fall would have been the submerged, Stonehenge-like ruins of the Cosmos civilization, which would have engulfed and trapped Godzilla with a forcefield activated by Mothra.
Ishirō Honda, who directed the first "Godzilla" film and many others, visited the set shortly before dying.
Koichi Kawakita continued his theme of giving Godzilla's opponents the ability to metamorphose, and had initially intended to have Mothra killed off, only to be reborn as the cybernetic moth "MechaMothra", though this was scrapped early in production, thus making "Godzilla vs. Mothra" the first post-1984 "Godzilla" movie to not feature a mecha contraption. The underwater scenes were filmed through an aquarium filled with fish set between the performers and the camera. Kawakita's team constructed a new Godzilla suit from previously used molds, though it was made slimmer than previous suits, the neck given more prominent ribbing, and the arrangement of the character's dorsal plates was changed so that the largest plate was placed on the middle of the back. The arms were more flexible at the biceps, and the face was given numerous cosmetic changes; the forehead was reduced and flattened, the teeth scaled down, and the eyes given a golden tint. The head was also electronically modified to allow more vertical mobility. Filming the Godzilla scenes was hampered when the suit previously used for "Godzilla vs. Biollante" and "Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah", which was needed for some stunt-work, was stolen from Toho studios, only to be recovered at Lake Okutama in bad condition. The remains of the suit were recycled for the first battle sequence. Godzilla's roar was reverted to the high-pitched shriek from pre-1984 "Godzilla" films, while Battra's sound effects were recycled from those of Rodan. In designing Battra, which the script described as a "black Mothra", artist Shinji Nishikawa sought to distance its design from Mothra's by making its adult form more similar to its larval one than is the case with Mothra, and combining Mothra's two eyes into one.
"Godzilla vs. Mothra" was released in Japan on December 12, 1992 where it was distributed by Toho. The film sold approximately 4,200,000 tickets in Japan, becoming the number one Japanese film on the domestic market in the period that included the year 1993. It earned ¥2.22 billion in distribution income, and grossed in total.
The film was released in the United States as "Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle for Earth" on April 28, 1998 on home video by Columbia TriStar Home Video.
Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes has a 75% approval rating from critics, based on 8 reviews with an average score of 6.3/10. Ed Godziszewski of Monster Zero said, "Rushed into production but a few months after "Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah", this film is unable to hide its hurried nature [but] effects-wise, the film makes up for the story’s shortcomings and then some." Japan Hero said, "While this movie is not the best of the Heisei series, it is still a really interesting movie. The battles are cool, and Battra was an interesting idea. If you have never seen this movie, I highly recommend it."
Stomp Tokyo said the film is "one of the better "Godzilla" movies in that the scenes in which monsters do not appear actually make some sort of sense. And for once, they are acted with some gusto, so that we as viewers can actually come to like the characters on screen, or at least be entertained by them." Mike Bogue of American Kaiju said the film "[does] not live up to its potential," but added that "[its] colorful and elaborate spectacle eventually won [him] over" and "the main story thread dealing with the eventual reconciliation of the divorced couple adequately holds the human plot together."
The film was released by Sony on Blu-ray in "The Toho Godzilla Collection" on May 6, 2014. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12003 |
Godzilla (1954 film)
"Godzilla" entered production after a Japanese-Indonesian co-production collapsed. Tsuburaya originally opted for a giant octopus before the filmmakers decided on a dinosaur-inspired creature. "Godzilla" pioneered a form of special effects called suitmation, in which a stunt performer wearing a suit interacts with miniature sets. Principal photography lasted 51 days, and special effects photography lasted 71 days.
"Godzilla" was theatrically released in Japan on November 3, 1954, and earned a distribution rental income of ¥183 million () during its initial Japanese theatrical run. In 1956, a heavily re-edited "Americanized" version, titled "Godzilla, King of the Monsters!" was released in the United States. The film spawned a multimedia franchise, being recognized by "Guinness World Records" as the longest running film franchise in history. The character Godzilla has since became an international pop culture icon, and the 1954 film has been largely credited for establishing the template for "tokusatsu" media.
When the Japanese freighter "Eiko-maru" is destroyed near Odo Island, another ship – the "Bingo-maru" – is sent to investigate, only to meet the same fate with few survivors. A fishing boat from Odo is also destroyed, with one survivor. Fishing catches mysteriously drop to zero, blamed by an elder on the ancient sea creature known as "Godzilla". Reporters arrive on Odo Island to further investigate. A villager tells one of the reporters that something in the sea is ruining the fishing. That evening, a storm strikes the island, destroying the reporters' helicopter, and Godzilla, briefly seen, destroys 17 homes and kills nine people and 20 of the villagers' livestock.
Odo residents travel to Tokyo to demand disaster relief. The villagers' and reporters' evidence describes damage consistent with something large crushing the village. The government sends paleontologist Kyohei Yamane to lead an investigation on the island, where giant radioactive footprints and a trilobite are discovered. The village alarm bell is rung and Yamane and the villagers rush to see the monster, retreating after seeing that it is a giant dinosaur. Yamane presents his findings in Tokyo, estimating that Godzilla is tall and is evolved from an ancient sea creature becoming a terrestrial creature. He concludes that Godzilla has been disturbed by underwater hydrogen bomb testing. Debate ensues about notifying the public about the danger of the monster. Meanwhile, 17 ships are lost at sea.
Ten frigates are dispatched to attempt to kill the monster using depth charges. The mission disappoints Yamane, who wants Godzilla to be studied. When Godzilla survives the attack, officials appeal to Yamane for ideas to kill the monster, but Yamane tells them that Godzilla is unkillable, having survived H-bomb testing, and must be studied. Yamane's daughter, Emiko, decides to break off her arranged engagement to Yamane's colleague, Daisuke Serizawa, because of her love for Hideto Ogata, a salvage ship captain. When a reporter arrives and asks to interview Serizawa, Emiko escorts the reporter to Serizawa's home. After Serizawa refuses to divulge his current work to the reporter, he gives Emiko a demonstration of his recent project on the condition that she must keep it a secret. The demonstration horrifies her and she leaves without breaking off the engagement. Shortly after she returns home, Godzilla surfaces from Tokyo Bay and attacks Shinagawa. After attacking a passing train, Godzilla returns to the ocean.
After consulting with international experts, the Japanese Self-Defense Forces construct a , 50,000 volt electrified fence along the coast and deploy forces to stop and kill Godzilla. Yamane returns home, dismayed that there is no plan to study Godzilla for its resistance to radiation, where Emiko and Ogata await hoping to get his consent for them to wed. When Ogata disagrees with Yamane, arguing that the threat that Godzilla poses outweighs any potential benefits from studying the monster, Yamane tells him to leave. Godzilla resurfaces and breaks through the fence to Tokyo with its atomic breath, unleashing more destruction across the city. Further attempts to kill the monster with tanks and fighter jets fail and Godzilla returns to the ocean. The day after, hospitals and shelters are crowded with the maimed and the dead, with some survivors suffering from radiation sickness.
Distraught by the devastation, Emiko tells Ogata about Serizawa's research, a weapon called the "Oxygen Destroyer", which disintegrates oxygen atoms and causes organisms to die of a rotting asphyxiation. Emiko and Ogata go to Serizawa to convince him to use the Oxygen Destroyer but he initially refuses, explaining that if he uses the device, the superpowers of the world will surely force him to construct more Oxygen Destroyers for use as a superweapon. After watching a program displaying the nation's current tragedy, Serizawa finally accepts their pleas. As Serizawa burns his notes, Emiko breaks down crying.
A navy ship takes Ogata and Serizawa to plant the device in Tokyo Bay. After finding Godzilla, Serizawa unloads the device and cuts off his air support, taking the secret of the Oxygen Destroyer to his grave. Godzilla is destroyed, but many mourn Serizawa's death. Yamane believes that if nuclear weapons testing continues, another Godzilla may rise in the future.
In the film, Godzilla symbolizes nuclear holocaust from Japan's perspective and has since been culturally identified as a strong metaphor for nuclear weapons. Producer Tomoyuki Tanaka stated that, "The theme of the film, from the beginning, was the terror of the bomb. Mankind had created the bomb, and now nature was going to take revenge on mankind." Director Ishirō Honda filmed Godzilla's Tokyo rampage to mirror the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, stating, "If Godzilla had been a dinosaur or some other animal, he would have been killed by just one cannonball. But if he were equal to an atomic bomb, we wouldn't know what to do. So, I took the characteristics of an atomic bomb and applied them to Godzilla."
Academics Anne Allison, Thomas Schnellbächer, and Steve Ryfle have stated that "Godzilla" contains political and cultural undertones that can be attributed to what the Japanese had experienced in World War II and that Japanese audiences were able to connect emotionally to the monster. They theorized that these viewers saw Godzilla as a victim and felt that the creature's backstory reminded them of their experiences in World War II. These academics have also claimed that as the atomic bomb testing that woke Godzilla was carried out by the United States, the film in a way can be seen to blame the United States for the problems and struggles that Japan experienced after World War II had ended. They also felt that the movie could have served as a cultural coping method to help the people of Japan move on from the events of the war.
Brian Merchant from Motherboard called the film "a bleak, powerful metaphor for nuclear power that still endures today" and on its themes, he stated: "It's an unflinchingly bleak, deceptively powerful film about coping with and taking responsibility for incomprehensible, manmade tragedy. Specifically, nuclear tragedies. It's arguably the best window into post-war attitudes towards nuclear power we've got—as seen from the perspective of its greatest victims." Terrence Rafferty from "The New York Times" stated Godzilla was "an obvious gigantic, unsubtle, grimly purposeful metaphor for the atomic bomb" and felt the film was "extraordinarily solemn, full of earnest discussions".
Mark Jacobson from the website of "New York" magazine stated that Godzilla "transcends humanist prattle. Very few constructs have so perfectly embodied the overriding fears of a particular era. He is the symbol of a world gone wrong, a work of man that once created cannot be taken back or deleted. He rears up out of the sea as a creature of no particular belief system, apart from even the most elastic version of evolution and taxonomy, a reptilian id that lives inside the deepest recesses of the collective unconscious that cannot be reasoned with, a merciless undertaker who broaches no deals." Regarding the film, Jacobson stated, "Honda’s first Godzilla... is in line with these inwardly turned post-war films and perhaps the most brutally unforgiving of them. Shame-ridden self-flagellation was in order, and who better to supply the rubber-suited psychic punishment than the Rorschach-shaped big fella himself?"
Tim Martin from "The Daily Telegraph" (London) stated that the original 1954 film was "a far cry from its B-movie successors. It was a sober allegory of a film with ambitions as large as its thrice-normal budget, designed to shock and horrify an adult audience. Its roster of frightening images — cities in flames, overstuffed hospitals, irradiated children — would have been all too familiar to cinemagoers for whom memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were still less than a decade old, while its script posed deliberately inflammatory questions about the balance of postwar power and the development of nuclear energy." Martin also commented how the film's themes were omitted in the American version, stating, "Its thematic preoccupation with nuclear energy proved even less acceptable to the American distributors who, after buying the film, began an extensive reshoot and recut for Western markets."
Production credits
In 1954, Toho originally planned to produce "Eikō no Kage ni" ("In the Shadow of Glory"), a Japanese-Indonesian co-production about the aftermath of the Japanese occupation of Indonesia, however, anti-Japanese sentiment in Indonesia forced political pressure on the government to deny visas for the Japanese filmmakers. The film was to be co-produce with Indonesian studio Perfini, filmed on location in Jakarta in color (a first for a major Toho production), and was to open markets for Japanese films in Southeast Asia.
Producer Tomoyuki Tanaka flew to Jakarta to renegotiate with the Indonesian government but was unsuccessful and on the flight back to Japan, conceived the idea for a giant monster film inspired by the 1953 film "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" and the "Daigo Fukuryū Maru" incident that happened in March 1954. The film's opening sequence is a direct reference to the incident. Tanaka felt the film had potential due to nuclear fears generating news and monster films becoming popular, due to the financial success of "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" and the 1952 re-release of "King Kong", the latter which earned more money than previous releases.
During his flight, Tanaka wrote an outline with the working title "The Giant Monster from 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea" and pitched it to executive producer Iwao Mori. Mori approved the project in April 1954 after special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya agreed to do the film's effects and confirmed that the film was financially feasible. Mori also felt the project was a perfect vehicle for Tsuburaya and to test the storyboarding system that he instituted at the time. Mori also approved Tanaka's choice to have Ishirō Honda direct the film and shortened the title of the production to "Project G" (G for Giant), as well as giving the production classified status and ordered Tanaka to minimize his attention on other films and mainly focus on "Project G".
Toho originally intended for Senkichi Taniguchi to direct the film, as he was originally attached to direct "In the Shadow of Glory", however, Taniguchi declined the assignment. Honda was not Toho's first choice for the film's director, however, his war-time experience made him an ideal candidate for the film's anti-nuclear themes. Several other directors passed on the project, feeling the idea was "stupid," however, Honda accepted the assignment due to this interest in science and "unusual things," stating, "I had no problem taking it seriously." It was during the production of "Godzilla" that Honda worked with assistant director Koji Kajita for the first time. Afterwards, Kajita would go on to collaborate with Honda as his chief assistant director for 17 films over the course of 10 years. Due to sci-fi films lacking respect from film critics, Honda, Tanaka, and Tsuburaya agreed on depicting a monster attack as if it were a real event, with the serious tone of a documentary.
Tsuburaya submitted an outline of his own, written three years before; it featured a giant octopus attacking ships in the Indian ocean. In May 1954, Tanaka hired sci-fi writer Shigeru Kayama to write the story. Only 50 pages long and written in 11 days, Kayama's treatment depicted Dr. Yamane wearing dark shades, a cape and living in a European-style house from which he only emerged at night. Godzilla was portrayed as more animal-like by coming ashore to feed on animals, with an ostensibly gorilla-like interest in females. Kayama's story also featured less destruction and borrowed a scene from "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" by having Godzilla attack a lighthouse.
Takeo Murata and Honda co-wrote the screenplay in three weeks, confining themselves in a Japanese Inn in Tokyo's Shibuya ward. On writing the script, Murata stated, "Director Honda and I... racked our brains to make Mr. Kayama's original treatment into a full, working vision." Murata stated that Tsuburaya and Tanaka also pitched their ideas as well. Tanaka requested that they do not spend too much money while Tsuburaya encouraged them to "do whatever it takes to make it work". Murata and Honda redeveloped key characters and elements by adding the love triangle. In Kayama's story, Serizawa was depicted as merely a colleague of Dr. Yamane's. Godzilla's full appearance was to be revealed during the Odo Island hurricane but Honda and Murata opted to show parts of the creature as the film built up to his full reveal. Honda and Murata also introduced the characters Hagiwara and Dr. Tanabe in their draft but the role of Shinkichi, who had a substantial role in Kayama's story, was cut down.
Godzilla was designed by Teizo Toshimitsu and Akira Watanabe under Eiji Tsuburaya's supervision. Early on, Tanaka contemplated on having the monster be gorilla-like or whale-like in design due to the name "Gojira" (a combination of the Japanese words for gorilla, "gorira," and whale, "kujira") but eventually settled on a dinosaur-like design. Kazuyoshi Abe was hired earlier to design Godzilla but his ideas were later rejected due to Godzilla looking too humanoid and mammalian, with a head shaped like a mushroom cloud, however Abe was retained to help draw the film's storyboards.
Toshimitsu and Watanabe decided to base Godzilla's design on dinosaurs and, by using dinosaur books and magazines as a reference, combined elements of a Tyrannosaurus, Iguanodon and the dorsal fins of a Stegosaurus. Despite wanting to have utilized stop motion animation, Tsuburaya reluctantly settled on suitmation. Toshimitsu sculpted three clay models on which the suit would be based. The first two were rejected but the third was approved by Tsuburaya, Tanaka, and Honda.
The Godzilla suit was constructed by Kanji Yagi, Koei Yagi, and Eizo Kaimai, who used thin bamboo sticks and wire to build a frame for the interior of the suit and added metal mesh and cushioning over it to bolster its structure and finally applied coats of latex. Coats of molten rubber were additionally applied, followed by carved indentations and strips of latex glued onto the surface of the suit to create Godzilla's scaly hide. This first version of the suit weighed 100 kilograms (220 pounds). For close-ups, Toshimitsu created a smaller scale, mechanical, hand-operated puppet that sprayed streams of mist from its mouth to act as Godzilla's atomic breath.
Haruo Nakajima and Katsumi Tezuka were chosen to perform in the Godzilla suit, due to their strength and endurance. At the first costume fitting, Nakajima fell down while inside the suit, due to the heavy latex and inflexible materials used to create the suit. This first version of the suit was cut in half and used for scenes requiring only partial shots of Godzilla or close-ups, with the lower-half fitted with rope suspenders for Nakajima to wear. A second identical suit was created for full-body shots, which was made lighter than the first suit but Nakajima was still only able to be inside for three minutes before passing out. Nakajima lost 20 pounds during the production of the film. Nakajima would go on to portray Godzilla and other monsters until his retirement in 1972. Tezuka filmed scenes in the Godzilla suit but due to his older body, he was unable to fully commit to the physical demands required of the role. As a result, few of his scenes made it to the final cut as very few scenes were considered usable. Tezuka filled in for Nakajima when he was unavailable or needed relief from the physically demanding role.
Godzilla's name was also a source of consternation for the filmmakers. Because the monster had no name, the first draft of the film was not called "Gojira" but rather titled G, also known as Kaihatsu keikaku G (""Development Plan G""), the "G" of the title stood for "Giant", however. Nakajima confirmed that Toho held a contest to name the monster. The monster was eventually named "Gojira", a combination of the Japanese words "gorira" (gorilla) and "kujira" (whale). One explanation that is chalked up to legend is that a hulking Toho Studios employee's physical attributes led him to be nicknamed "Gojira". In a 1998 BBC documentary on Godzilla, Kimi Honda, the widow of the director, dismissed the employee-name story as a tall tale, believing that Honda, Tanaka, and Tsuburaya gave "considerable thought" to the name of the monster, stating, "the backstage boys at Toho loved to joke around with tall stories, but I don't believe that one". In 2003, a Japanese television special claimed to have identified the anonymous hulking Toho employee as Shiro Amikura, a Toho contract actor from the 1950s.
For Godzilla's roar, the recording artists initially used multiple roars from various large animals. These recordings ended up sounding like their animal counterparts and went unused. The film's composer Akira Ifukube decided to create the roar with instruments. Ifukube rubbed a leather glove through the loosened lower strings of a contrabass and altered the pitch and speed of the recording until the final roar was conceived.
Eiji Tsuburaya directed the film's special effects. In order for the effects footage to sync with the live-action footage, Honda and Tsuburaya would develop plans early during development and briefly meet prior to the day's shoot. Kajita would shuttle Tsuburaya to Honda's set to observe how a scene was being shot and where the actors were being positioned. Kajita also ushered Honda to the effects stage to observe how Tsuburaya was shooting certain effects. While Honda edited the live-action footage, he left blank leaders for Tsuburaya to insert the effects footage. At times, Honda had to cut out certain effects footage. Tsuburaya disapproved of these decisions due to Honda's cuts not matching the effects, however, Honda had final say in these matters.
Tsuburaya originally wanted to use stop motion for the film's special effects but realized it would have taken seven years to complete based on the then-current staff and infrastructure at Toho. Settling on suitmation and miniature effects, Tsuburaya and his crew scouted the locations Godzilla was to destroy and were nearly arrested after a security guard overheard their plans for destruction but were released after showing police their Toho business cards. Kintaro Makino, the chief of miniature construction, was given blueprints by Akira Watanabe for the miniatures and assigned 30 to 40 workers from the carpentry department to build them, which took a month to build the scaled down version of Ginza. A majority of the miniatures were built at 1:25 scale but the Diet building was scaled down to a 1:33 scale to look smaller than Godzilla.
The buildings' framework were made of thin wooden boards reinforced with a mixture of plaster and white chalk. Explosives were installed inside miniatures that were to be destroyed by Godzilla's atomic breath while some were sprayed with gasoline to make them burn more easily; others included small cracks so they could crumble easily. Optical animation techniques were used for Godzilla's glowing dorsal fins by having hundreds of cells drawn frame-by-frame. Haruo Nakajima perspired inside the suit so much that the Yagi brothers had to dry out the cotton lining every morning and sometimes re-line the interior of the suit and repair damages.
The typhoon waves were created by stagehands who overturned barrels of water into a water tank where the miniature Odo Island shoreline was built. Multiple composition shots were used for the Odo Island scenes. Most of the Odo Island scenes were filmed near rice fields. Toho hired en masse part time employees to work on the film's optical effects. Half of the 400 hired staff were mostly part-timers with little to no experience. An early version of Godzilla's full reveal was filmed that featured Godzilla, via hand-operated puppet, devouring a cow. Sadamasa Arikawa thought the scene was too gruesome and convinced Tsuburaya to re-film it. Optical effects were utilized for Godzilla's footprints on the beach by painting them onto glass and inserting it onto an area of the live-action footage. Special effects photography lasted for 71 days.
On the first day of filming, Honda addressed a crew of 30 to read the script and leave the project if they did not feel convinced, wanting only to work with those who had confidence in him and the film. Most of the film was shot in the Toho lot. Honda's team also filmed on location in the Shima Peninsula in Mie Prefecture to film the Odo Island scenes, which used 50 Toho extras and Honda's team establishing their base in the town of Toba. Local villagers were also used as extras for the Odo Island scenes. The dance ritual scene was filmed on location in Mie Prefecture, with local villagers performing as the dancers. The cast and crew commuted every morning by boat to Toba, Mie, working under harsh weather temperatures. Honda worked shirtless and as a result, suffered blistering sunburn on his back that left permanent scars.
Toho had negotiated with the Japan Self-Defense Forces to film scenes requiring the military and filmed target practices and drills for the film; Honda's team followed a convoy of JSDF vehicles for the convoy dispatch scene. 2,000 girls were used from an all-girls high school for the prayer for peace scene. The filmmakers had little cooperation from the Japan Self-Defense Forces and had to rely on World War II stock footage, provided by the Japanese military, for certain scenes. The stock footage was sourced from 16mm prints. Honda's team spent 51 days shooting the film.
The score by Akira Ifukube was released three times over a period of 13 years. The first recording was released by Futureland Toshiba in 1993, and nearly contained the film's complete score, missing only a brief source cue used for the pleasure boat scene. The track list is as follows:
The most recent release of the soundtrack was in April 2010, by Classic Media. It included the above tracks and an additional five tracks:
"Godzilla" was first released in Nagoya on October 27, 1954. A week later, it was released nationwide on November 3, 1954. From 1955 into the 1960s, "Godzilla" played in theaters catering to Japanese-Americans in predominantly Japanese neighborhoods in the United States. An English subtitled version was shown at film festivals in New York, Chicago, and other cities in 1982. An 84-minute cut of the Japanese version was theatrically released in West Germany on April 10, 1956 as "Godzilla". This version removes the Japanese Parliament argument, acknowledgement of Godzilla as a "child of the H-bomb," references to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and an altered translation of the mother holding her children. Since its release, the 1954 film remained unavailable officially in the West until 2004.
To coincide with "Godzilla"s 50th anniversary, art-house distributor Rialto Pictures gave the film a traveling tour-style limited release, coast-to-coast, across the United States, on May 7, 2004. It ran uncut with English subtitles until December 19, 2004. The film never played on more than six screens at any given point during its limited release. The film played in roughly sixty theaters and cities across the United States during its -month release. On April 18, 2014, Rialto re-released the film in the United States, coast-to-coast, using another limited-style traveling tour. This coincided with not only Godzilla's 60th anniversary, but also celebrated the American "Godzilla" film which was released that same year. To avoid confusion with the Hollywood feature, the Rialto release was subtitled "The Japanese Original". It was screened in 66 theaters in 64 cities from April 18 to October 31, 2014.
Following the film's success in Japan, Toho sold the American rights to Joseph E. Levine for $25,000. A heavily altered version of the film was released in the United States and worldwide as "Godzilla, King of the Monsters!" on April 27, 1956.
This version trimmed the original down to 80 minutes and featured new footage with Canadian actor Raymond Burr interacting with body doubles mixed with Honda's footage to make it seem like he was part of the original Japanese production. Many of the film's political themes were trimmed or removed completely. It was this version of the original "Godzilla" film that introduced audiences worldwide to the character and franchise and the only version that critics and scholars had access to until 2004 when the 1954 film was released in select theaters in North America. "Godzilla, King of the Monsters" grossed $2 million during its theatrical run, more than what the 1954 film grossed in Japan.
Honda was unaware that "Godzilla" had been re-edited until Toho released "Godzilla, King of the Monsters" in Japan in May 1957 as "Monster King Godzilla". Toho converted the entire film from its original scope to a widescreen 2.35:1 scope, which resulted in an awkward crop for the entire film. Japanese subtitles were given to the Japanese actors since their original dialogue differed greatly from the original script and were dubbed in English. Since the release of the film, Toho had adopted the moniker "King of the Monsters" for Godzilla, which has since appeared in official marketing, advertisement, and promotional materials.
The 1956 "Godzilla, King of the Monsters!" version of the film was released on DVD by Simitar in 1998 and Classic Media in 2002.
In 2005, BFI released the original Japanese version in the UK theatrically, and later in the same year on DVD. The DVD includes the original mono track and several extra features, such as documentaries and commentary tracks by Steve Ryfle, Ed Godziszewski, and Keith Aiken. The DVD also includes a documentary about the "Daigo Fukuryu Maru", a Japanese fishing boat that was caught in an American nuclear blast and partially inspired the creation of the movie.
In 2006, Classic Media and Sony BMG Music Entertainment Home Entertainment released a two-disc DVD set titled "Gojira: The Original Japanese Masterpiece". This release features both the original 1954 Japanese "Gojira" film and the 1956 American "Godzilla, King of the Monsters!" version, making the original Japanese version of the film available on DVD in North America for the first time. This release features theatrical trailers for both films, audio commentary tracks on both films with Godzilla scholars Steve Ryfle (author of "Japan’s Favorite Mon-Star: The Unauthorized Biography of the Big G") and Ed Godziszewski (editor of "Japanese Giants Magazine"), two 13-minute documentaries titled "Godzilla Story Development" and "Making of the Godzilla Suit," and a 12-page essay booklet by Steve Ryfle. This release also restores the original ending credits of the American film which, until recently, were thought to have been lost.
In 2009, Classic Media released "Godzilla" on Blu-ray. This release includes the same special features from the 2006 Classic Media DVD release, but does not feature the 1956 American version. In 2012, the Criterion Collection released a "new high-definition digital restoration" of "Godzilla" on Blu-ray and DVD. This release includes a remaster of the 1956 American version, "Godzilla, King of the Monsters", as well as other special features such as interviews with Akira Ikufube, Japanese film critic Tadao Sato, actor Akira Takarada, Godzilla performer Haruo Nakajima, effects technicians Yoshio Irie and Eizo Kaimai and audio commentaries on both films by David Kalat, author of "A Critical History and Filmography of Toho’s Godzilla Series."
In 2014, Classic Media reissued "Gojira" and "Godzilla, King of the Monsters!" on DVD, to commemorate the release of Legendary's "Godzilla" film. This release retained the same specs and features as the 2006 DVD release. In 2019, the film was included as part of a Blu-ray box set released by the Criterion Collection, which included all 15 films from the franchise's Shōwa era.
During its initial Japanese theatrical run, the film sold approximately tickets and was the eighth best-attended film in Japan that year. It remains the second most-attended "Godzilla" film in Japan, behind "King Kong vs. Godzilla". The film earned a distribution rental income of () during its initial 1954 theatrical run in Japan. Japanese ticket sales are equivalent to gross receipts of at an average 1955 ticket price. In 1957, the film was released in France, where it sold 835,511 tickets. This is equivalent to an estimated FF () at an average 1957 French ticket price. During its 2004 limited theatrical re-release in North America, the film grossed $38,030 on its opening weekend and grossed $412,520 by the end of its limited run. For the 2014 limited re-release in North America, it grossed $10,903 after playing in one theater in New York and grossed $150,191 at the end of its run. This adds up to grossed from the North American re-releases in 2004 and 2014.
In the United Kingdom, the film sold 3,643 tickets from limited releases during 20052006 and 20162017, equivalent to an estimated gross revenue of approximately (). This adds up to a total estimated worldwide gross of . Adjusted for inflation, Japanese ticket sales are equivalent to at an average 2014 Japanese ticket price, while 835,511 French ticket sales are equivalent to at an average 2014 French ticket price.
Prior to the release of the film, skeptics predicted the film to flop. Initially, the film received mixed to negative reviews in Japan. Japanese critics accused the film of exploiting the widespread devastation that the country had suffered in World War II, as well as the Daigo Fukuryū Maru (Lucky Dragon) incident that occurred a few months before filming began. Ishiro Honda lamented years later in the "Tokyo Journal", "They called it grotesque junk, and said it looked like something you'd spit up. I felt sorry for my crew because they had worked so hard!" Honda also stated, "At the time they wrote things like 'This movie is absurd, because such giant monsters do not exist.'""
Others said that depicting a fire breathing organism was strange. Honda also believed Japanese critics began to change their minds after the good reviews the film received in the United States. He stated "The first film critics to appreciate "Godzilla" were those in the U.S. When "Godzilla" was released there as "Godzilla, King of the Monsters!" in 1956, the critics said such things as, 'For the start, this film frankly depicts the horrors of the Atomic Bomb.', and by these evaluations, the assessment began to impact critics in Japan and has changed their opinions over the years."
As time went on, the film gained more respect in its home country. In 1984, Kinema Junpo magazine listed "Godzilla" as one of the top 20 Japanese films of all time, while a survey of 370 Japanese movie critics published in "Nihon Eiga Besuto 150" ("Best 150 Japanese Films"), had "Godzilla" ranked as the 27th best Japanese film ever made. The film was nominated for two Japanese Movie Association awards. One for best special effects and the other for best film. It won best special effects but lost best picture to Akira Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai". The film was re-released theatrically in Japan on November 21, 1982, as part of Toho's 50th anniversary.
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 93% approval rating based on 70 reviews, with an average score of 7.7/10. The site's consensus states: "More than straight monster-movie fare, "Gojira" offers potent, sobering postwar commentary". On Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average based on selected critic reviews, the film has a score of 78/100, based on 20 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
In "Entertainment Weekly", Owen Glieberman, who gave the film an A- rating, wrote:"Godzilla, an ancient beast roused from the ocean depths and irradiated by Japanese H-bomb tests, reduces Tokyo to a pile of ash, yet, like Kong, he grows more sympathetic as his rampage goes on. The characters talk about him not as an enemy but as a force of destiny, a "god". The inescapable subtext is that Japan, in some bizarre way, deserves this hell. Godzilla is pop culture's grandest symbol of nuclear apocalypse, but he is also the primordial spirit of Japanese aggression turned, with something like fate, against itself".
In the "Dallas Observer", Luke Y. Thompson wrote:"A lot of people are likely to be surprised by what they see. The 1954 Japanese cut is shot like a classic film noir, and the buildup to Tokyo's inevitable thrashing is quite slow by today's standards. The echoes of World War II are very strong, and the devastation wrought by Godzilla (played by Haruo Nakajima) is not sugar-coated; it eerily mirrors that of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the deaths and injuries are dwelt upon. The monster himself is not fully revealed for quite a while, and even when he finally shows up, he's a malevolent black predator with glistening skin, who stays mostly in the shadows, many times more fearsome than the green-skinned cookie monster who showed up in the various sequels to layeth the smacketh down on the candyasses of numerous alien invaders in ugly leotards".
One of the few negative reviews was written by Roger Ebert in the "Chicago Sun-Times". Ebert admitted the film was an important one and ""properly decoded, was the Fahrenheit 9/11 of its time"", but he also said:"In these days of flawless special effects, Godzilla and the city he destroys are equally crude. Godzilla at times looks uncannily like a man in a lizard suit, stomping on cardboard sets, as indeed he was, and did. Other scenes show him as a stuffed, awkward animatronic model. This was not state-of-the-art even at the time; "King Kong" (1933) was much more convincing. When Dr. Serizawa demonstrates the Oxygen Destroyer to the fiancee of his son "", the superweapon is somewhat anticlimactic. He drops a pill into a tank of tropical fish, the tank lights up, he shouts "stand back!," the fiancee screams, and the fish go belly up. Yeah, that'll stop Godzilla in his tracks".
Since its release, "Godzilla" has been regarded not only as one of the best giant monster films ever made but an important cinematic achievement. The film was ranked No. 31 in "Empire" magazine's "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010. In 2015, "Variety" named it among the "10 Best Monster Movies of All-Time".
The film spawned a multimedia franchise consisting of 33 films in total, video games, books, comics, toys and other media. The "Godzilla" franchise has been recognized by "Guinness World Records" as being the longest running film franchise in history. Since his debut, "Godzilla" became an international pop culture icon, inspiring countless rip-offs, imitations, parodies and tributes. The 1954 film is also largely credited, because of Eiji Tsuburaya, for establishing the template for Tokusatsu, a technique of practical special effects filmmaking that would become essential in Japan's film industry since the release of "Godzilla". Critic and scholar Ryusuke Hikawa stated: "Disney created the template for American animation, In the same way, (special-effects studio) Tsubaraya created the template for the Japanese movie business. It was their use of cheap but craftsman-like approaches to movie-making that made tokusatsu unique." Steven Spielberg cited "Godzilla" as an inspiration for "Jurassic Park" (1993), specifically "Godzilla, King of the Monsters!" (1956), which he grew up watching.
While Godzilla was a villain in the original film, he was portrayed as a hero in later films, starting with "Ghidorah" (1964) up until the late 1970s. Due to this, along with his radioactive origins bearing similarities to Spider-Man (1962 debut), "Godzilla" is considered to be the first radioactive superhero origin story in retrospect.
In 1998, TriStar Pictures released a reimagining, titled "Godzilla", directed by Roland Emmerich. Emmerich wanted his "Godzilla" to have nothing to do with Toho's "Godzilla" but chose to retain key elements from the 1954 film, stating, "We took part of [the original movie’s] basic storyline, in that the creature becomes created by radiation and it becomes a big challenge. But that’s all we took." In 2014, Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures released a reboot, also titled "Godzilla", directed by Gareth Edwards. Edwards stated that his film was inspired by the 1954 film, and attempted to retain some of its themes, stating, "Godzilla is a metaphor for Hiroshima in the original movie. We tried to keep that, and there are a lot of themes from the '54 movie that we've kept." | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12004 |
The Return of Godzilla
"The Return of Godzilla" stars Ken Tanaka, Yasuko Sawaguchi, Yosuke Natsuki, and Keiju Kobayashi, with Kenpachiro Satsuma as Godzilla. The film serves as both a sequel to the original 1954 film and a reboot of the franchise that ignores the events of every Shōwa era film aside from the original "Godzilla", placing itself in line with the darker tone and themes of the original film and returning Godzilla to his destructive, antagonistic roots. The film was released theatrically in Japan on December 15, 1984. The following year, in the United States, New World Pictures released "Godzilla 1985", a heavily re-edited American adaptation of the film which includes additional footage, and features Raymond Burr reprising his role from the 1956 film "Godzilla, King of the Monsters!".
The Japanese fishing vessel "Yahata-Maru" is caught in strong currents off the shores of Daikoku Island. As the boat drifts into shore, the island begins to erupt, and a giant monster lifts itself out of the volcano. A few days later, reporter Goro Maki is sailing in the area and finds the vessel intact but deserted. As he explores the vessel, he finds all the crew dead except for Hiroshi Okumura, who has been badly wounded. Suddenly a giant "Shockirus" sea louse attacks him but he is saved by Okumura.
In Tokyo, Okumura realizes by looking at pictures that the monster he saw was a new Godzilla. Maki writes an article about the account, but the news of Godzilla's return is kept secret and his article is withheld. Maki visits Professor Hayashida, whose parents were lost in the 1954 Godzilla attack. Hayashida describes Godzilla as a living, invincible nuclear weapon able to cause mass destruction. At Hayashida's laboratory, Maki meets Okumura's sister, Naoko, and informs her that her brother is alive and at the police hospital.
A Soviet submarine is destroyed in the Pacific. The Soviets believe the attack was perpetrated by the Americans, and a diplomatic crisis ensues, which threatens to escalate into nuclear war. The Japanese intervene and reveal that Godzilla was behind the attacks. The Japanese cabinet meets to discuss Japan's defense. A new weapon is revealed, the Super X, a specially-armored flying fortress that will defend the capital. The Japanese military is put on alert.
Godzilla attacks the Ihama nuclear power plant in Shizuoka Prefecture. While feeding off the reactor, he is distracted by a flock of birds and leaves the facility. Hayashida believes that Godzilla was distracted instinctively by a homing signal from the birds. Hayashida, together with geologist Minami, propose to the Japanese Cabinet, that Godzilla could be lured back to Mount Mihara on Ōshima Island by a similar signal, and a volcanic eruption could be started, capturing Godzilla.
Prime Minister Mitamura meets with Soviet and American envoys and declares that nuclear weapons will not be used on Godzilla, even if he were to attack the Japanese mainland. Meanwhile, the Soviets have their own plans to counter the threat posed by Godzilla, and a Soviet control ship disguised as a freighter in Tokyo Harbor prepares to launch a nuclear missile from one of their orbiting satellites should Godzilla attack.
Godzilla is sighted at dawn in Tokyo Bay heading towards Tokyo, causing mass evacuations. The JASDF attacks Godzilla but fails to stop his advance on the city. Godzilla soon emerges and makes short work of the JSDF stationed there. The battle causes damage to the Soviet ship and starts a missile launch count-down. The captain dies as he attempts to stop the missile from launching. Godzilla proceeds towards Shinjuku, wreaking havoc along the way. There, he is confronted by four laser-armed trucks and the Super X. Because Godzilla's heart is similar to a nuclear reactor, the cadmium shells that are fired into his mouth by the Super X seal and slow down his heart, knocking him unconscious.
The countdown ends and the Soviet missile is launched, but it is destroyed by an American counter-missile. Hayashida and Okumura are extracted from Tokyo via helicopter and taken to Mt. Mihara to set up the homing device before the two missiles collide above Tokyo. The destruction of the nuclear missile produces an electrical storm and an EMP, which revives Godzilla once more and temporarily disables the Super X.
Godzilla and the Super X battle through the streets. Godzilla finally destroys the Super X and continues his rampage, until Hayashida uses the homing device to distract him. Godzilla leaves Tokyo and swims across Tokyo Bay, following the homing device to Mount Mihara. There, Godzilla follows the device and falls into the mouth of the volcano. Okumura activates detonators at the volcano, creating a controlled eruption that traps Godzilla inside.
After the box office failure of "Terror of Mechagodzilla", Toho attempted to reinvigorate the franchise several times during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The first attempt was the announcement of a color remake of the original 1954 film entitled "The Rebirth of Godzilla" in 1977, but the project was shelved. A year later, it was announced that Toho would develop a film jointly with UPA studios entitled "Godzilla vs. the Devil", though this, along with UPA producer Henry G. Saperstein's proposed "Godzilla vs. Gargantua", also never materialized.
"Godzilla" series creator Tomoyuki Tanaka took charge of reviving the franchise in 1979, Godzilla's 25th anniversary, intending to return the series to its dark, anti-nuclear roots in the wake of the Three Mile Island accident. Hoping to win back adult audiences alienated by the fantastical approach to "Godzilla" films taken during the 1970s, Tanaka was further encouraged in his vision by the contemporary success of adult-oriented horror and science fiction movies like "King Kong", "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", "Alien" and "The Thing". A draft story entitled "The Resurrection of Godzilla" was submitted by Akira Murao in 1980, and had Godzilla pitted against a shape-shifting monster called Bakan in the backdrop of an illegal nuclear waste disposal site, though the project was cancelled due to budgetary concerns. In 1983, American director Steve Miner proposed directing a "Godzilla" film at his own expense. Toho approved of the project, and Miner hired Fred Dekker to write the screenplay and paleosculptor Steve Czerkas to redesign the monster. The project was however hampered by Miner's insistence on using prohibitively costly stop-motion animation and shooting the film in 3D, and was thus rejected by major American movie studios. Under pressure from a 10,000-member group of Japanese "Godzilla" fans calling themselves the "Godzilla Resurrection Committee", Tanaka decided to helm a Japanese film for "strictly domestic consumption" to be released jointly alongside Miner's movie.
In an effort to disavow Godzilla's increasingly heroic and anthropomorphic depiction in previous films, Tanaka insisted on making a direct sequel to the original 1954 movie. He hired screenwriter Shuichi Nagahara, who wrote a screenplay combining elements of the previously cancelled "The Resurrection of Godzilla" and Miner's still unproduced film, including an intensification of hostilities during the Cold War and a flying fortress which fires missiles into Godzilla's mouth. Koji Hashimoto was hired as director after Ishirō Honda declined the offer, as he was assisting Akira Kurosawa with "Kagemusha" and "Ran", and felt that the franchise should have been discontinued after the death of Eiji Tsuburaya.
Composer Akira Ifukube was offered to score the film but respectfully declined. At the time, it was rumored that Ifukube refused to participate in the film due to the changes made to Godzilla, stating, "I do not write music for 80-meter monsters". However, this quote was later clarified, by Ifukube's biographer Erik Homenick and "Japanese Giants" editor Ed Godziszewski, as a joke spread by fans which was later misinterpreted as fact. Ifukube declined to score the film due to his priorities, at the time, teaching composition at the Tokyo College of Music.
The special effects were again directed by Teruyoshi Nakano, who had directed the special effects of several previous "Godzilla" films. The decision was made by Tanaka to increase the apparent height of Godzilla from to so that Godzilla would not be dwarfed by the contemporary skyline of Tokyo. This meant that the miniatures had to be built to a th scale, and this contributed to an increase in the budget of the film to $6.25 million. Tanaka and Nakano supervised suit-maker Noboyuki Yasumaru in constructing a new Godzilla design, incorporating ears and four toes, features not seen since "Godzilla Raids Again". Nakano insisted on infusing elements into the design that suggested sadness, such as downward-slanting eyes and sloping shoulders.
Suit construction took two months, and consisted of separately casting body-part molds with urethane on a pre-built, life-size statue of the final design. Yasumaru personally took charge of all phases of suit-building, unlike in previous productions wherein the different stages of suit-production were handled by different craftsmen. The final suit was constructed to accommodate stuntman Hiroshi Yamawaki, but he declined suddenly, and was replaced by veteran suit actor Kenpachiro Satsuma, who had portrayed Hedorah and Gigan in the Showa Era. Because the suit wasn't built to his measurements, Satsuma had difficulty performing, being able to last only ten minutes within it, and losing 12 pounds during filming. Hoping to avoid having Godzilla move in an overly human fashion, Nakano instructed Satsuma to base his actions on Noh, a traditional Japanese dance.
Taking inspiration from the publicity surrounding the 40-foot tall King Kong model from Dino De Laurentiis's 1976 film of the same name, Toho spent a reported $475,000 on a 16-foot high robotic Godzilla (dubbed "Cybot") for use in close-up shots of the creature's head. The Cybot consisted of a hydraulically-powered mechanical endoskeleton covered in urethane skin containing 3,000 computer operated parts which permitted it to tilt its head, and move its lips and arms. Unlike previous Godzilla suits, whose lower jaws consisted of wire-operated flaps, the Cybot's jaws were hinged like those of an actual animal, and slid back as they opened. A life-size, crane operated foot was also built for close-up shots of city destruction scenes.
"The Return of Godzilla" was released on December 15, 1984 in Japan where it was distributed by Toho. The film's budget was $6.25 million. It was a reasonable success in Japan, with attendance figures at approximately 3,200,000 admissions, and the box office gross being .
Despite its American re-edit receiving negative reviews, the original Japanese cut of the film has been much more well-received by critics and fans. In 1985, the film won the "Japan Academy Award" for Special Effects.
In May 2016, Kraken Releasing revealed plans to release the original Japanese version of "The Return of Godzilla" and its international English dub on DVD and Blu-ray in North America on September 13, 2016. However, it was also revealed that the Americanized version of the film, "Godzilla 1985" would not be featured in the release due to on-going copyright issues concerning music cues that New World Pictures borrowed from "Def-Con 4" for use in "Godzilla 1985".
Shortly after the film's completion, Toho's foreign sales division, Toho International Co., Ltd, had the film dubbed into English by an unidentified firm in Hong Kong. No cuts were made, though credits and other titles were accordingly rendered in English. The International English dub features the voice of news anchor and radio announcer John Culkin in the role of Goro Maki, and actor Barry Haigh as Prime Minister Mitamura. The English version fully dubs all dialogue into English, including that of the Soviet and American characters. The International English dub was released on VHS in the UK by Carlton Home Entertainment on July 24, 1998.
In 2016, the International English dub was included on the U.S. DVD and Blu-Ray releases from Kraken, though the audio mix was not the original monaural track that was originally heard on Toho's English language prints. The English dialogue was originally mixed with an alternate music and effects track that contained different music edits and sound effects from the Japanese theatrical version, most notably a distinct "cry" produced by Godzilla during the film's ending. The U.S. home video version instead uses the conventional music and effects track used for the regular Japanese version mixed in DTS 5.1 surround sound instead of mono.
After the film's lackluster performance in the Japanese box office and the ultimate shelving of Steve Miner's "Godzilla 3D" project, Toho decided to distribute the film overseas in order to regain lost profits. New World Pictures acquired "The Return of Godzilla" for distribution in North America, and changed the title to "Godzilla 1985", bringing back Raymond Burr in order to commemorate the 30th anniversary of "". Originally, New World reportedly planned to re-write the dialogue in order to turn the film into a tongue-in-cheek comedy starring Leslie Nielsen (à la "What's Up, Tiger Lily?"), but this plan was reportedly scrapped because Raymond Burr expressed displeasure at the idea, taking the idea of Godzilla as a nuclear metaphor seriously. The only dialogue left over from that script was "That's quite an urban renewal program they've got going on over there," said by Major McDonahue. All of Burr's scenes were filmed in one day to suit his schedule. He was paid US$50,000. The reverse shots, of the actors he was speaking to, were filmed the next day, and the American filming was completed in three days. One of the most controversial changes done on the film was having Soviet Colonel Kashirin deliberately launch the nuclear missile rather than die in attempting to prevent its launch. Director R. J. Kizer later attributed this to New World's management's conservative leanings.
The newly edited film also contained numerous product placements for Dr Pepper, which had twice used Godzilla in its commercials. Dr Pepper's marketing director at one point insisted that Raymond Burr drink Dr Pepper during a scene, and the suggestion was put to the actor by Kizer. Burr reportedly responded by "[fixing] me with one of those withering glares and just said nothing."
Roger Ebert and Vincent Canby gave the film negative reviews. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12005 |
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (; ; 19 May 1762 – 29 January 1814) was a German philosopher who became a founding figure of the philosophical movement known as German idealism, which developed from the theoretical and ethical writings of Immanuel Kant. Recently, philosophers and scholars have begun to appreciate Fichte as an important philosopher in his own right due to his original insights into the nature of self-consciousness or self-awareness. Fichte was also the originator of "thesis–antithesis–synthesis", an idea that is often erroneously attributed to Hegel. Like Descartes and Kant before him, Fichte was motivated by the problem of subjectivity and consciousness. Fichte also wrote works of political philosophy; he has a reputation as one of the fathers of German nationalism.
Fichte was born in Rammenau, Upper Lusatia. The son of a ribbon weaver, he came of peasant stock which had lived in the region for many generations. The family was noted in the neighborhood for its probity and piety. Christian Fichte, Johann Gottlieb's father, married somewhat above his station. It has been suggested that a certain impatience which Fichte himself displayed throughout his life was an inheritance from his mother.
He received the rudiments of his education from his father. He showed remarkable ability from an early age, and it was owing to his reputation among the villagers that he gained the opportunity for a better education than he otherwise would have received. The story runs that the Freiherr von Militz, a country landowner, arrived too late to hear the local pastor preach. He was, however, informed that a lad in the neighborhood would be able to repeat the sermon almost "verbatim". As a result, the baron took the lad into his protection, which meant that he paid his tuition.
Fichte was placed in the family of Pastor Krebel at Niederau near Meissen, and there received a thorough grounding in the classics. From this time onward, Fichte saw little of his parents. In October 1774, he was attending the celebrated foundation-school at Pforta near Naumburg. This school is associated with the names of Novalis, August Wilhelm Schlegel, Friedrich Schlegel and Nietzsche. The spirit of the institution was semi-monastic and, while the education given was excellent in its way, it is doubtful whether there was enough social life and contact with the world for a pupil of Fichte's temperament and antecedents. Perhaps his education strengthened a tendency toward introspection and independence, characteristics which appear strongly in his doctrines and writings.
In 1780, he began study at the theology seminary of the University of Jena. He was transferred a year later to study at the Leipzig University. Fichte seems to have supported himself at this period of bitter poverty and hard struggle. Freiherr von Militz continued to support him, but when he died in 1784, Fichte had to end his studies prematurely, without completing his degree.
During the years 1784 to 1788, he supported himself in a precarious way as tutor in various Saxon families. In early 1788, he returned to Leipzig in the hope of finding a better employment, but eventually he had to settle for a much less promising position with the family of an innkeeper in Zurich. He lived in Zurich for the next two years (1788–1790), which was a time of great contentment for him. There he met his future wife, Johanna Rahn, and Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi. There he also became, in 1793, a member of the Freemasonry lodge "Modestia cum Libertate" with which Johann Wolfgang Goethe was also connected. In the spring of 1790, he became engaged to Johanna. Fichte began to study the works of Kant in the summer of 1790, but this occurred initially because one of his students wanted to know about them. They had a lasting effect on the trajectory of his life and thought. While he was assimilating the Kantian philosophy and preparing to develop it, fate dealt him a blow: the Rahn family had suffered financial reverses, and his impending marriage had to be postponed.
From Zurich, Fichte returned to Leipzig in May 1790. In the spring of 1791, he obtained a tutorship at Warsaw in the house of a Polish nobleman. The situation, however, quickly proved disagreeable and he was released. He then got a chance to see Kant at Königsberg. After a disappointing interview on July 4 of the same year, he shut himself in his lodgings and threw all his energies into the composition of an essay which would compel Kant's attention and interest. This essay, completed in five weeks, was the "Versuch einer Critik aller Offenbarung" ("Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation", 1792). In this book, according to Henrich, Fichte investigated the connections between divine revelation and Kant's critical philosophy. The first edition of the book was published without Kant's or Fichte's knowledge, moreover without Fichte's name or signed preface. It was thus mistakenly thought to be a new work by Kant himself.
Reviews were assuming Kant was the author when Kant cleared the confusion and openly praised the work and author. Fichte's reputation skyrocketed as many intellectuals of the day were of the opinion that it was "the most shocking and astonishing news... [since] nobody but Kant could have written this book. This amazing news of a third sun in the philosophical heavens has set me into such confusion". Karl Popper considers the book as essentially "a fraud" which though rather boring cleverly imitated Kant's style and that the rumours that Kant himself had written the book to be contrived. Kant waited seven years to make public statement about the incident; after considerable external pressure he dissociated himself from Fichte. In his statement, he inscribed, "May God protect us from our friends. From our enemies, we can try to protect ourselves."
In October 1793, he was married in Zurich, where he remained the rest of the year. Stirred by the events and principles of the French Revolution, he wrote and anonymously published two pamphlets which led to him being seen as a devoted defender of liberty of thought and action and an advocate of political changes. In December of the same year, he received an invitation to fill the position of extraordinary professor of philosophy at the University of Jena. He accepted and began his lectures in May of the next year. With extraordinary zeal, he expounded his system of "transcendental idealism". His success was immediate. He seems to have excelled as a lecturer because of the earnestness and force of his personality. These lectures were later published under the title "The Vocation of the Scholar" ("Einige Vorlesungen über die Bestimmung des Gelehrten"). He gave himself up to intense production, and a succession of works soon appeared.
After weathering a couple of academic storms, he was finally dismissed from Jena in 1799 as a result of a charge of atheism. He was accused of this in 1798, after publishing his essay "Ueber den Grund unsers Glaubens an eine göttliche Weltregierung" ("On the Ground of Our Belief in a Divine World-Governance"), which he had written in response to Friedrich Karl Forberg's essay "Development of the Concept of Religion", in his "Philosophical Journal". For Fichte, God should be conceived primarily in moral terms: "The living and efficaciously acting moral order is itself God. We require no other God, nor can we grasp any other" ("On the Ground of Our Belief in a Divine World-Governance"). Fichte's intemperate "Appeal to the Public" ("Appellation an das Publikum", 1799) provoked F. H. Jacobi to publish an open letter to him, in which he equated philosophy in general and Fichte's transcendental philosophy in particular with nihilism.
Since all the German states except Prussia had joined in the cry against Fichte, he was forced to go to Berlin. There he associated himself with the Schlegels, Schleiermacher, Schelling and Tieck. In April 1800, through the introduction of Hungarian writer Ignaz Aurelius Fessler, he was initiated into Freemasonry in the Lodge Pythagoras of the Blazing Star where he was elected minor warden. At first Fichte was a warm admirer of Fessler, and was disposed to aid him in his proposed Masonic reform. But later he became Fessler's bitter opponent. Their controversy attracted much attention among Freemasons. Fichte presented two lectures on the philosophy of Masonry during the same period as part of his work on the development of various higher degrees for the lodge in Berlin. A certain Johann Karl Christian Fischer, a high official of the Grand Orient, published those lectures in 1802/03 in two volumes under the title "Philosophy of Freemasonry: Letters to Konstant" ("Philosophie der Maurerei. Briefe an Konstant"), where Konstant referred to a fictitious non-Mason.
In November 1800, Fichte published "The Closed Commercial State: A Philosophical Sketch as an Appendix to the Doctrine of Right and an Example of a Future Politics" ("Der geschlossene Handelsstaat. Ein philosophischer Entwurf als Anhang zur Rechtslehre und Probe einer künftig zu liefernden Politik"), a philosophical statement of his property theory, a historical analysis of European economic relations, and a political proposal for reforming them. In 1805, he was appointed to a professorship at the University of Erlangen. The Battle of Jena-Auerstedt in 1806, in which Napoleon completely crushed the Prussian army, drove him to Königsberg for a time, but he returned to Berlin in 1807 and continued his literary activity.
After the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire, where German southern principalities resigned as member states and became part of a French protectorship, Fichte delivered the famous "Addresses to the German Nation" ("Reden an die deutsche Nation", 1807-1808) which attempted to define the German Nation, and guided the uprising against Napoleon. He became a professor at the new University of Berlin, founded in 1810. By the votes of his colleagues Fichte was unanimously elected its rector in the succeeding year. But, once more, his impetuosity and reforming zeal led to friction, and he resigned in 1812. The campaign against Napoleon began, and the hospitals at Berlin were soon full of patients. Fichte's wife devoted herself to nursing and caught a virulent fever. Just as she was recovering, he himself was stricken down. He died of typhus at the age of 51.
His son, Immanuel Hermann Fichte (18 July 1796 – 8 August 1879), also made contributions to philosophy.
Fichte's critics argued that his mimicry of Kant's difficult style produced works that were barely intelligible. "He made no hesitation in pluming himself on his great skill in the shadowy and obscure, by often remarking to his pupils, that 'there was only one man in the world who could fully understand his writings; and even he was often at a loss to seize upon his real meaning. On the other hand, Fichte himself acknowledged the difficulty of his writings, but argued that his works were clear and transparent to those who made the effort to think without preconceptions and prejudices.
Fichte did not endorse Kant's argument for the existence of noumena, of "things in themselves", the supra-sensible reality beyond the categories of direct human perception. Fichte saw the rigorous and systematic separation of "things in themselves" (noumena) and things "as they appear to us" (phenomena) as an invitation to skepticism. Rather than invite such skepticism, Fichte made the radical suggestion that we should throw out the notion of a noumenal world and instead accept the fact that consciousness does not have a grounding in a so-called "real world". In fact, Fichte achieved fame for originating the argument that consciousness is not grounded in outside of itself. The phenomenal world as such, arises from self-consciousness; the activity of the ego; and moral awareness. His student (and critic), Arthur Schopenhauer, wrote:
Søren Kierkegaard was also a student of the writings of Fichte:
In his work "Foundations of Natural Right" (1797), Fichte argued that self-consciousness was a social phenomenon — an important step and perhaps the first clear step taken in this direction by modern philosophy. A necessary condition of every subject's self-awareness, for Fichte, is the existence of other rational subjects. These others call or summon ("fordern auf") the subject or self out of its unconsciousness and into an awareness of itself as a free individual.
Fichte's account proceeds from the general principle that the I ("das Ich") must posit itself as an individual in order to posit ("setzen") itself at all, and that in order to posit itself as an individual it must recognize itself as it were to a calling or summons ("Aufforderung") by other free individual(s) — called, moreover, to limit its own freedom out of respect for the freedom of the other. The same condition applied and applies, of course, to the other(s) in its development. Hence, mutual recognition ("gegenseitig anerkennen") of rational individuals turns out to be a condition necessary for the individual I in general. This argument for intersubjectivity is central to the conception of selfhood developed in the "Foundations of the Science of Knowledge" ("Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre", 1794/1795).
In Fichte's view consciousness of the self depends upon resistance or a check by something that is understood as not part of the self yet is not immediately ascribable to a particular sensory perception. In his later 1796–99 lectures (his "Nova methodo"), Fichte incorporated it into his revised presentation of the very foundations of his system, where the summons takes its place alongside original feeling, which takes the place of the earlier "Anstoss" (see below) as both a limit upon the absolute freedom of the I and a condition for the positing of the same.
The I itself posits this situation for itself. To posit does not mean to 'create' the objects of consciousness. The principle in question simply states that the essence of an I lies in the assertion of one's own self-identity, i.e., that consciousness presupposes self-consciousness. Such immediate self-identity, however, cannot be understood as a psychological fact, nor as an act or accident of some previously existing substance or being. It is an action of the I, but one that is identical with the very existence of this same I. In Fichte's technical terminology, the original unity of self-consciousness is to be understood both as an action and as the product of the same I, as a "fact and/or act" ("Thathandlung"; Modern German: "Tathandlung"), a unity that is presupposed by and contained within every fact and every act of empirical consciousness, although it never appears as such therein.
The I must posit itself in order to be an I at all; but it can posit itself only insofar as it posits itself as limited. Moreover, it cannot even posit for itself its own limitations, in the sense of producing or creating these limits. The finite I cannot be the ground of its own passivity. Instead, for Fichte, if the I is to posit itself off at all, it must simply discover itself to be limited, a discovery that Fichte characterizes as an "impulse," "repulse," or "resistance" ("Anstoss"; Modern German: "Anstoß") to the free practical activity of the I. Such an original limitation of the I is, however, a limit for the I only insofar as the I posits it out as a limit. The I does this, according to Fichte's analysis, by positing its own limitation, first, as only a feeling, then as a sensation, then as an intuition of a thing, and finally as a summons of another person.
The "Anstoss" thus provides the essential impetus that first posits in motion the entire complex train of activities that finally result in our conscious experience both of ourselves and others as empirical individuals and of the world around us. Although "Anstoss" plays a similar role as the thing in itself does in Kantian philosophy, unlike Kant, Fichte's "Anstoss" is not something foreign to the I. Instead, it denotes the original encounter of the I with its own finitude. Rather than claim that the not-I ("das Nicht-Ich") is the cause or ground of the "Anstoss", Fichte argues that not-I is posited by the I precisely in order to explain to itself the "Anstoss", that is, in order to become conscious of "Anstoss". The "Wissenschaftslehre" demonstrates that such an "Anstoss" must occur if self-consciousness is to come about but is unable to deduce or to explain the actual occurrence of such an "Anstoss" — except as a condition for the possibility of consciousness. Accordingly, there are strict limits to what can be expected from any a priori deduction of experience, and this limitation, for Fichte, equally applies to Kant's transcendental philosophy. According to Fichte, transcendental philosophy can explain that the world must have space, time, and causality, but it can never explain why objects have the particular sensible properties they happen to have or why I am this determinate individual rather than another. This is something that the I simply has to discover at the same time that it discovers its own freedom, and indeed, as a condition for the latter.
Dieter Henrich (1966) proposed that Fichte was able to move beyond a "reflective theory of consciousness". According to Fichte, the self must already have some prior acquaintance with itself, independent of the act of reflection ("no object comes to consciousness except under the condition that I am aware of myself, the conscious subject ["jedes Object kommt zum Bewusstseyn lediglich unter der Bedingung, dass ich auch meiner selbst, des bewusstseyenden Subjects mir bewusst sey"]"). This idea is what Henrich called Fichte's original insight.
Between December 1807 and March 1808, Fichte gave a series of lectures concerning the "German nation" and its culture and language, projecting the kind of national education he hoped would raise it from the humiliation of its defeat at the hands of the French. Having been a supporter of Revolutionary France, Fichte became disenchanted by 1804 as Napoleon's armies advanced through Europe, occupying German territories, stripping them of their raw materials and subjugating them to foreign rule. Consequently, Fichte came to believe Germany would be responsible to carry the virtues of the French Revolution into the future. Furthermore, his nationalism was not aroused by Prussian military defeat and humiliation, for these had not yet occurred, but resulted from devotion to his own humanitarian philosophy. Through disappointment in the French he turned to the German nation as the instrument of fulfilling it.
These lectures, entitled the "Addresses to the German Nation", coincided with a period of reform in the Prussian government, under the chancellorship of Baron vom Stein. The "Addresses" display Fichte's interest during that period in language and culture as vehicles of human spiritual development. Fichte built upon the earlier ideas of Johann Gottfried Herder and attempted to unite them with his more systematic approach. The aim of the German nation, according to Fichte, was to "found an empire of spirit and reason, and to annihilate completely the crude physical force that rules of the world." Like Herder's German nationalism, Fichte's was wholly cultural, and grounded in the aesthetic, literary, and moral.
The nationalism propounded by Fichte in the "Addresses" would be appealed to over a century later by the Nazi Party in Germany, which sought in Fichte a forerunner to its own nationalist ideology. Like Nietzsche, the association of Fichte with the Nazi regime came to colour readings of Fichte's German nationalism in the post-war period. This reading of Fichte was often bolstered through reference to an unpublished letter from 1793, "Contributions to the Correction of the Public's Judgment concerning the French Revolution", wherein Fichte expressed anti-semitic sentiments, such as arguing against extending civil rights to Jews and calling them a "state within a state" that could "undermine" the German nation.
However, attached to the letter is a footnote in which Fichte provides an impassioned plea for permitting Jews to practice their religion without hindrance. Furthermore, the final act of Fichte's academic career was to resign as rector of the University of Berlin in protest when his colleagues refused to punish the harassment of Jewish students. While recent scholarship has sought to dissociate Fichte's writings on nationalism with his adoption by the Nazi Party, the association continues to blight his legacy, although Fichte, as if to exclude all ground of doubt, clearly and distinctly prohibits, in his reworked version of "The Science of Ethics as Based on the Science of Knowledge" (see § Final period in Berlin) genocide and other crimes against humanity:
Fichte tried to argue that "active citizenship, civic freedom and even property rights should be withheld from women, whose calling was to subject themselves utterly to the authority of their fathers and husbands."
Fichte gave a wide range of public and private lectures in Berlin from the last decade of his life. These form some of his best known work, and are the basis of a revived German-speaking scholarly interest in his work.
The lectures include two works from 1806. In "The Characteristics of the Present Age" ("Die Grundzüge des gegenwärtigen Zeitalters"), Fichte outlines his theory of different historical and cultural epochs. His mystic work "The Way Towards the Blessed Life" ("Die Anweisung zum seligen Leben oder auch die Religionslehre") gave his fullest thoughts on religion. In 1807-1808 he gave a series of speeches in French-occupied Berlin, "Addresses to the German Nation".
In 1810, the new University of Berlin was set up, designed along lines put forward by Wilhelm von Humboldt. Fichte was made its rector and also the first Chair of Philosophy. This was in part because of educational themes in the "Addresses", and in part because of his earlier work at Jena University.
Fichte lectured on further versions of his "Wissenschaftslehre". Of these, he only published a brief work from 1810, "The Science of Knowledge in its General Outline" ("Die Wissenschaftslehre, in ihrem allgemeinen Umrisse dargestellt"; also translated as "Outline of the Doctrine of Knowledge"). His son published some of these thirty years after his death. Most only became public in the last decades of the twentieth century, in his collected works. This included reworked versions of the "Doctrine of Science" ("Wissenschaftslehre", 1810–1813), "The Science of Rights" ("Das System der Rechtslehre", 1812), and "The Science of Ethics as Based on the Science of Knowledge" ("Das System der Sittenlehre nach den Principien der Wissenschaftslehre", 1812; 1st ed. 1798).
The new standard edition of Fichte's works in German, which supersedes all previous editions, is the "Gesamtausgabe" ("Collected Works" or "Complete Edition", commonly abbreviated as "GA"), prepared by the Bavarian Academy of Sciences: "Gesamtausgabe der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften", 42 volumes, edited by , Hans Gliwitzky, Erich Fuchs and Peter Schneider, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1962–2012.
It is organized into four parts:
Fichte's works are quoted and cited from "GA", followed by a combination of Roman and Arabic numbers, indicating the series and volume, respectively, and the page number(s).
Another edition is "Johann Gottlieb Fichtes sämmtliche Werke" (abbrev. "SW"), ed. I. H. Fichte. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1971. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12007 |
Great Lakes
The Great Lakes (), or the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of interconnected freshwater lakes in the upper mid-east part of North America, on the Canada–United States border, that connect to the Atlantic Ocean through the Saint Lawrence River. They comprise lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario. Hydrologically, there are only four lakes, because lakes Michigan and Huron join at the Straits of Mackinac. The lakes form the Great Lakes Waterway.
The Great Lakes are the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total area, and second-largest by total volume, containing 21% of the world's surface fresh water by volume. The total surface is , and the total volume (measured at the low water datum) is , slightly less than the volume of Lake Baikal (, 22–23% of the world's surface fresh water). Due to their sea-like characteristics (rolling waves, sustained winds, strong currents, great depths, and distant horizons) the five Great Lakes have also long been referred to as "inland seas". Lake Superior is the second-largest lake in the world by area, and the largest freshwater lake by surface area. Lake Michigan is the largest lake that is entirely within one country.
The Great Lakes began to form at the end of the last glacial period around 14,000 years ago, as retreating ice sheets exposed the basins they had carved into the land which then filled with meltwater. The lakes have been a major source for transportation, migration, trade, and fishing, serving as a habitat to many aquatic species in a region with much biodiversity.
The surrounding region is called the Great Lakes region, which includes the Great Lakes Megalopolis.
Though the five lakes lie in separate basins, they form a single, naturally interconnected body of fresh water, within the Great Lakes Basin. They form a chain connecting the east-central interior of North America to the Atlantic Ocean. From the interior to the outlet at the Saint Lawrence River, water flows from Superior to Huron and Michigan, southward to Erie, and finally northward to Lake Ontario. The lakes drain a large watershed via many rivers, and are studded with approximately 35,000 islands. There are also several thousand smaller lakes, often called "inland lakes", within the basin. The surface area of the five primary lakes combined is roughly equal to the size of the United Kingdom, while the surface area of the entire basin (the lakes and the land they drain) is about the size of the UK and France combined. Lake Michigan is the only one of the Great Lakes that is entirely within the United States; the others form a water boundary between the United States and Canada. The lakes are divided among the jurisdictions of the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. Both the province of Ontario and the state of Michigan include in their boundaries portions of four of the lakes: The province of Ontario does not border Lake Michigan, and the state of Michigan does not border Lake Ontario. New York and Wisconsin's jurisdictions extend into two lakes, and each of the remaining states into one of the lakes.
As the surfaces of Lakes Superior, Huron, Michigan, and Erie are all approximately the same elevation above sea level, while Lake Ontario is significantly lower, and because the Niagara Escarpment precludes all natural navigation, the four upper lakes are commonly called the "upper great lakes". This designation is not universal. Those living on the shore of Lake Superior often refer to all the other lakes as "the lower lakes", because they are farther south. Sailors of bulk freighters transferring cargoes from Lake Superior and northern Lake Michigan and Lake Huron to ports on Lake Erie or Ontario commonly refer to the latter as the lower lakes and Lakes Michigan, Huron, and Superior as the upper lakes. This corresponds to thinking of lakes Erie and Ontario as "down south" and the others as "up north". Vessels sailing north on Lake Michigan are considered "upbound" even though they are sailing toward its effluent current.
Lakes Huron and Michigan are sometimes considered a single lake, called Lake Michigan–Huron, because they are one hydrological body of water connected by the Straits of Mackinac. The straits are wide and deep; the water levels rise and fall together, and the flow between Michigan and Huron frequently reverses direction.
Dispersed throughout the Great Lakes are approximately 35,000 islands. The largest among them is Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron, the largest island in any inland body of water in the world. The second-largest island is Isle Royale in Lake Superior. Both of these islands are large enough to contain multiple lakes themselves—for instance, Manitoulin Island's Lake Manitou is the world's largest lake on a freshwater island. Some of these lakes even have their own islands, like Treasure Island in Lake Mindemoya in Manitoulin Island
The Great Lakes also have several peninsulas between them, including the Door Peninsula, the Peninsulas of Michigan, and the Ontario Peninsula. Some of these peninsulas even contain smaller peninsulas, such as the Keweenaw Peninsula, the Thumb Peninsula, the Bruce Peninsula, and the Niagara Peninsula. Population centers on the peninsulas include Grand Rapids and Detroit in Michigan along with London, Hamilton, Brantford, and Toronto in Ontario.
Although the Saint Lawrence Seaway and Great Lakes Waterway make the Great Lakes accessible to ocean-going vessels, shifts in shipping to wider ocean-going container ships—which do not fit through the locks on these routes—have limited container shipping on the lakes. Most Great Lakes trade is of bulk material, and bulk freighters of Seawaymax-size or less can move throughout the entire lakes and out to the Atlantic. Larger ships are confined to working in the lakes themselves. Only barges can access the Illinois Waterway system providing access to the Gulf of Mexico via the Mississippi River. Despite their vast size, large sections of the Great Lakes freeze over in winter, interrupting most shipping from January to March. Some icebreakers ply the lakes, keeping the shipping lanes open through other periods of ice on the lakes.
The Great Lakes are also connected by the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal to the Gulf of Mexico by way of the Illinois River (from the Chicago River) and the Mississippi River. An alternate track is via the Illinois River (from Chicago), to the Mississippi, up the Ohio, and then through the Tennessee–Tombigbee Waterway (a combination of a series of rivers and lakes and canals), to Mobile Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. Commercial tug-and-barge traffic on these waterways is heavy.
Pleasure boats can also enter or exit the Great Lakes by way of the Erie Canal and Hudson River in New York. The Erie Canal connects to the Great Lakes at the east end of Lake Erie (at Buffalo, New York) and at the south side of Lake Ontario (at Oswego, New York).
In 2009, the lakes contained 84% of the surface freshwater of North America; if the water were evenly distributed over the entire continent's land area, it would reach a depth of 5 feet (1.5 meters). The source of water levels in the lakes is tied to what was left by melting glaciers when the lakes took their present form. Annually, only about 1% is "new" water originating from rivers, precipitation, and groundwater springs that drain into the lakes. Historically, evaporation has been balanced by drainage, making the level of the lakes constant.
Intensive human population growth only began in the region in the 20th century and continues today. At least two human water use activities have been identified as having the potential to affect the lakes' levels: diversion (the transfer of water to other watersheds) and consumption (substantially done today by the use of lake water to power and cool electric generation plants, resulting in evaporation).
The physical impacts of climate change can be seen in water levels in the Great Lakes over the past century. The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1997, years ago, predicted: "the following lake level declines could occur: Lake Superior −0.2 to −0.5 m, Lakes Michigan and Huron −1.0 to −2.5 m, and Lake Erie −0.9 to −1.9 m." In 2009, years ago, it was predicted that global warming will decrease water levels. In 2013, record low water levels in the Great Lakes were attributed to climate change.
The water level of Lake Michigan–Huron had remained fairly constant over the 20th century, but has nevertheless dropped more than 6 feet from the record high in 1986 to the low of 2013. In 2012, "National Geographic" tied the water level drop to warming climate change., as did the Natural Resources Defense Council. One newspaper reported that the long-term average level has gone down about 20 inches because of dredging and subsequent erosion in the St. Clair River. Lake Michigan–Huron hit all-time record low levels in 2013; according to the US Army Corps of Engineers, the previous record low had been set in 1964. By April 2015 the water level had recovered to 7 inches (17.5 cm) more than the "long term monthly average".
The Great Lakes contain 21% of the world's surface fresh water: , or 6.0×1015 U.S. gallons, that is 6 quadrillion U.S gallons, (2.3×1016 liters). This is enough water to cover the 48 contiguous U.S. states to a uniform depth of . Although the lakes contain a large percentage of the world's fresh water, the Great Lakes supply only a small portion of U.S. drinking water on a national basis.
The total surface area of the lakes is approximately —nearly the same size as the United Kingdom, and larger than the U.S. states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire combined.
The Great Lakes coast measures approximately ;, but the length of a coastline is impossible to measure exactly and is not a well-defined measure (see Coastline paradox). Of the total of shoreline, Canada borders approximately , while the remaining are bordered by the United States. Michigan has the longest shoreline of the United States, bordering roughly of shoreline, followed by Wisconsin (), New York (), and Ohio (). Traversing the shoreline of all the lakes would cover a distance roughly equivalent to travelling half-way around the world at the equator.
It has been estimated that the foundational geology that created the conditions shaping the present day upper Great Lakes was laid from 1.1 to 1.2 billion years ago, when two previously fused tectonic plates split apart and created the Midcontinent Rift, which crossed the Great Lakes Tectonic Zone. A valley was formed providing a basin that eventually became modern day Lake Superior. When a second fault line, the Saint Lawrence rift, formed approximately 570 million years ago, the basis for Lakes Ontario and Erie were created, along with what would become the Saint Lawrence River.
The Great Lakes are estimated to have been formed at the end of the last glacial period (the Wisconsin glaciation ended 10,000 to 12,000 years ago), when the Laurentide Ice Sheet receded. The retreat of the ice sheet left behind a large amount of meltwater (see Lake Algonquin, Lake Chicago, Glacial Lake Iroquois, and Champlain Sea) that filled up the basins that the glaciers had carved, thus creating the Great Lakes as we know them today. Because of the uneven nature of glacier erosion, some higher hills became Great Lakes islands. The Niagara Escarpment follows the contour of the Great Lakes between New York and Wisconsin. Land below the glaciers "rebounded" as it was uncovered. Since the glaciers covered some areas longer than others, this glacial rebound occurred at different rates.
A notable modern phenomenon is the formation of ice volcanoes over the lakes during wintertime. Storm-generated waves carve the lakes' ice sheet and create conical mounds through the eruption of water and slush. The process is only well-documented in the Great Lakes, and has been credited with sparing the southern shorelines from worse rocky erosion.
The Great Lakes have a humid continental climate,
Köppen climate classification Dfa (in southern areas) and Dfb (in northern parts) with varying influences from air masses from other regions including dry, cold Arctic systems, mild Pacific air masses from the West, and warm, wet tropical systems from the south and the Gulf of Mexico. The lakes themselves also have a moderating effect on the climate; they can also increase precipitation totals and produce lake effect snowfall.
The Great Lakes can have an effect on regional weather called "lake-effect snow", which is sometimes very localized. Even late in winter, the lakes often have no icepack in the middle. The prevailing winds from the west pick up the air and moisture from the lake surface, which is slightly warmer in relation to the cold surface winds above. As the slightly warmer, moist air passes over the colder land surface, the moisture often produces concentrated, heavy snowfall that sets up in bands or "streamers". This is similar to the effect of warmer air dropping snow as it passes over mountain ranges. During freezing weather with high winds, the "snow belts" receive regular snow fall from this localized weather pattern, especially along the eastern shores of the lakes. Snow belts are found in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York, United States; and Ontario, Canada.
The lakes also moderate seasonal temperatures to some degree, but not with as large an influence as do large oceans; they absorb heat and cool the air in summer, then slowly radiate that heat in autumn. They protect against frost during transitional weather, and keep the summertime temperatures cooler than further inland. This effect can be very localized and overridden by offshore wind patterns. This temperature buffering produces areas known as "Fruit Belts", where fruit can be produced that is typically grown much farther south. For instance, Western Michigan has apple and cherry orchards, and vineyards cultivated adjacent to the lake shore as far north as the Grand Traverse Bay and Nottawasaga Bay in central Ontario. The eastern shore of Lake Michigan and the southern shore of Lake Erie have many successful wineries because of the moderating effect, as does the Niagara Peninsula between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. A similar phenomenon allows wineries to flourish in the Finger Lakes region of New York, as well as in Prince Edward County, Ontario on Lake Ontario's northeast shore. Related to the lake effect is the regular occurrence of fog over medium-sized areas, particularly along the shorelines of the lakes. This is most noticeable along Lake Superior's shores.
The Great Lakes have been observed to help intensify storms, such as Hurricane Hazel in 1954, and the 2011 Goderich, Ontario tornado, which moved onshore as a tornadic waterspout. In 1996 a rare tropical or subtropical storm was observed forming in Lake Huron, dubbed the 1996 Lake Huron cyclone. Rather large severe thunderstorms covering wide areas are well known in the Great Lakes during mid-summer; these Mesoscale convective complexes or MCCs can cause damage to wide swaths of forest and shatter glass in city buildings. These storms mainly occur during the night, and the systems sometimes have small embedded tornadoes, but more often straight-line winds accompanied by intense lightning.
Historically, the Great Lakes, in addition to their lake ecology, were surrounded by various forest ecoregions (except in a relatively small area of southeast Lake Michigan where savanna or prairie occasionally intruded). Logging, urbanization, and agriculture uses have changed that relationship. In the early 21st century, Lake Superior's shores are 91% forested, Lake Huron 68%, Lake Ontario 49%, Lake Michigan 41%, and Lake Erie, where logging and urbanization has been most extensive, 21%. Some of these forests are second or third growth (i.e. they have been logged before, changing their composition). At least 13 wildlife species are documented as becoming extinct since the arrival of Europeans, and many more are threatened or endangered. Meanwhile, exotic and invasive species have also been introduced.
While the organisms living on the bottom of shallow waters are similar to those found in smaller lakes, the deep waters contain organisms found only in deep, cold lakes of the northern latitudes. These include the delicate opossum shrimp (order mysida), the deepwater scud (a crustacean of the order amphipoda), two types of copepods, and the deepwater sculpin (a spiny, large-headed fish).
The Great Lakes are an important source of fishing. Early European settlers were astounded by both the variety and quantity of fish; there were 150 different species in the Great Lakes. Throughout history, fish populations were the early indicator of the condition of the Lakes and have remained one of the key indicators even in the current era of sophisticated analyses and measuring instruments. According to the bi-national (U.S. and Canadian) resource book, "The Great Lakes: An Environmental Atlas and Resource Book": "The largest Great Lakes fish harvests were recorded in 1889 and 1899 at some [147 million pounds]."
By 1801, the New York Legislature found it necessary to pass regulations curtailing obstructions to the natural migrations of Atlantic salmon from Lake Erie into their spawning channels. In the early 19th century, the government of Upper Canada found it necessary to introduce similar legislation prohibiting the use of weirs and nets at the mouths of Lake Ontario's tributaries. Other protective legislation was passed, as well, but enforcement remained difficult.
On both sides of the Canada–United States border, the proliferation of dams and impoundments have multiplied, necessitating more regulatory efforts. Concerns by the mid-19th century included obstructions in the rivers which prevented salmon and lake sturgeon from reaching their spawning grounds. The Wisconsin Fisheries Commission noted a reduction of roughly 25% in general fish harvests by 1875. The states have removed dams from rivers where necessary.
Overfishing has been cited as a possible reason for a decrease in population of various whitefish, important because of their culinary desirability and, hence, economic consequence. Moreover, between 1879 and 1899, reported whitefish harvests declined from some 24.3 million pounds (11 million kg) to just over 9 million pounds (4 million kg). By 1900, commercial fishermen on Lake Michigan were hauling in an average of 41 million pounds of fish annually. By 1938, Wisconsin's commercial fishing operations were motorized and mechanized, generating jobs for more than 2,000 workers, and hauling 14 million pounds per year. The population of giant freshwater mussels was eliminated as the mussels were harvested for use as buttons by early Great Lakes entrepreneurs. Since 2000, the invasive quagga mussel has smothered the bottom of Lake Michigan almost from shore to shore, and their numbers are estimated at 900 trillion.
The influx of parasitic lamprey populations after the development of the Erie Canal and the much later Welland Canal led to the two federal governments of the US and Canada working on joint proposals to control it. By the mid-1950s, the lake trout populations of Lakes Michigan and Huron were reduced, with the lamprey deemed largely to blame. This led to the launch of the bi-national Great Lakes Fishery Commission.
"The Great Lakes: An Environmental Atlas and Resource Book" (1972) noted: "Only pockets remain of the once large commercial fishery." But, water quality improvements realized during the 1970s and 1980s, combined with successful salmonid stocking programs, have enabled the growth of a large recreational fishery. The last commercial fisherman left Milwaukee in 2011 because of overfishing and anthropogenic changes to the biosphere.
Since the 19th century an estimated 160 new species have found their way into the Great Lakes ecosystem; many have become invasive; the overseas ship ballast and ship hull parasitism are causing severe economic and ecological impacts. According to the Inland Seas Education Association, on average a new species enters the Great Lakes every eight months.
Introductions into the Great Lakes include the zebra mussel, which was first discovered in 1988, and quagga mussel in 1989. The mollusks are efficient filter feeders, competing with native mussels and reducing available food and spawning grounds for fish. In addition, the mussels may be a nuisance to industries by clogging pipes. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that the economic impact of the zebra mussel could be about $5 billion over the next decade.
The alewife first entered the system west of Lake Ontario via 19th-century canals. By the 1960s, the small silver fish had become a familiar nuisance to beach goers across Lakes Michigan, Huron, and Erie. Periodic mass dieoffs result in vast numbers of the fish washing up on shore; estimates by various governments have placed the percentage of Lake Michigan's biomass, which was made up of alewives in the early 1960s, as high as 90%. In the late 1960s, the various state and federal governments began stocking several species of salmonids, including the native lake trout as well as non-native chinook and coho salmon; by the 1980s, alewife populations had dropped drastically. The ruffe, a small percid fish from Eurasia, became the most abundant fish species in Lake Superior's Saint Louis River within five years of its detection in 1986. Its range, which has expanded to Lake Huron, poses a significant threat to the lower lake fishery. Five years after first being observed in the St. Clair River, the round goby can now be found in all of the Great Lakes. The goby is considered undesirable for several reasons: it preys upon bottom-feeding fish, overruns optimal habitat, spawns multiple times a season, and can survive poor water quality conditions.
Several species of exotic water fleas have accidentally been introduced into the Great Lakes, such as the spiny waterflea, "Bythotrephes longimanus", and the fishhook waterflea, "Cercopagis pengoi", potentially having an effect on the zooplankton population. Several species of crayfish have also been introduced that may contend with native crayfish populations. More recently an electric fence has been set up across the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal in order to keep several species of invasive Asian carp out of the area. These fast-growing planktivorous fish have heavily colonized the Mississippi and Illinois river systems. The sea lamprey, which has been particularly damaging to the native lake trout population, is another example of a marine invasive species in the Great Lakes. Invasive species, particularly zebra and quagga mussels, may be at least partially responsible for the collapse of the deepwater demersal fish community in Lake Huron, as well as drastic unprecedented changes in the zooplankton community of the lake.
Scientists understand that the micro-aquatic life of the lakes is abundant, but know very little about some of the most plentiful microbes and their environmental effects in the Great Lakes. Although a drop of lake water may contain 1 million bacteria cells and 10 million viruses, only since 2012 has there been a long-term study of the lakes' micro-organisms. Between 2012 and 2019 more than 160 new species have been discovered.
Native habitats and ecoregions in the Great Lakes region include:
Plant lists include:
Logging
Logging of the extensive forests in the Great Lakes region removed riparian and adjacent tree cover over rivers and streams, which provide shade, moderating water temperatures in fish spawning grounds. Removal of trees also destabilized the soil, with greater volumes washed into stream beds causing siltation of gravel beds, and more frequent flooding.
Running cut logs down the tributary rivers into the Great Lakes also dislocated sediments. In 1884, the New York Fish Commission determined that the dumping of sawmill waste (chips and sawdust) had impacted fish populations.
The first U.S. Clean Water Act, passed by a Congressional override after being vetoed by US President Richard Nixon in 1972, was a key piece of legislation, along with the bi-national Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement signed by Canada and the U.S. A variety of steps taken to process industrial and municipal pollution discharges into the system greatly improved water quality by the 1980s, and Lake Erie in particular is significantly cleaner. Discharge of toxic substances has been sharply reduced. Federal and state regulations control substances like PCBs. The first of 43 "Great Lakes Areas of Concern" to be formally "de-listed" due to successful cleanup was Ontario's Collingwood Harbour in 1994; Ontario's Severn Sound followed in 2003. Presque Isle Bay in Pennsylvania is formally listed as in recovery, as is Ontario's Spanish Harbour. Dozens of other Areas of Concern have received partial cleanups such as the Rouge River (Michigan) and Waukegan Harbor (Illinois).
Phosphate detergents were historically a major source of nutrient to the Great Lakes algae blooms in particular in the warmer and shallower portions of the system such as Lake Erie, Saginaw Bay, Green Bay, and the southernmost portion of Lake Michigan. By the mid-1980s, most jurisdictions bordering the Great Lakes had controlled phosphate detergents, resulting in sharp reductions in the frequency and extent of the blooms.
Blue-green algae, or Cyanobacteria blooms, have been problematic on Lake Erie since 2011. "Not enough is being done to stop fertilizer and phosphorus from getting into the lake and causing blooms," said Michael McKay, executive director of the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research (GLIER) at the University of Windsor. The largest Lake Erie bloom to date occurred in 2015, exceeding the severity index at 10.5 and in 2011 at a 10. In early August 2019, satellite images depicted a bloom stretching up to 1,300 square kilometres on Lake Erie, with the heaviest concentration near Toledo, Ohio. A large bloom does not necessarily mean the cyanobacteria ... will produce toxins", said Michael McKay, of the University of Windsor. Water quality testing was underway in August 2019.
Until 1970, mercury was not listed as a harmful chemical, according to the United States Federal Water Quality Administration. Within the past ten years mercury has become more apparent in water tests. Mercury compounds have been used in paper mills to prevent slime from forming during their production, and chemical companies have used mercury to separate chlorine from brine solutions. Studies conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency have shown that when the mercury comes in contact with many of the bacteria and compounds in the fresh water, it forms the compound methyl mercury, which has a much greater impact on human health than elemental mercury due to a higher propensity for absorption. This form of mercury is not detrimental to a majority of fish types, but is very detrimental to people and other wildlife animals who consume the fish. Mercury has been known for health related problems such as birth defects in humans and animals, and the near extinction of eagles in the Great Lakes region.
The amount of raw sewage dumped into the waters was the primary focus of both the first Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement and federal laws passed in both countries during the 1970s. Implementation of secondary treatment of municipal sewage by major cities greatly reduced the routine discharge of untreated sewage during the 1970s and 1980s. The International Joint Commission in 2009 summarized the change: "Since the early 1970s, the level of treatment to reduce pollution from waste water discharges to the Great Lakes has improved considerably. This is a result of significant expenditures to date on both infrastructure and technology, and robust regulatory systems that have proven to be, on the whole, quite effective." The commission reported that all urban sewage treatment systems on the U.S. side of the lakes had implemented secondary treatment, as had all on the Canadian side except for five small systems.
Though contrary to federal laws in both countries, those treatment system upgrades have not yet eliminated Combined sewer Overflow events. This describes when older sewerage systems, which combine storm water with sewage into single sewers heading to the treatment plant, are temporarily overwhelmed by heavy rainstorms. Local sewage treatment authorities then must release untreated effluent, a mix of rainwater and sewage, into local water bodies. While enormous public investments such as the Deep Tunnel projects in Chicago and Milwaukee have greatly reduced the frequency and volume of these events, they have not been eliminated. The number of such overflow events in Ontario, for example, is flat according to the International Joint Commission. Reports about this issue on the U.S. side highlight five large municipal systems (those of Detroit, Cleveland, Buffalo, Milwaukee and Gary) as being the largest current periodic sources of untreated discharges into the Great Lakes.
Algae such as diatoms, along with other phytoplankton, are photosynthetic primary producers supporting the food web of the Great Lakes, and have been effected by global warming. The changes in the size or in the function of the primary producers may have a direct or an indirect impact on the food web. Photosynthesis carried out by diatoms comprises about one fifth of the total photosynthesis. By taking out of the water, to photosynthesize, diatoms help to stabilize the pH of the water, as otherwise would react with water making it more acidic.
Diatoms acquire inorganic carbon thought passive diffusion of and HCO3, as well they use carbonic anhydrase mediated active transport to speed up this process. Large diatoms require more carbon uptake than smaller diatoms. There is a positive correlation between the surface area and the chlorophyll concentration of diatom cells.
Several Native American populations (Paleo-indians) inhabited the region around 10,000 BC, after the end of the Wisconsin glaciation. The peoples of the Great Lakes traded with the Hopewell culture from around 1000 AD, as copper nuggets have been extracted from the region, and fashioned into ornaments and weapons in the mounds of Southern Ohio. The brigantine "Le Griffon", which was commissioned by René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, was built at Cayuga Creek, near the southern end of the Niagara River, and became the first known sailing ship to travel the upper Great Lakes on August 7, 1679.
The Rush–Bagot Treaty signed in 1818, after the War of 1812 and the later Treaty of Washington eventually led to a complete disarmament of naval vessels in the Great Lakes. Nonetheless, both nations maintain coast guard vessels in the Great Lakes.
During settlement, the Great Lakes and its rivers were the only practical means of moving people and freight. Barges from middle North America were able to reach the Atlantic Ocean from the Great Lakes when the Welland canal opened in 1824 and the later Erie Canal opened in 1825. By 1848, with the opening of the Illinois and Michigan Canal at Chicago, direct access to the Mississippi River was possible from the lakes. With these two canals an all-inland water route was provided between New York City and New Orleans.
The main business of many of the passenger lines in the 19th century was transporting immigrants. Many of the larger cities owe their existence to their position on the lakes as a freight destination as well as for being a magnet for immigrants. After railroads and surface roads developed, the freight and passenger businesses dwindled and, except for ferries and a few foreign cruise ships, have now vanished.
The immigration routes still have an effect today. Immigrants often formed their own communities and some areas have a pronounced ethnicity, such as Dutch, German, Polish, Finnish, and many others. Since many immigrants settled for a time in New England before moving westward, many areas on the U.S. side of the Great Lakes also have a New England feel, especially in home styles and accent.
Since general freight these days is transported by railroads and trucks, domestic ships mostly move bulk cargoes, such as iron ore, coal and limestone for the steel industry. The domestic bulk freight developed because of the nearby mines. It was more economical to transport the ingredients for steel to centralized plants rather than try to make steel on the spot. Grain exports are also a major cargo on the lakes.
In the 19th century and early 20th centuries, iron and other ores such as copper were shipped south on (downbound ships), and supplies, food, and coal were shipped north (upbound). Because of the location of the coal fields in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and the general northeast track of the Appalachian Mountains, railroads naturally developed shipping routes that went due north to ports such as Erie, Pennsylvania and Ashtabula, Ohio.
Because the lake maritime community largely developed independently, it has some distinctive vocabulary. Ships, no matter the size, are called "boats". When the sailing ships gave way to steamships, they were called "steamboats"—the same term used on the Mississippi. The ships also have a distinctive design (see Lake freighter). Ships that primarily trade on the lakes are known as "lakers". Foreign boats are known as "salties". One of the more common sights on the lakes has been since about 1950 the 1,000‑by‑105-foot (305-by-32-meter), self-unloader. This is a laker with a conveyor belt system that can unload itself by swinging a crane over the side. Today, the Great Lakes fleet is much smaller in numbers than it once was because of the increased use of overland freight, and a few larger ships replacing many small ones.
During World War II, the risk of submarine attacks against coastal training facilities motivated the United States Navy to operate two aircraft carriers on the Great Lakes, and . Both served as training ships to qualify naval aviators in carrier landing and takeoff. Lake Champlain briefly became the sixth Great Lake of the United States on March 6, 1998, when President Clinton signed Senate Bill 927. This bill, which reauthorized the National Sea Grant Program, contained a line declaring Lake Champlain to be a Great Lake. Not coincidentally, this status allows neighboring states to apply for additional federal research and education funds allocated to these national resources. Following a small uproar, the Senate voted to revoke the designation on March 24 (although New York and Vermont universities would continue to receive funds to monitor and study the lake).
In the early years of the 21st century, water levels in the Great Lakes were a concern. Researchers at the Mowat Centre said that low levels could cost $19bn by 2050.
Alan B. McCullough has written that the fishing industry of the Great Lakes got its start "on the American side of Lake Ontario in Chaumont Bay, near the Maumee River on Lake Erie, and on the Detroit River at about the time of the War of 1812." Although the region was sparsely populated until the 1830s, so there was not much local demand and transporting fish was still prohibitively costly, there were economic and infrastructure developments that were promising for the future of the fishing industry going into the 1830s. Particularly, the 1825 opening of the Erie Canal and the Welland Canal a few years later. The fishing industry expanded particularly in the waters associated with the fur trade that connect Lake Erie and Lake Huron. In fact, two major suppliers of fish in the 1830s were the fur trading companies Hudson's Bay Company and the American Fur Company.
The catch from these waters would be sent to the growing market for salted fish in Detroit, where merchants involved in the fur trade had already gained some experience handling salted fish. One such merchant was John P. Clark, a shipbuilder and merchant who began selling fish in the area of Manitowoc, Wisconsin where whitefish was abundant. Another operation cropped up in Georgian Bay, Canadian waters plentiful with trout as well as whitefish. In 1831, Alexander MacGregor from Goderich, Ontario found whitefish and herring in unusually abundant supply around the Fishing Islands. A contemporary account by Methodist missionary John Evans describes the fish as resembling a "bright cloud moving rapidly through the water".
Except when the water is frozen during winter, more than 100 lake freighters operate continuously on the Great Lakes, which remain a major water transport corridor for bulk goods. The Great Lakes Waterway connects all the lakes; the smaller Saint Lawrence Seaway connects the lakes to the Atlantic oceans. Some lake freighters are too large to use the Seaway, and operate only on the Waterway and lakes.
In 2002, 162 million net tons of dry bulk cargo were moved on the Lakes. This was, in order of volume: iron ore, grain and potash. The iron ore and much of the stone and coal are used in the steel industry. There is also some shipping of liquid and containerized cargo but most container ships cannot pass the locks on the Saint Lawrence Seaway because the ships are too wide.
Only four bridges are on the Great Lakes other than Lake Ontario because of the cost of building structures high enough for ships to pass under. The Blue Water Bridge is, for example, more than 150 feet high and more than a mile long.
Major ports on the Great Lakes include Duluth-Superior, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Twin Harbors, Hamilton and Thunder Bay.
The Great Lakes are used to supply drinking water to tens of millions of people in bordering areas. This valuable resource is collectively administered by the state and provincial governments adjacent to the lakes, who have agreed to the Great Lakes Compact to regulate water supply and use.
Tourism and recreation are major industries on the Great Lakes. A few small cruise ships operate on the Great Lakes including a couple of sailing ships. Sport fishing, commercial fishing, and Native American fishing represent a U.S.$4 billion a year industry with salmon, whitefish, smelt, lake trout, bass and walleye being major catches. Many other water sports are practiced on the lakes such as yachting, sea kayaking, diving, kitesurfing, powerboating, and lake surfing.
The Great Lakes Circle Tour is a designated scenic road system connecting all of the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence River.
From 1844 through 1857, palace steamers carried passengers and cargo around the Great Lakes. In the first half of the 20th century large luxurious passenger steamers sailed the lakes in opulence. The Detroit and Cleveland Navigation Company had several vessels at the time and hired workers from all walks of life to help operate these vessels. Several ferries currently operate on the Great Lakes to carry passengers to various islands, including Isle Royale, Drummond Island, Pelee Island, Mackinac Island, Beaver Island, Bois Blanc Island (Ontario), Bois Blanc Island (Michigan), Kelleys Island, South Bass Island, North Manitou Island, South Manitou Island, Harsens Island, Manitoulin Island, and the Toronto Islands. As of 2007, four car ferry services cross the Great Lakes, two on Lake Michigan: a steamer from Ludington, Michigan, to Manitowoc, Wisconsin, and a high speed catamaran from Milwaukee to Muskegon, Michigan, one on Lake Erie: a boat from Kingsville, Ontario, or Leamington, Ontario, to Pelee Island, Ontario, then onto Sandusky, Ohio, and one on Lake Huron: the M.S. "Chi-Cheemaun" runs between Tobermory and South Baymouth, Manitoulin Island, operated by the Owen Sound Transportation Company. An international ferry across Lake Ontario from Rochester, New York, to Toronto ran during 2004 and 2005, but is no longer in operation.
The large size of the Great Lakes increases the risk of water travel; storms and reefs are common threats. The lakes are prone to sudden and severe storms, in particular in the autumn, from late October until early December. Hundreds of ships have met their end on the lakes. The greatest concentration of shipwrecks lies near Thunder Bay (Michigan), beneath Lake Huron, near the point where eastbound and westbound shipping lanes converge.
The Lake Superior shipwreck coast from Grand Marais, Michigan, to Whitefish Point became known as the "Graveyard of the Great Lakes". More vessels have been lost in the Whitefish Point area than any other part of Lake Superior. The Whitefish Point Underwater Preserve serves as an underwater museum to protect the many shipwrecks in this area.
The first ship to sink in Lake Michigan was "Le Griffon", also the first ship to sail the Great Lakes. Caught in a 1679 storm while trading furs between Green Bay and Michilimacinac, she was lost with all hands aboard. Its wreck may have been found in 2004, but a wreck subsequently discovered in a different location was also claimed in 2014 to be "Le Griffon".
The largest and last major freighter wrecked on the lakes was the , which sank on November 10, 1975, just over offshore from Whitefish Point on Lake Superior. The largest loss of life in a shipwreck out on the lakes may have been that of , wrecked in 1860 with the loss of around 400 lives on Lake Michigan. In an incident at a Chicago dock in 1915, the rolled over while loading passengers, killing 841.
In August 2007, the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society announced that it had found the wreckage of "Cyprus", a long, century-old ore carrier. "Cyprus" sank during a Lake Superior storm on October 11, 1907, during its second voyage while hauling iron ore from Superior, Wisconsin, to Buffalo, New York. The entire crew of 23 drowned, except one, Charles Pitz, who floated on a life raft for almost seven hours.
In June 2008, deep sea divers in Lake Ontario found the wreck of the 1780 Royal Navy warship in what has been described as an "archaeological miracle". There are no plans to raise her as the site is being treated as a war grave.
In June 2010, "L.R. Doty" was found in Lake Michigan by an exploration diving team led by dive boat Captain Jitka Hanakova from her boat the Molly V. The ship sank in October 1898, probably attempting to rescue a small schooner, "Olive Jeanette", during a terrible storm.
Still missing are the two last warships to sink in the Great Lakes, the French minesweepers, "Inkerman" and "Cerisoles", which vanished in Lake Superior during a blizzard in 1918. 78 lives were lost making it the largest loss of life in Lake Superior and the greatest unexplained loss of life in the Great Lakes.
Related articles
In 1872, a treaty gave access to the St. Lawrence River to the United States, and access to Lake Michigan to the Dominion of Canada. The International Joint Commission was established in 1909 to help prevent and resolve disputes relating to the use and quality of boundary waters, and to advise Canada and the United States on questions related to water resources. Concerns over diversion of Lake water are of concern to both Americans and Canadians. Some water is diverted through the Chicago River to operate the Illinois Waterway but the flow is limited by treaty. Possible schemes for bottled water plants and diversion to dry regions of the continent raise concerns. Under the U.S. "Water Resources Development Act", diversion of water from the Great Lakes Basin requires the approval of all eight Great Lakes governors through the Great Lakes Commission, which rarely occurs. International treaties regulate large diversions.
In 1998, the Canadian company Nova Group won approval from the Province of Ontario to withdraw of Lake Superior water annually to ship by tanker to Asian countries. Public outcry forced the company to abandon the plan before it began. Since that time, the eight Great Lakes Governors and the Premiers of Ontario and Quebec have negotiated the Great Lakes-Saint Lawrence River Basin Sustainable Water Resources Agreement and the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact that would prevent most future diversion proposals and all long-distance ones. The agreements strengthen protection against abusive water withdrawal practices within the Great Lakes basin. On December 13, 2005, the Governors and Premiers signed these two agreements, the first of which is between all ten jurisdictions. It is somewhat more detailed and protective, though its legal strength has not yet been tested in court. The second, the Great Lakes Compact, has been approved by the state legislatures of all eight states that border the Great Lakes as well as the U.S. Congress, and was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 3, 2008.
The Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, described as "the largest investment in the Great Lakes in two decades", was funded at $475 million in the U.S. federal government's Fiscal Year 2011 budget, and $300 million in the Fiscal Year 2012 budget. Through the program a coalition of federal agencies is making grants to local and state entities for toxics cleanups, wetlands and coastline restoration projects, and invasive species-related projects. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12010 |
Girth (graph theory)
In graph theory, the girth of a graph is the length of a shortest cycle contained in the graph. If the graph does not contain any cycles (i.e. it's an acyclic graph), its girth is defined to be infinity.
For example, a 4-cycle (square) has girth 4. A grid has girth 4 as well, and a triangular mesh has girth 3. A graph with girth four or more is triangle-free.
A cubic graph (all vertices have degree three) of girth that is as small as possible is known as a -cage (or as a (3,)-cage). The Petersen graph is the unique 5-cage (it is the smallest cubic graph of girth 5), the Heawood graph is the unique 6-cage, the McGee graph is the unique 7-cage and the Tutte eight cage is the unique 8-cage. There may exist multiple cages for a given girth. For instance there are three nonisomorphic 10-cages, each with 70 vertices: the Balaban 10-cage, the Harries graph and the Harries–Wong graph.
For any positive integers and , there exists a graph with girth at least and chromatic number at least ; for instance, the Grötzsch graph is triangle-free and has chromatic number 4, and repeating the Mycielskian construction used to form the Grötzsch graph produces triangle-free graphs of arbitrarily large chromatic number. Paul Erdős was the first to prove the general result, using the probabilistic method. More precisely, he showed that a random graph on vertices, formed by choosing independently whether to include each edge with probability has, with probability tending to 1 as goes to infinity, at most cycles of length or less, but has no independent set of size Therefore, removing one vertex from each short cycle leaves a smaller graph with girth greater than in which each color class of a coloring must be small and which therefore requires at least colors in any coloring.
Explicit, though large, graphs with high girth and chromatic number can be constructed as certain Cayley graphs of linear groups over finite fields. These remarkable "Ramanujan graphs" also have large expansion coefficient.
The odd girth and even girth of a graph are the lengths of a shortest odd cycle and shortest even cycle respectively.
The circumference of a graph is the length of the "longest" (simple) cycle, rather than the shortest.
Thought of as the least length of a non-trivial cycle, the girth admits natural generalisations as the 1-systole or higher systoles in systolic geometry.
Girth is the dual concept to edge connectivity, in the sense that the girth of a planar graph is the edge connectivity of its dual graph, and vice versa. These concepts are unified in matroid theory by the girth of a matroid, the size of the smallest dependent set in the matroid. For a graphic matroid, the matroid girth equals the girth of the underlying graph, while for a co-graphic matroid it equals the edge connectivity. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12013 |
Gun safety
Gun safety rules and practice recommendations are intended to avoid accidental discharge or negligent discharge, or the consequences of firearm malfunctions. Their purpose is to eliminate or minimize the risks of unintentional death, injury or property damage caused by improper possession, storage or handling of firearms. There were 47,000 unintentional firearm deaths worldwide in 2013.
Gun safety training seeks to instill a certain mindset and appropriate habits by following specific rules. The mindset is that firearms are inherently dangerous and must always be stored carefully and handled with care. Handlers are taught to treat firearms with respect for their destructive capabilities, and strongly discouraged from playing or toying with firearms, a common cause of accidents. The rules of gun safety follow from this mindset.
In 1902, the English politician and game shooting enthusiast Mark Hanbury Beaufoy wrote some much-quoted verses on gun safety, including many salient points. His verses "A Father's Advice" begin with the following:
Ira L. Revees, in his 1913 book "The A B C of Rifle, Revolver and Pistol Shooting", stated the following:
Various version of the "Ten Commandments of Gun Safety" have been published. This one is from the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia:
Jeff Cooper, an influential figure in modern firearms training, formalized and popularized "Four Rules" of safe firearm handling. Prior lists of gun safety rules included as few as three basic safety rules or as many as ten rules including gun safety and sporting etiquette rules. In addition to Cooper, other influential teachers of gun safety include Massad Ayoob, Clint Smith, Chuck Taylor, Jim Crews, Bob Munden and Ignatius Piazza.
Jeff Cooper's Four Rules are:
The National Rifle Association provides a similar set of rules:
Project Appleseed provides similar rules for their rifle marksmanship clinics:
The Canadian Firearms Program uses the concept of The Four Firearm ACTS:
The United States Marine Corps uses the following four weapons safety rules:
Blank ammunition, which is a primed casing filled with gunpowder, either crimped or covered with a wad, is dangerous up to 15 feet. In the past, people have injured or killed themselves believing that blanks were not dangerous. Therefore, gun safety rules apply even to guns loaded with blanks.
This rule is a matter of keeping a vigilant mindset. The purpose is to create safe handling habits, and to discourage presumptive reasoning along the lines of, "I know my gun is unloaded so certain unsafe practices are OK". The proposition "the gun is "always" loaded" means that, even though it may be known that this is not true of a particular firearm, that knowledge is never trusted or relied upon until definitively proven. Thus even if the firearm turned out to be loaded when the handler thought it was not, treating it as loaded would avoid an "unintentional discharge", and if one should occur anyway, avoiding damage, injury or death.
Many firearm accidents result from the handler mistakenly "believing" a firearm is emptied, safetied, or otherwise disarmed when in fact it is ready to be discharged. Such misunderstandings can arise from a number of sources.
If a handler always treats firearms as capable of being discharged at any time, the handler is more likely to take precautions to prevent an unintentional discharge and to avoid damage or injury if one does occur.
Also known as muzzle discipline, this rule is intended to minimize the potential damage caused by an unintended discharge. While the first rule teaches that a firearm must be assumed to be ready to fire, this second rule goes beyond that and says, "Since the firearm "might" fire, assume that it "will" and make sure no harm occurs when it does."
A consequence of this rule is that any kind of playing or "toying" with firearms is prohibited. Playfully pointing firearms at people or other non-targets violates this rule and is possibly an extreme endangerment to life and/or property. To discourage this kind of behavior, the rule is sometimes alternately stated, "Never point a firearm at anything unless you intend to destroy it."
Two natural "safe" directions to point the muzzle are up (at the sky) and down (at the ground). Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Firing at the ground may result in a ricochet or cause hazardous fragments to be flung at people or objects. Aiming upward eliminates this risk but replaces it with the risk that the bullet may cause damage when it comes down to the ground again. A bullet fired straight up only returns at the terminal velocity of the bullet. However, a bullet fired at an angle not perfectly vertical will retain its spin and ballistic stability on the way down and can attain much more lethal speeds. Several accidents have reportedly been caused by discharging firearms into the air; although the evidence in a few such cases has been disputed, a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found 43 likely cases of injury from falling bullets during 2004 New Year celebrations in Puerto Rico. It is also possible that the muzzle will inadvertently be pointed at a non-target such as someone's head or an aircraft.
In cases where the firearm is being handled indoors, up and down may not be safe directions. For example, a bullet fired upward or downward may travel through the ceiling, floor and plenum between adjacent floors of a multi-story building. In indoor areas where firearms will be handled often, a suitably safe direction should be designated. Firing ranges often designate a direction in which it is safe to point a firearm; almost universally this is downrange into a backstop which is designed to contain bullets and eliminate potential ricochets. In armories or other areas where weapons must be handled, a container filled with sand known as a "clearing barrel" or "clearing can" is often used for this purpose; bullets unintentionally discharged into the barrel will be safely stopped and contained by the sand.
Also known as trigger discipline, this rule is intended to prevent an undesired discharge. Normally a firearm is discharged by depressing its trigger. A handler's finger may involuntarily move for any of several reasons: the handler is startled, a lack of full attention on body movements, physiological reasons beyond conscious control such as a spasm, stumbling or falling, or the finger being pushed by something (as when trying to holster a handgun with one's finger on the trigger). Handlers are therefore taught to minimize the harmful effects of such a motion by keeping their finger off and far away from the trigger until the muzzle is pointing at the target and the handler wishes to discharge the firearm.
The trigger guard and the receiver area above the trigger of a firearm presents a natural point for a handler to keep their finger out straight alongside the weapon, so as not to violate this rule. Another recommendation is to keep the trigger finger above the trigger guard, so that there is less chance of the finger involuntarily slipping into the guard when startled. A properly indexed trigger finger also helps remind the person holding the firearm of the direction of the muzzle.
In popular culture, such as movies and TV shows, this rule is often violated, even by characters such as military personnel or law enforcement officers who should be trained in gun safety and thus would logically know better.
This rule is intended to eliminate or minimize collateral damage to non-targets when a firearm is intentionally discharged. Unintended damage may occur if a non-target is misidentified as a target, if the target is missed, or if the bullet hits something or someone other than the intended target.
Handlers are taught that they must positively identify and verify their target. Additionally, they learn that even when firing at a valid target, unintended targets may still be hit, for three reasons:
Therefore, this rule requires a handler to "always be sure of your target; not just the target itself, but above, below, to the left, to the right, in front of, and behind the target".
This may create situations that present dilemmas for a handler. Such situations are for instance a police officer in a riot with bystanders, a civilian facing a possible intruder at night, or a soldier in a confrontation where civilians are near the enemy. Indecision or misjudgment of the handler's abilities in such a situation may cause undesired outcomes, such as injury to the handler due to hesitation, or the handler violating rules of engagement and causing unintended damage.
Hunters are commonly prohibited from shooting across roads and trails, or after dusk and before dawn, due to the risk of inadvertently hitting an unintended target. All discharge of firearms is prohibited in some cities, in part due to the possibility of hitting unseen targets.
Training is used to minimize the risk of such outcomes. Target practice increases the precision with which the handler can discharge the firearm and thus increase the chances that the intended target is hit. Education about terminal ballistics gives the handler knowledge about the characteristics of a bullet after a target is hit. This knowledge coupled with insight into the handler's own capabilities makes it easier for the handler to make appropriate decisions about whether to discharge or not, even if given little time and/or put under severe stress.
Ammunition can be chosen to reduce the risk of overpenetration; see Terminal ballistics, Stopping power, and Hollow point bullet.
Ranges and organized shoots may impose additional safety rules on participants. For example, at its marksmanship clinics, Project Appleseed requires that a range safety officer (RSO) uses a weed trimmer line to check each rifle's bore for obstructions prior to its first use for the day. Six steps are then always followed when a round of shooting is complete and the line is ready to go "cold" to allow posting or checking targets, or when a rifle is ready to be removed from the line: 1) magazine out; 2) bolt back; 3) safety on; 4) chamber flag in; 5) ground the rifle; 6) step back; no one touching the rifle.
Open bolt indicators, or chamber flags, such as the yellow safety flag distributed by the Civilian Marksmanship Program or the green chamber flag distributed by Project Appleseed, may be required to be inserted in the chamber to show the chamber is empty.
Ranges may limit the type of ammunition used, such as prohibiting the use of incendiary, tracer, or armor-piercing rounds, or more powerful rounds than a range is equipped to handle. They may require the use of ear and eye protection. Alcohol is commonly forbidden. Some ranges impose a waiting period for shooters who wish to rent a firearm, or require them to bring a friend, in order to reduce the incidence of suicides. Ranges are advised to designate a range safety officer to enforce these rules.
Ranges must be designed with safety in mind, including the use of proper backstops for the intended type of shooting.
Firearm malfunctions may be caused by the primer and/or powder, by mechanical failures, or by mishandling.
Malfunctions associated with the firing pin of a firearm, or with the primer and/or powder within a cartridge include failures to discharge (misfires, "duds"), delayed discharge (hang fires), and incomplete or insufficient discharge (squibs). A misfire is when the cartridge does not fire after it is struck by the firing pin. A hangfire is when the firing pin strikes the cartridge, but there is a delay of some seconds before the cartridge finally fires. A squib is when an underpowered round is fired, perhaps with an insufficient amount of powder in the case, and the bullet lodges in the bore. If the firearm is fired again, the barrel can peel back, severely damaging the weapon and injuring the shooter.
In each case, the shooter should wait for a period of time, commonly recommended between 25 seconds, up to two minutes, with the firearm pointed in a safe direction, then carefully remove the magazine, extract any mis-fed or misfired cartridge(s), and, with the breech opened carefully, check to ensure there is not a bullet or other obstruction lodged in the bore of the barrel. If there is an obstruction, and a subsequent round is fired, the firearm can fail explosively resulting in serious injury. Misfired rounds should be disposed of properly, usually in a special container for live ammo that failed to fire after ejecting round; such rounds should not be simply disposed of in the trash.
Mechanical malfunctions of firearms include slamfires, out-of-battery discharges, jams, accidental release of the firing pin, and failure of the breech or barrel to contain the propellant.
A slam fire is when a cartridge fires immediately upon being chambered, before a trigger squeeze, and is most often caused by a floating firing pin that becomes obstructed by debris, or by an improperly raised primer that is installed on a cartridge case. A slamfire can also be caused by a softer primer being used than normally recommended, commonly in military firearms, which usually use cartridges with relatively hard primers.
Out-of-battery discharges occur when a cartridge is not correctly secured by the bolt but can be fired by the firearm's firing pin. Out-of-battery discharges can be initiated by either the operator deliberately releasing the firing pin or as a slamfire. Out-of-battery discharges often cause extreme damage to the firearm, particularly on the bolt, firing pin, magazine, and receiver as well as injure the operator and nearby observers. Eye damage and blinding are common injuries caused by out-of-battery firings. Eye protection, such as shooting glasses, are highly recommended for avoiding eye injuries. Out-of-battery discharges can be avoided by careful understanding of the firearm's operating mechanism.
Types of jams include failures to feed, extract, or eject a cartridge; failure to fully cycle after firing; and failure of a recoil- or gas-operated firearm to lock back when empty (largely a procedural hazard, as a "slide lock" is a visual cue that the firearm's ammunition supply is empty). When a jam occurs, the handler should exercise extreme caution as a cartridge whose primer has been struck and which has been deformed in a jam can discharge unexpectedly (in a "hang-fire"). One method of quickly clearing a jammed semi-automatic weapon is tap rack bang.
Firearms may also fire unintentionally for several reasons, including dropping the weapon or when a firearm receives any hard mechanical shocks. Similarly, unintentional firing may occur due to faulty triggers, or excessive heat buildup in the chamber which leads to the propellant cooking off. To prevent accidental firing when firearms are dropped or jarred, experts often suggest using modern firearm designs that have safety features such as a transfer bar or a firing pin block which prevent the firing pin from striking the primer unless the trigger is squeezed. For older firearms without these features, experts suggest that they should be carried without a round in the chamber, or with the firing pin resting on an empty chamber in the case of revolvers.
Firearms may undergo catastrophic failure (a "kaBoom" or "kB") due to various causes, some caused by mishandling and others by poor design, weakened parts or the use of ammunition for which the firearm was not designed, but which will chamber and fire nonetheless. Barrels may become blocked by foreign material, such as dirt, snow, or even water. For that reason, the muzzle should never be allowed to rest on the ground or allowed to accumulate precipitation. Another form of mishandling is the use of a cartridge that generates more pressure than the firearm was designed for. This can occur through faulty handloading, or the use of overpressure ammunition (+P or +P+) or magnum loads in firearms not rated for them.
Proper storage prevents unauthorized use or theft of firearms and ammunition, or damage to them.
A 'gun safe' or 'gun cabinet' is commonly used to physically prevent access to a firearm. Local laws may require particular standards for the lock, for the strength and burglar resistance of the cabinet, and may even require guns and ammunition to be stored separately.
Access to a functioning firearm can be prevented by keeping the firearm disassembled and the parts stored at separate locations. Sometimes, this rule is codified in law. For example, Swedish law requires owners of firearms either to store the entire firearm in a safe or lockable gun rack, or to lock the "vital piece" (bolt, etc.) away in a safe place.
There are several types of locks that serve to make it difficult to discharge a firearm. Locks are considered less effective than keeping firearms stored in a lockable safe since locks are more easily defeated than approved safes. An unauthorized handler can bypass the locked firearm at their leisure. Some manufacturers, such as Taurus, build locks into the firearm itself.
California effected regulations in 2000 that forced gun locks to be approved by a firearm safety device laboratory via California Penal Code Section 12088. All gun locks under this code must receive extensive tests including saw, pick, pull, and many other tests in order to be approved for the state of California. If a lock passes the requirements then it is said to be California Department of Justice (CADOJ) approved.
Some experts recommend storing ammunition in secure locations away from firearms. Ammunition should be kept in cool, dry conditions free from contaminating vapors to prevent deterioration of the propellant and cartridge. Handloaders must take special precautions for storing primers and loose gunpowder.
While a firearm's primary danger lies in the discharge of ammunition, there are other ways a firearm may be detrimental to the health of the handler and bystanders.
When a firearm is discharged it emits a very loud noise, typically close to the handler's ears. This can cause temporary or permanent hearing damage such as tinnitus. Hearing protection such as earplugs, or earmuffs, or both, can reduce the risk of hearing damage. Some earmuffs or headphones made for shooting and similar loud situations use active noise control. Firearms may also have silencers which reduce the sound intensity from the barrel.
A firearm emits hot gases, powder, and other debris when discharged. Some weapons, such as semi-automatic and fully automatic firearms, typically eject spent cartridge casings at high speed. Casings are also dangerously hot when ejected. Revolvers store spent casings in the chamber, but may emit a stream of hot gases and possible fine particulate debris laterally from the interface between the revolving chamber and the gun barrel. Any of these may hurt the handler or bystanders through burning or impact damage. Because eyes are particularly vulnerable to this type of damage, eye protection should be worn to reduce the risk of injury. Prescription lenses and various tints to suit different light conditions are available. Some eye protection products are rated to withstand impact from birdshot loads, which offers protection against irresponsible firearms use by other game bird shooters.
In recent years the toxic effects of ammunition and firearm cleaning agents have been highlighted.
Indoor ranges require good ventilation to remove pollutants such as powder, smoke, and lead dust from the air around the shooters. Indoor and outdoor ranges typically require extensive decontamination when they are decommissioned to remove all traces of lead, copper, and powder residues from the area.
Lead, copper and other metals will also be released when a firearm is cleaned. Highly aggressive solvents and other agents used to remove lead and powder fouling may also present a hazard to health. Installing good ventilation, washing hands after handling firearms, and cleaning the space where the firearm was handled lessens the risk of unnecessary exposure.
Firearms should never be handled by persons who are under the influence of alcohol or any drugs which may affect their judgment. Gun safety teachers advocate zero tolerance of their use. In the United States, this recommendation is codified in many states' penal codes as a crime of "carrying under the influence", with penalties similar to DWI/DUI. Other sources of temporary impairment include exhaustion, dehydration, and emotional stress. These can affect reaction time, cognitive processing, sensory perception, and judgment.
Many jurisdictions prohibit the possession of firearms by people deemed generally incapable of using them safely, such as the mentally ill or convicted felons.
Children who are generally considered too young to be allowed to handle firearms at all can be taught a different set of rules:
The purpose of these rules is to prevent children from inadvertently handling firearms. These rules are part of the Eddie Eagle program developed by the National Rifle Association for preschoolers through 6th graders.
Whether programs like Eddie Eagle are effective has not been conclusively determined. Some studies published in peer-reviewed journals have shown that it is very difficult for young children to control their curiosity even when they have been taught not to touch firearms. Gun access is also a major risk factor for youth suicide.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) advises that keeping a gun in the home, especially a handgun increases the risk of injury and death for children and youth in the home. If families do keep a gun in the home, the AAP advises keeping it unloaded and locked up, with the ammunition locked in a separate location, and the keys to the locked boxes hidden.
Polling shows that over half of parents who do not own a gun have never talked with their children age 5–17 about gun safety. The ASK Campaign (Asking Saves Kids) is based on the fact that many families with children have a gun, and almost half these guns are left unlocked or loaded. The ASK Campaign urges parents to ask their friends, neighbors and family members if they have an unlocked gun in the home before sending their children over to play.
Older youth (age may vary per program, such as 12–18 year olds) may take part in a program for safe rifle handling, such as the ones promoted by these organizations: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12015 |
Go Down Moses
"Go Down Moses" is a spiritual phrase that describes events in the Old Testament of the Bible, specifically Exodus 8:1: "And the LORD spake unto Moses, Go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Let my people go, that they may serve me", in which God commands Moses to demand the release of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt. The opening verse as published by the Jubilee Singers in 1872:
The lyrics of the song represent liberation of the ancient Jewish people from Egyptian slavery.
In one interpretation of the song, "Israel" represents enslaved African Americans, while "Egypt" and "Pharaoh" represent the slavemaster.
Going "down" to Egypt is derived from the Bible; the Old Testament recognizes the Nile Valley as lower than Jerusalem and the Promised Land; thus, going to Egypt means going "down" while going away from Egypt is "up". In the context of American slavery, this ancient sense of "down" converged with the concept of "down the river" (the Mississippi), where slaves' conditions were notoriously worse, a situation which lead to the idiom "sell [someone] down the river" in present-day English.
Although usually thought of as a spiritual, the earliest recorded use of the song was as a rallying anthem for the Contrabands at Fort Monroe sometime before July 1862. Early authorities presumed it was composed by them. Sheet music was soon after published, titled "Oh! Let My People Go: The Song of the Contrabands", and arranged by Horace Waters. L.C. Lockwood, chaplain of the Contrabands, stated in the sheet music the song was from Virginia, dating from about 1853. The opening verse, as recorded by Lockwood, is:
Sarah Bradford's authorized biography of Harriet Tubman, "Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman" (1869), quotes Tubman as saying she used "Go Down Moses" as one of two code songs fugitive slaves used to communicate when fleeing Maryland. Tubman began her underground railroad work in 1850 and continued until the beginning of the Civil War, so it's possible Tubman's use of the song predates the origin claimed by Lockwood.
In series 2 episode 3 of Life on Mars the lawyer sings for his client's release. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12021 |
General relativity
General relativity (GR), also known as the general theory of relativity (GTR), is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and the current description of gravitation in modern physics. General relativity generalizes special relativity and refines Newton's law of universal gravitation, providing a unified description of gravity as a geometric property of space and time, or spacetime. In particular, the "" is directly related to the energy and momentum of whatever matter and radiation are present. The relation is specified by the Einstein field equations, a system of partial differential equations.
Some predictions of general relativity differ significantly from those of classical physics, especially concerning the passage of time, the geometry of space, the motion of bodies in free fall, and the propagation of light. Examples of such differences include gravitational time dilation, gravitational lensing, the gravitational redshift of light, and the gravitational time delay. The predictions of general relativity in relation to classical physics have been confirmed in all observations and experiments to date. Although general relativity is not the only relativistic theory of gravity, it is the simplest theory that is consistent with experimental data. However, unanswered questions remain, the most fundamental being how general relativity can be reconciled with the laws of quantum physics to produce a complete and self-consistent theory of quantum gravity.
Einstein's theory has important astrophysical implications. For example, it implies the existence of black holes—regions of space in which space and time are distorted in such a way that nothing, not even light, can escape—as an end-state for massive stars. There is ample evidence that the intense radiation emitted by certain kinds of astronomical objects is due to black holes. For example, microquasars and active galactic nuclei result from the presence of stellar black holes and supermassive black holes, respectively. The bending of light by gravity can lead to the phenomenon of gravitational lensing, in which multiple images of the same distant astronomical object are visible in the sky. General relativity also predicts the existence of gravitational waves, which have since been observed directly by the physics collaboration LIGO. In addition, general relativity is the basis of current cosmological models of a consistently expanding universe.
Widely acknowledged as a theory of extraordinary beauty, general relativity has often been described as the most beautiful of all existing physical theories.
Soon after publishing the special theory of relativity in 1905, Einstein started thinking about how to incorporate gravity into his new relativistic framework. In 1907, beginning with a simple thought experiment involving an observer in free fall, he embarked on what would be an eight-year search for a relativistic theory of gravity. After numerous detours and false starts, his work culminated in the presentation to the Prussian Academy of Science in November 1915 of what are now known as the Einstein field equations, which form the core of Einstein's general theory of relativity. These equations specify how the geometry of space and time is influenced by whatever matter and radiation are present. The 19th century mathematician Bernhard Riemann's non-Euclidean geometry, called Riemannian Geometry, enabled Einstein to develop general relativity by providing the key mathematical framework on which he fit his physical ideas of gravity. This idea was pointed out by mathematician Marcel Grossmann and published by Grossmann and Einstein in 1913.
The Einstein field equations are nonlinear and very difficult to solve. Einstein used approximation methods in working out initial predictions of the theory. But in 1916, the astrophysicist Karl Schwarzschild found the first non-trivial exact solution to the Einstein field equations, the Schwarzschild metric. This solution laid the groundwork for the description of the final stages of gravitational collapse, and the objects known today as black holes. In the same year, the first steps towards generalizing Schwarzschild's solution to electrically charged objects were taken, eventually resulting in the Reissner–Nordström solution, which is now associated with electrically charged black holes. In 1917, Einstein applied his theory to the universe as a whole, initiating the field of relativistic cosmology. In line with contemporary thinking, he assumed a static universe, adding a new parameter to his original field equations—the cosmological constant—to match that observational presumption. By 1929, however, the work of Hubble and others had shown that our universe is expanding. This is readily described by the expanding cosmological solutions found by Friedmann in 1922, which do not require a cosmological constant. Lemaître used these solutions to formulate the earliest version of the Big Bang models, in which our universe has evolved from an extremely hot and dense earlier state. Einstein later declared the cosmological constant the biggest blunder of his life.
During that period, general relativity remained something of a curiosity among physical theories. It was clearly superior to Newtonian gravity, being consistent with special relativity and accounting for several effects unexplained by the Newtonian theory. Einstein showed in 1915 how his theory explained the anomalous perihelion advance of the planet Mercury without any arbitrary parameters ("fudge factors"), and in 1919 an expedition led by Eddington confirmed general relativity's prediction for the deflection of starlight by the Sun during the total solar eclipse of May 29, 1919, instantly making Einstein famous. Yet the theory remained outside the mainstream of theoretical physics and astrophysics until developments between approximately 1960 and 1975, now known as the golden age of general relativity. Physicists began to understand the concept of a black hole, and to identify quasars as one of these objects' astrophysical manifestations. Ever more precise solar system tests confirmed the theory's predictive power, and relativistic cosmology also became amenable to direct observational tests.
Over the years, general relativity has acquired a reputation as a theory of extraordinary beauty. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar has noted that at multiple levels, general relativity exhibits what Francis Bacon has termed a "strangeness in the proportion" ("i.e". elements that excite wonderment and surprise). It juxtaposes fundamental concepts (space and time "versus" matter and motion) which had previously been considered as entirely independent. Chandrasekhar also noted that Einstein's only guides in his search for an exact theory were the principle of equivalence and his sense that a proper description of gravity should be geometrical at its basis, so that there was an "element of revelation" in the manner in which Einstein arrived at his theory. Other elements of beauty associated with the general theory of relativity are its simplicity and symmetry, the manner in which it incorporates invariance and unification, and its perfect logical consistency.
General relativity can be understood by examining its similarities with and departures from classical physics. The first step is the realization that classical mechanics and Newton's law of gravity admit a geometric description. The combination of this description with the laws of special relativity results in a heuristic derivation of general relativity.
At the base of classical mechanics is the notion that a body's motion can be described as a combination of free (or inertial) motion, and deviations from this free motion. Such deviations are caused by external forces acting on a body in accordance with Newton's second law of motion, which states that the net force acting on a body is equal to that body's (inertial) mass multiplied by its acceleration. The preferred inertial motions are related to the geometry of space and time: in the standard reference frames of classical mechanics, objects in free motion move along straight lines at constant speed. In modern parlance, their paths are geodesics, straight world lines in curved spacetime.
Conversely, one might expect that inertial motions, once identified by observing the actual motions of bodies and making allowances for the external forces (such as electromagnetism or friction), can be used to define the geometry of space, as well as a time coordinate. However, there is an ambiguity once gravity comes into play. According to Newton's law of gravity, and independently verified by experiments such as that of Eötvös and its successors (see Eötvös experiment), there is a universality of free fall (also known as the weak equivalence principle, or the universal equality of inertial and passive-gravitational mass): the trajectory of a test body in free fall depends only on its position and initial speed, but not on any of its material properties. A simplified version of this is embodied in Einstein's elevator experiment, illustrated in the figure on the right: for an observer in a small enclosed room, it is impossible for him to decide, by mapping the trajectory of bodies such as a dropped ball, whether the room is stationary in a gravitational field and the ball accelerating, or in free space aboard a rocket that is accelerating at a rate equal to that of the gravitational field versus the ball which upon release has nil acceleration.
Given the universality of free fall, there is no observable distinction between inertial motion and motion under the influence of the gravitational force. This suggests the definition of a new class of inertial motion, namely that of objects in free fall under the influence of gravity. This new class of preferred motions, too, defines a geometry of space and time—in mathematical terms, it is the geodesic motion associated with a specific connection which depends on the gradient of the gravitational potential. Space, in this construction, still has the ordinary Euclidean geometry. However, space"time" as a whole is more complicated. As can be shown using simple thought experiments following the free-fall trajectories of different test particles, the result of transporting spacetime vectors that can denote a particle's velocity (time-like vectors) will vary with the particle's trajectory; mathematically speaking, the Newtonian connection is not integrable. From this, one can deduce that spacetime is curved. The resulting Newton–Cartan theory is a geometric formulation of Newtonian gravity using only covariant concepts, i.e. a description which is valid in any desired coordinate system. In this geometric description, tidal effects—the relative acceleration of bodies in free fall—are related to the derivative of the connection, showing how the modified geometry is caused by the presence of mass.
As intriguing as geometric Newtonian gravity may be, its basis, classical mechanics, is merely a limiting case of (special) relativistic mechanics. In the language of symmetry: where gravity can be neglected, physics is Lorentz invariant as in special relativity rather than Galilei invariant as in classical mechanics. (The defining symmetry of special relativity is the Poincaré group, which includes translations, rotations and boosts.) The differences between the two become significant when dealing with speeds approaching the speed of light, and with high-energy phenomena.
With Lorentz symmetry, additional structures come into play. They are defined by the set of light cones (see image). The light-cones define a causal structure: for each event , there is a set of events that can, in principle, either influence or be influenced by via signals or interactions that do not need to travel faster than light (such as event in the image), and a set of events for which such an influence is impossible (such as event in the image). These sets are observer-independent. In conjunction with the world-lines of freely falling particles, the light-cones can be used to reconstruct the space–time's semi-Riemannian metric, at least up to a positive scalar factor. In mathematical terms, this defines a conformal structure or conformal geometry.
Special relativity is defined in the absence of gravity, so for practical applications, it is a suitable model whenever gravity can be neglected. Bringing gravity into play, and assuming the universality of free fall, an analogous reasoning as in the previous section applies: there are no global inertial frames. Instead there are approximate inertial frames moving alongside freely falling particles. Translated into the language of spacetime: the straight time-like lines that define a gravity-free inertial frame are deformed to lines that are curved relative to each other, suggesting that the inclusion of gravity necessitates a change in spacetime geometry.
A priori, it is not clear whether the new local frames in free fall coincide with the reference frames in which the laws of special relativity hold—that theory is based on the propagation of light, and thus on electromagnetism, which could have a different set of preferred frames. But using different assumptions about the special-relativistic frames (such as their being earth-fixed, or in free fall), one can derive different predictions for the gravitational redshift, that is, the way in which the frequency of light shifts as the light propagates through a gravitational field (cf. below). The actual measurements show that free-falling frames are the ones in which light propagates as it does in special relativity. The generalization of this statement, namely that the laws of special relativity hold to good approximation in freely falling (and non-rotating) reference frames, is known as the Einstein equivalence principle, a crucial guiding principle for generalizing special-relativistic physics to include gravity.
The same experimental data shows that time as measured by clocks in a gravitational field—proper time, to give the technical term—does not follow the rules of special relativity. In the language of spacetime geometry, it is not measured by the Minkowski metric. As in the Newtonian case, this is suggestive of a more general geometry. At small scales, all reference frames that are in free fall are equivalent, and approximately Minkowskian. Consequently, we are now dealing with a curved generalization of Minkowski space. The metric tensor that defines the geometry—in particular, how lengths and angles are measured—is not the Minkowski metric of special relativity, it is a generalization known as a semi- or pseudo-Riemannian metric. Furthermore, each Riemannian metric is naturally associated with one particular kind of connection, the Levi-Civita connection, and this is, in fact, the connection that satisfies the equivalence principle and makes space locally Minkowskian (that is, in suitable locally inertial coordinates, the metric is Minkowskian, and its first partial derivatives and the connection coefficients vanish).
Having formulated the relativistic, geometric version of the effects of gravity, the question of gravity's source remains. In Newtonian gravity, the source is mass. In special relativity, mass turns out to be part of a more general quantity called the energy–momentum tensor, which includes both energy and momentum densities as well as stress: pressure and shear. Using the equivalence principle, this tensor is readily generalized to curved spacetime. Drawing further upon the analogy with geometric Newtonian gravity, it is natural to assume that the field equation for gravity relates this tensor and the Ricci tensor, which describes a particular class of tidal effects: the change in volume for a small cloud of test particles that are initially at rest, and then fall freely. In special relativity, conservation of energy–momentum corresponds to the statement that the energy–momentum tensor is divergence-free. This formula, too, is readily generalized to curved spacetime by replacing partial derivatives with their curved-manifold counterparts, covariant derivatives studied in differential geometry. With this additional condition—the covariant divergence of the energy–momentum tensor, and hence of whatever is on the other side of the equation, is zero— the simplest set of equations are what are called Einstein's (field) equations:
On the left-hand side is the Einstein tensor, formula_1, which is symmetric and a specific divergence-free combination of the Ricci tensor formula_2 and the metric. In particular,
is the curvature scalar. The Ricci tensor itself is related to the more general Riemann curvature tensor as
On the right-hand side, "formula_5" is the energy–momentum tensor. All tensors are written in abstract index notation. Matching the theory's prediction to observational results for planetary orbits or, equivalently, assuring that the weak-gravity, low-speed limit is Newtonian mechanics, the proportionality constant can be fixed as formula_6, where formula_7 is the gravitational constant and formula_8 the speed of light in vacuum. When there is no matter present, so that the energy–momentum tensor vanishes, the results are the vacuum Einstein equations,
In general relativity, the world line of a particle free from all external, non-gravitational force is a particular type of geodesic in curved spacetime. In other words, a freely moving or falling particle always moves along a geodesic.
The geodesic equation is:
where formula_11 is a scalar parameter of motion (e.g. the proper time), and formula_12 are Christoffel symbols (sometimes called the affine connection coefficients or Levi-Civita connection coefficients) which is symmetric in the two lower indices. Greek indices may take the values: 0, 1, 2, 3 and the summation convention is used for repeated indices formula_13 and formula_14. The quantity on the left-hand-side of this equation is the acceleration of a particle, and so this equation is analogous to Newton's laws of motion which likewise provide formulae for the acceleration of a particle. This equation of motion employs the Einstein notation, meaning that repeated indices are summed (i.e. from zero to three). The Christoffel symbols are functions of the four space-time coordinates, and so are independent of the velocity or acceleration or other characteristics of a test particle whose motion is described by the geodesic equation.
There are alternatives to general relativity built upon the same premises, which include additional rules and/or constraints, leading to different field equations. Examples are Whitehead's theory, Brans–Dicke theory, teleparallelism, "f"("R") gravity and Einstein–Cartan theory.
The derivation outlined in the previous section contains all the information needed to define general relativity, describe its key properties, and address a question of crucial importance in physics, namely how the theory can be used for model-building.
General relativity is a metric theory of gravitation. At its core are Einstein's equations, which describe the relation between the geometry of a four-dimensional pseudo-Riemannian manifold representing spacetime, and the energy–momentum contained in that spacetime. Phenomena that in classical mechanics are ascribed to the action of the force of gravity (such as free-fall, orbital motion, and spacecraft trajectories), correspond to inertial motion within a curved geometry of spacetime in general relativity; there is no gravitational force deflecting objects from their natural, straight paths. Instead, gravity corresponds to changes in the properties of space and time, which in turn changes the straightest-possible paths that objects will naturally follow. The curvature is, in turn, caused by the energy–momentum of matter. Paraphrasing the relativist John Archibald Wheeler, spacetime tells matter how to move; matter tells spacetime how to curve.
While general relativity replaces the scalar gravitational potential of classical physics by a symmetric rank-two tensor, the latter reduces to the former in certain limiting cases. For weak gravitational fields and slow speed relative to the speed of light, the theory's predictions converge on those of Newton's law of universal gravitation.
As it is constructed using tensors, general relativity exhibits general covariance: its laws—and further laws formulated within the general relativistic framework—take on the same form in all coordinate systems. Furthermore, the theory does not contain any invariant geometric background structures, i.e. it is background independent. It thus satisfies a more stringent general principle of relativity, namely that the laws of physics are the same for all observers. Locally, as expressed in the equivalence principle, spacetime is Minkowskian, and the laws of physics exhibit local Lorentz invariance.
The core concept of general-relativistic model-building is that of a solution of Einstein's equations. Given both Einstein's equations and suitable equations for the properties of matter, such a solution consists of a specific semi-Riemannian manifold (usually defined by giving the metric in specific coordinates), and specific matter fields defined on that manifold. Matter and geometry must satisfy Einstein's equations, so in particular, the matter's energy–momentum tensor must be divergence-free. The matter must, of course, also satisfy whatever additional equations were imposed on its properties. In short, such a solution is a model universe that satisfies the laws of general relativity, and possibly additional laws governing whatever matter might be present.
Einstein's equations are nonlinear partial differential equations and, as such, difficult to solve exactly. Nevertheless, a number of exact solutions are known, although only a few have direct physical applications. The best-known exact solutions, and also those most interesting from a physics point of view, are the Schwarzschild solution, the Reissner–Nordström solution and the Kerr metric, each corresponding to a certain type of black hole in an otherwise empty universe, and the Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker and de Sitter universes, each describing an expanding cosmos. Exact solutions of great theoretical interest include the Gödel universe (which opens up the intriguing possibility of time travel in curved spacetimes), the Taub-NUT solution (a model universe that is homogeneous, but anisotropic), and anti-de Sitter space (which has recently come to prominence in the context of what is called the Maldacena conjecture).
Given the difficulty of finding exact solutions, Einstein's field equations are also solved frequently by numerical integration on a computer, or by considering small perturbations of exact solutions. In the field of numerical relativity, powerful computers are employed to simulate the geometry of spacetime and to solve Einstein's equations for interesting situations such as two colliding black holes. In principle, such methods may be applied to any system, given sufficient computer resources, and may address fundamental questions such as naked singularities. Approximate solutions may also be found by perturbation theories such as linearized gravity and its generalization, the post-Newtonian expansion, both of which were developed by Einstein. The latter provides a systematic approach to solving for the geometry of a spacetime that contains a distribution of matter that moves slowly compared with the speed of light. The expansion involves a series of terms; the first terms represent Newtonian gravity, whereas the later terms represent ever smaller corrections to Newton's theory due to general relativity. An extension of this expansion is the parametrized post-Newtonian (PPN) formalism, which allows quantitative comparisons between the predictions of general relativity and alternative theories.
General relativity has a number of physical consequences. Some follow directly from the theory's axioms, whereas others have become clear only in the course of many years of research that followed Einstein's initial publication.
Assuming that the equivalence principle holds, gravity influences the passage of time. Light sent down into a gravity well is blueshifted, whereas light sent in the opposite direction (i.e., climbing out of the gravity well) is redshifted; collectively, these two effects are known as the gravitational frequency shift. More generally, processes close to a massive body run more slowly when compared with processes taking place farther away; this effect is known as gravitational time dilation.
Gravitational redshift has been measured in the laboratory and using astronomical observations. Gravitational time dilation in the Earth's gravitational field has been measured numerous times using atomic clocks, while ongoing validation is provided as a side effect of the operation of the Global Positioning System (GPS). Tests in stronger gravitational fields are provided by the observation of binary pulsars. All results are in agreement with general relativity. However, at the current level of accuracy, these observations cannot distinguish between general relativity and other theories in which the equivalence principle is valid.
General relativity predicts that the path of light will follow the curvature of spacetime as it passes near a star. This effect was initially confirmed by observing the light of stars or distant quasars being deflected as it passes the Sun.
This and related predictions follow from the fact that light follows what is called a light-like or null geodesic—a generalization of the straight lines along which light travels in classical physics. Such geodesics are the generalization of the invariance of lightspeed in special relativity. As one examines suitable model spacetimes (either the exterior Schwarzschild solution or, for more than a single mass, the post-Newtonian expansion), several effects of gravity on light propagation emerge. Although the bending of light can also be derived by extending the universality of free fall to light, the angle of deflection resulting from such calculations is only half the value given by general relativity.
Closely related to light deflection is the gravitational time delay (or Shapiro delay), the phenomenon that light signals take longer to move through a gravitational field than they would in the absence of that field. There have been numerous successful tests of this prediction. In the parameterized post-Newtonian formalism (PPN), measurements of both the deflection of light and the gravitational time delay determine a parameter called γ, which encodes the influence of gravity on the geometry of space.
Predicted in 1916 by Albert Einstein, there are gravitational waves: ripples in the metric of spacetime that propagate at the speed of light. These are one of several analogies between weak-field gravity and electromagnetism in that, they are analogous to electromagnetic waves. On February 11, 2016, the Advanced LIGO team announced that they had directly detected gravitational waves from a pair of black holes merging.
The simplest type of such a wave can be visualized by its action on a ring of freely floating particles. A sine wave propagating through such a ring towards the reader distorts the ring in a characteristic, rhythmic fashion (animated image to the right). Since Einstein's equations are non-linear, arbitrarily strong gravitational waves do not obey linear superposition, making their description difficult. However, for weak fields, a linear approximation can be made. Such linearized gravitational waves are sufficiently accurate to describe the exceedingly weak waves that are expected to arrive here on Earth from far-off cosmic events, which typically result in relative distances increasing and decreasing by formula_15 or less. Data analysis methods routinely make use of the fact that these linearized waves can be Fourier decomposed.
Some exact solutions describe gravitational waves without any approximation, e.g., a wave train traveling through empty space or Gowdy universes, varieties of an expanding cosmos filled with gravitational waves. But for gravitational waves produced in astrophysically relevant situations, such as the merger of two black holes, numerical methods are presently the only way to construct appropriate models.
General relativity differs from classical mechanics in a number of predictions concerning orbiting bodies. It predicts an overall rotation (precession) of planetary orbits, as well as orbital decay caused by the emission of gravitational waves and effects related to the relativity of direction.
In general relativity, the apsides of any orbit (the point of the orbiting body's closest approach to the system's center of mass) will precess; the orbit is not an ellipse, but akin to an ellipse that rotates on its focus, resulting in a rose curve-like shape (see image). Einstein first derived this result by using an approximate metric representing the Newtonian limit and treating the orbiting body as a test particle. For him, the fact that his theory gave a straightforward explanation of Mercury's anomalous perihelion shift, discovered earlier by Urbain Le Verrier in 1859, was important evidence that he had at last identified the correct form of the gravitational field equations.
The effect can also be derived by using either the exact Schwarzschild metric (describing spacetime around a spherical mass) or the much more general post-Newtonian formalism. It is due to the influence of gravity on the geometry of space and to the contribution of self-energy to a body's gravity (encoded in the nonlinearity of Einstein's equations). Relativistic precession has been observed for all planets that allow for accurate precession measurements (Mercury, Venus, and Earth), as well as in binary pulsar systems, where it is larger by five orders of magnitude.
In general relativity the perihelion shift formula_16, expressed in radians per revolution, is approximately given by
where:
According to general relativity, a binary system will emit gravitational waves, thereby losing energy. Due to this loss, the distance between the two orbiting bodies decreases, and so does their orbital period. Within the Solar System or for ordinary double stars, the effect is too small to be observable. This is not the case for a close binary pulsar, a system of two orbiting neutron stars, one of which is a pulsar: from the pulsar, observers on Earth receive a regular series of radio pulses that can serve as a highly accurate clock, which allows precise measurements of the orbital period. Because neutron stars are immensely compact, significant amounts of energy are emitted in the form of gravitational radiation.
The first observation of a decrease in orbital period due to the emission of gravitational waves was made by Hulse and Taylor, using the binary pulsar PSR1913+16 they had discovered in 1974. This was the first detection of gravitational waves, albeit indirect, for which they were awarded the 1993 Nobel Prize in physics. Since then, several other binary pulsars have been found, in particular the double pulsar PSR J0737-3039, in which both stars are pulsars.
Several relativistic effects are directly related to the relativity of direction. One is geodetic precession: the axis direction of a gyroscope in free fall in curved spacetime will change when compared, for instance, with the direction of light received from distant stars—even though such a gyroscope represents the way of keeping a direction as stable as possible ("parallel transport"). For the Moon–Earth system, this effect has been measured with the help of lunar laser ranging. More recently, it has been measured for test masses aboard the satellite Gravity Probe B to a precision of better than 0.3%.
Near a rotating mass, there are gravitomagnetic or frame-dragging effects. A distant observer will determine that objects close to the mass get "dragged around". This is most extreme for rotating black holes where, for any object entering a zone known as the ergosphere, rotation is inevitable. Such effects can again be tested through their influence on the orientation of gyroscopes in free fall. Somewhat controversial tests have been performed using the LAGEOS satellites, confirming the relativistic prediction. Also the Mars Global Surveyor probe around Mars has been used.
The deflection of light by gravity is responsible for a new class of astronomical phenomena. If a massive object is situated between the astronomer and a distant target object with appropriate mass and relative distances, the astronomer will see multiple distorted images of the target. Such effects are known as gravitational lensing. Depending on the configuration, scale, and mass distribution, there can be two or more images, a bright ring known as an Einstein ring, or partial rings called arcs.
The earliest example was discovered in 1979; since then, more than a hundred gravitational lenses have been observed. Even if the multiple images are too close to each other to be resolved, the effect can still be measured, e.g., as an overall brightening of the target object; a number of such "microlensing events" have been observed.
Gravitational lensing has developed into a tool of observational astronomy. It is used to detect the presence and distribution of dark matter, provide a "natural telescope" for observing distant galaxies, and to obtain an independent estimate of the Hubble constant. Statistical evaluations of lensing data provide valuable insight into the structural evolution of galaxies.
Observations of binary pulsars provide strong indirect evidence for the existence of gravitational waves (see Orbital decay, above). Detection of these waves is a major goal of current relativity-related research. Several land-based gravitational wave detectors are currently in operation, most notably the interferometric detectors GEO 600, LIGO (two detectors), TAMA 300 and VIRGO. Various pulsar timing arrays are using millisecond pulsars to detect gravitational waves in the 10−9 to 10−6 Hertz frequency range, which originate from binary supermassive blackholes. A European space-based detector, eLISA / NGO, is currently under development, with a precursor mission (LISA Pathfinder) having launched in December 2015.
Observations of gravitational waves promise to complement observations in the electromagnetic spectrum. They are expected to yield information about black holes and other dense objects such as neutron stars and white dwarfs, about certain kinds of supernova implosions, and about processes in the very early universe, including the signature of certain types of hypothetical cosmic string. In February 2016, the Advanced LIGO team announced that they had detected gravitational waves from a black hole merger.
Whenever the ratio of an object's mass to its radius becomes sufficiently large, general relativity predicts the formation of a black hole, a region of space from which nothing, not even light, can escape. In the currently accepted models of stellar evolution, neutron stars of around 1.4 solar masses, and stellar black holes with a few to a few dozen solar masses, are thought to be the final state for the evolution of massive stars. Usually a galaxy has one supermassive black hole with a few million to a few billion solar masses in its center, and its presence is thought to have played an important role in the formation of the galaxy and larger cosmic structures.
Astronomically, the most important property of compact objects is that they provide a supremely efficient mechanism for converting gravitational energy into electromagnetic radiation. Accretion, the falling of dust or gaseous matter onto stellar or supermassive black holes, is thought to be responsible for some spectacularly luminous astronomical objects, notably diverse kinds of active galactic nuclei on galactic scales and stellar-size objects such as microquasars. In particular, accretion can lead to relativistic jets, focused beams of highly energetic particles that are being flung into space at almost light speed.
General relativity plays a central role in modelling all these phenomena, and observations provide strong evidence for the existence of black holes with the properties predicted by the theory.
Black holes are also sought-after targets in the search for gravitational waves (cf. Gravitational waves, above). Merging black hole binaries should lead to some of the strongest gravitational wave signals reaching detectors here on Earth, and the phase directly before the merger ("chirp") could be used as a "standard candle" to deduce the distance to the merger events–and hence serve as a probe of cosmic expansion at large distances. The gravitational waves produced as a stellar black hole plunges into a supermassive one should provide direct information about the supermassive black hole's geometry.
The current models of cosmology are based on Einstein's field equations, which include the cosmological constant formula_22 since it has important influence on the large-scale dynamics of the cosmos,
where "formula_24" is the spacetime metric. Isotropic and homogeneous solutions of these enhanced equations, the Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker solutions, allow physicists to model a universe that has evolved over the past 14 billion years from a hot, early Big Bang phase. Once a small number of parameters (for example the universe's mean matter density) have been fixed by astronomical observation, further observational data can be used to put the models to the test. Predictions, all successful, include the initial abundance of chemical elements formed in a period of primordial nucleosynthesis, the large-scale structure of the universe, and the existence and properties of a "thermal echo" from the early cosmos, the cosmic background radiation.
Astronomical observations of the cosmological expansion rate allow the total amount of matter in the universe to be estimated, although the nature of that matter remains mysterious in part. About 90% of all matter appears to be dark matter, which has mass (or, equivalently, gravitational influence), but does not interact electromagnetically and, hence, cannot be observed directly. There is no generally accepted description of this new kind of matter, within the framework of known particle physics or otherwise. Observational evidence from redshift surveys of distant supernovae and measurements of the cosmic background radiation also show that the evolution of our universe is significantly influenced by a cosmological constant resulting in an acceleration of cosmic expansion or, equivalently, by a form of energy with an unusual equation of state, known as dark energy, the nature of which remains unclear.
An inflationary phase, an additional phase of strongly accelerated expansion at cosmic times of around 10−33 seconds, was hypothesized in 1980 to account for several puzzling observations that were unexplained by classical cosmological models, such as the nearly perfect homogeneity of the cosmic background radiation. Recent measurements of the cosmic background radiation have resulted in the first evidence for this scenario. However, there is a bewildering variety of possible inflationary scenarios, which cannot be restricted by current observations. An even larger question is the physics of the earliest universe, prior to the inflationary phase and close to where the classical models predict the big bang singularity. An authoritative answer would require a complete theory of quantum gravity, which has not yet been developed (cf. the section on quantum gravity, below).
Kurt Gödel showed that solutions to Einstein's equations exist that contain closed timelike curves (CTCs), which allow for loops in time. The solutions require extreme physical conditions unlikely ever to occur in practice, and it remains an open question whether further laws of physics will eliminate them completely. Since then, other—similarly impractical—GR solutions containing CTCs have been found, such as the Tipler cylinder and traversable wormholes.
In general relativity, no material body can catch up with or overtake a light pulse. No influence from an event "A" can reach any other location "X" before light sent out at "A" to "X". In consequence, an exploration of all light worldlines (null geodesics) yields key information about the spacetime's causal structure. This structure can be displayed using Penrose–Carter diagrams in which infinitely large regions of space and infinite time intervals are shrunk ("compactified") so as to fit onto a finite map, while light still travels along diagonals as in standard spacetime diagrams.
Aware of the importance of causal structure, Roger Penrose and others developed what is known as global geometry. In global geometry, the object of study is not one particular solution (or family of solutions) to Einstein's equations. Rather, relations that hold true for all geodesics, such as the Raychaudhuri equation, and additional non-specific assumptions about the nature of matter (usually in the form of energy conditions) are used to derive general results.
Using global geometry, some spacetimes can be shown to contain boundaries called horizons, which demarcate one region from the rest of spacetime. The best-known examples are black holes: if mass is compressed into a sufficiently compact region of space (as specified in the hoop conjecture, the relevant length scale is the Schwarzschild radius), no light from inside can escape to the outside. Since no object can overtake a light pulse, all interior matter is imprisoned as well. Passage from the exterior to the interior is still possible, showing that the boundary, the black hole's "horizon", is not a physical barrier.
Early studies of black holes relied on explicit solutions of Einstein's equations, notably the spherically symmetric Schwarzschild solution (used to describe a static black hole) and the axisymmetric Kerr solution (used to describe a rotating, stationary black hole, and introducing interesting features such as the ergosphere). Using global geometry, later studies have revealed more general properties of black holes. With time they become rather simple objects characterized by eleven parameters specifying: electric charge, mass-energy, linear momentum, angular momentum, and location at a specified time. This is stated by the black hole uniqueness theorem: "black holes have no hair", that is, no distinguishing marks like the hairstyles of humans. Irrespective of the complexity of a gravitating object collapsing to form a black hole, the object that results (having emitted gravitational waves) is very simple.
Even more remarkably, there is a general set of laws known as black hole mechanics, which is analogous to the laws of thermodynamics. For instance, by the second law of black hole mechanics, the area of the event horizon of a general black hole will never decrease with time, analogous to the entropy of a thermodynamic system. This limits the energy that can be extracted by classical means from a rotating black hole (e.g. by the Penrose process). There is strong evidence that the laws of black hole mechanics are, in fact, a subset of the laws of thermodynamics, and that the black hole area is proportional to its entropy. This leads to a modification of the original laws of black hole mechanics: for instance, as the second law of black hole mechanics becomes part of the second law of thermodynamics, it is possible for black hole area to decrease—as long as other processes ensure that, overall, entropy increases. As thermodynamical objects with non-zero temperature, black holes should emit thermal radiation. Semi-classical calculations indicate that indeed they do, with the surface gravity playing the role of temperature in Planck's law. This radiation is known as Hawking radiation (cf. the quantum theory section, below).
There are other types of horizons. In an expanding universe, an observer may find that some regions of the past cannot be observed ("particle horizon"), and some regions of the future cannot be influenced (event horizon). Even in flat Minkowski space, when described by an accelerated observer (Rindler space), there will be horizons associated with a semi-classical radiation known as Unruh radiation.
Another general feature of general relativity is the appearance of spacetime boundaries known as singularities. Spacetime can be explored by following up on timelike and lightlike geodesics—all possible ways that light and particles in free fall can travel. But some solutions of Einstein's equations have "ragged edges"—regions known as spacetime singularities, where the paths of light and falling particles come to an abrupt end, and geometry becomes ill-defined. In the more interesting cases, these are "curvature singularities", where geometrical quantities characterizing spacetime curvature, such as the Ricci scalar, take on infinite values. Well-known examples of spacetimes with future singularities—where worldlines end—are the Schwarzschild solution, which describes a singularity inside an eternal static black hole, or the Kerr solution with its ring-shaped singularity inside an eternal rotating black hole. The Friedmann–Lemaître–Robertson–Walker solutions and other spacetimes describing universes have past singularities on which worldlines begin, namely Big Bang singularities, and some have future singularities (Big Crunch) as well.
Given that these examples are all highly symmetric—and thus simplified—it is tempting to conclude that the occurrence of singularities is an artifact of idealization. The famous singularity theorems, proved using the methods of global geometry, say otherwise: singularities are a generic feature of general relativity, and unavoidable once the collapse of an object with realistic matter properties has proceeded beyond a certain stage and also at the beginning of a wide class of expanding universes. However, the theorems say little about the properties of singularities, and much of current research is devoted to characterizing these entities' generic structure (hypothesized e.g. by the BKL conjecture). The cosmic censorship hypothesis states that all realistic future singularities (no perfect symmetries, matter with realistic properties) are safely hidden away behind a horizon, and thus invisible to all distant observers. While no formal proof yet exists, numerical simulations offer supporting evidence of its validity.
Each solution of Einstein's equation encompasses the whole history of a universe — it is not just some snapshot of how things are, but a whole, possibly matter-filled, spacetime. It describes the state of matter and geometry everywhere and at every moment in that particular universe. Due to its general covariance, Einstein's theory is not sufficient by itself to determine the time evolution of the metric tensor. It must be combined with a coordinate condition, which is analogous to gauge fixing in other field theories.
To understand Einstein's equations as partial differential equations, it is helpful to formulate them in a way that describes the evolution of the universe over time. This is done in "3+1" formulations, where spacetime is split into three space dimensions and one time dimension. The best-known example is the ADM formalism. These decompositions show that the spacetime evolution equations of general relativity are well-behaved: solutions always exist, and are uniquely defined, once suitable initial conditions have been specified. Such formulations of Einstein's field equations are the basis of numerical relativity.
The notion of evolution equations is intimately tied in with another aspect of general relativistic physics. In Einstein's theory, it turns out to be impossible to find a general definition for a seemingly simple property such as a system's total mass (or energy). The main reason is that the gravitational field—like any physical field—must be ascribed a certain energy, but that it proves to be fundamentally impossible to localize that energy.
Nevertheless, there are possibilities to define a system's total mass, either using a hypothetical "infinitely distant observer" (ADM mass) or suitable symmetries (Komar mass). If one excludes from the system's total mass the energy being carried away to infinity by gravitational waves, the result is the Bondi mass at null infinity. Just as in classical physics, it can be shown that these masses are positive. Corresponding global definitions exist for momentum and angular momentum. There have also been a number of attempts to define "quasi-local" quantities, such as the mass of an isolated system formulated using only quantities defined within a finite region of space containing that system. The hope is to obtain a quantity useful for general statements about isolated systems, such as a more precise formulation of the hoop conjecture.
If general relativity were considered to be one of the two pillars of modern physics, then quantum theory, the basis of understanding matter from elementary particles to solid state physics, would be the other. However, how to reconcile quantum theory with general relativity is still an open question.
Ordinary quantum field theories, which form the basis of modern elementary particle physics, are defined in flat Minkowski space, which is an excellent approximation when it comes to describing the behavior of microscopic particles in weak gravitational fields like those found on Earth. In order to describe situations in which gravity is strong enough to influence (quantum) matter, yet not strong enough to require quantization itself, physicists have formulated quantum field theories in curved spacetime. These theories rely on general relativity to describe a curved background spacetime, and define a generalized quantum field theory to describe the behavior of quantum matter within that spacetime. Using this formalism, it can be shown that black holes emit a blackbody spectrum of particles known as Hawking radiation leading to the possibility that they evaporate over time. As briefly mentioned above, this radiation plays an important role for the thermodynamics of black holes.
The demand for consistency between a quantum description of matter and a geometric description of spacetime, as well as the appearance of singularities (where curvature length scales become microscopic), indicate the need for a full theory of quantum gravity: for an adequate description of the interior of black holes, and of the very early universe, a theory is required in which gravity and the associated geometry of spacetime are described in the language of quantum physics. Despite major efforts, no complete and consistent theory of quantum gravity is currently known, even though a number of promising candidates exist.
Attempts to generalize ordinary quantum field theories, used in elementary particle physics to describe fundamental interactions, so as to include gravity have led to serious problems. Some have argued that at low energies, this approach proves successful, in that it results in an acceptable effective (quantum) field theory of gravity. At very high energies, however, the perturbative results are badly divergent and lead to models devoid of predictive power ("perturbative non-renormalizability").
One attempt to overcome these limitations is string theory, a quantum theory not of point particles, but of minute one-dimensional extended objects. The theory promises to be a unified description of all particles and interactions, including gravity; the price to pay is unusual features such as six extra dimensions of space in addition to the usual three. In what is called the second superstring revolution, it was conjectured that both string theory and a unification of general relativity and supersymmetry known as supergravity form part of a hypothesized eleven-dimensional model known as M-theory, which would constitute a uniquely defined and consistent theory of quantum gravity.
Another approach starts with the canonical quantization procedures of quantum theory. Using the initial-value-formulation of general relativity (cf. evolution equations above), the result is the Wheeler–deWitt equation (an analogue of the Schrödinger equation) which, regrettably, turns out to be ill-defined without a proper ultraviolet (lattice) cutoff. However, with the introduction of what are now known as Ashtekar variables, this leads to a promising model known as loop quantum gravity. Space is represented by a web-like structure called a spin network, evolving over time in discrete steps.
Depending on which features of general relativity and quantum theory are accepted unchanged, and on what level changes are introduced, there are numerous other attempts to arrive at a viable theory of quantum gravity, some examples being the lattice theory of gravity based on the Feynman Path Integral approach and Regge Calculus, dynamical triangulations, causal sets, twistor models or the path integral based models of quantum cosmology.
All candidate theories still have major formal and conceptual problems to overcome. They also face the common problem that, as yet, there is no way to put quantum gravity predictions to experimental tests (and thus to decide between the candidates where their predictions vary), although there is hope for this to change as future data from cosmological observations and particle physics experiments becomes available.
General relativity has emerged as a highly successful model of gravitation and cosmology, which has so far passed many unambiguous observational and experimental tests. However, there are strong indications the theory is incomplete. The problem of quantum gravity and the question of the reality of spacetime singularities remain open. Observational data that is taken as evidence for dark energy and dark matter could indicate the need for new physics. Even taken as is, general relativity is rich with possibilities for further exploration. Mathematical relativists seek to understand the nature of singularities and the fundamental properties of Einstein's equations, while numerical relativists run increasingly powerful computer simulations (such as those describing merging black holes). In February 2016, it was announced that the existence of gravitational waves was directly detected by the Advanced LIGO team on September 14, 2015. A century after its introduction, general relativity remains a highly active area of research. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12024 |
Genealogy
Genealogy (from "" "the making of a pedigree") is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinship and pedigrees of its members. The results are often displayed in charts or written as narratives. The field of family history is broader than genealogy, and covers not just lineage, but also family and community history and biography.
The record of genealogical work may be presented as a "genealogy" or a "family history". In the narrow sense, a "genealogy" traces the descendants of one person, whereas a "family history" traces the ancestors of one person, but the two terms are often used interchangeably. A family history may include additional biographical information, family traditions, and the like.
The pursuit of family history and origins tends to be shaped by several motives, including the desire to carve out a place for one's family in the larger historical picture, a sense of responsibility to preserve the past for future generations, and self-satisfaction in accurate storytelling. Genealogy research is also performed for scholarly or forensic purposes.
Amateur genealogists typically pursue their own ancestry and that of their spouses. Professional genealogists may also conduct research for others, publish books on genealogical methods, teach, or produce their own databases. They may work for companies that provide software or produce materials of use to other professionals and to amateurs. Both try to understand not just where and when people lived, but also their lifestyles, biographies, and motivations. This often requires—or leads to—knowledge of antiquated laws, old political boundaries, migration trends, and historical socioeconomic or religious conditions.
Genealogists sometimes specialize in a particular group, e.g. a Scottish clan; a particular surname, such as in a one-name study; a small community, e.g. a single village or parish, such as in a one-place study; or a particular, often famous, person. Bloodlines of Salem is an example of a specialized family-history group. It welcomes members who can prove descent from a participant of the Salem Witch Trials or who simply choose to support the group.
Genealogists and family historians often join family history societies, where novices can learn from more experienced researchers. Such societies generally serve a specific geographical area. Their members may also index records to make them more accessible, and engage in advocacy and other efforts to preserve public records and cemeteries. Some schools engage students in such projects as a means to reinforce lessons regarding immigration and history. Other benefits include family medical histories with families with serious medical conditions that are hereditary.
The terms "genealogy" and "family history" are often used synonymously, but some offer a slight difference in definition. The Society of Genealogists, while also using the terms interchangeably, describes genealogy as the "establishment of a Pedigree by extracting evidence, from valid sources, of how one generation is connected to the next" and family history as "a biographical study of a genealogically proven family and of the community and country in which they lived".
When hiring a professional genealogist, be aware of their certifications and worldwide accessibility. The Genealogical Proof Standard, or GPS, was formalized in 2000 by the Board for Certification of Genealogists, whose goal is to ensure that genealogists meet a minimum standard when seeking to prove ancestry. You will see two main credentials in genealogy, an AG (through ICAPGen) and a CG (through the Board for Certification of Genealogists). A Certified Genealogist involves similar requirements as the Accreditation with a slightly different focus. The CG is not geographic specific, but instead takes a closer look at a genealogist's ability to interpret documents and resolve contradictory evidence. Since this is what a genealogist is often hired for, there is value in the qualifications required by the Board for Certification of Genealogists.
Professional genealogy companies have team members who speak and read many different languages, being able to access records of immigration from the country of origin. Tracing family history is most cost and time effective when hiring these experts so individuals are not traveling for specific records.
Many people are interested in joining lineage societies such as the Sons or Daughters of the American Revolution (SAR/DAR), Mayflower Society, etc. Each of these societies has different requirements for membership, but they all have fairly strict policies on documentation. A professional genealogist can help you collect the documentation you need to submit a successful application to whichever lineage society you might be interested in.[9]
Individuals conduct genealogical research for a number of reasons.
Private individuals do genealogy out of curiosity about their heritage. This curiosity can be particularly strong among those whose family histories were lost or unknown due to, for example, adoption or separation from family through divorce, death, or other situations. In addition to simply wanting to know more about who they are and where they came from, individuals may research their genealogy to learn about any hereditary diseases in their family history.
There is a growing interest in family history in the media as a result of advertising and television shows sponsored by large genealogy companies such as Ancestry.com. This coupled with easier access to online records and the affordability of DNA tests has both inspired curiosity and allowed those who are curious to easily start investigating their ancestry.
In communitarian societies, one's identity is defined as much by one's kin network as by individual achievement, and the question "Who are you?" would be answered by a description of father, mother, and tribe. New Zealand Māori, for example, learn whakapapa (genealogies) to discover who they are.
Family history plays a part in the practice of some religious belief systems. For example, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) has a doctrine of baptism for the dead, which necessitates that members of that faith engage in family history research.
In East Asian countries that were historically shaped by Confucianism, many people follow a practice of ancestor worship as well as genealogical record-keeping. Ancestor's names are inscribed on tablets and placed in shrines, where rituals are performed. Genealogies are also recorded in genealogy books. This practice is rooted in the belief that respect for one's family is a foundation for a healthy society.
Royal families, both historically and in modern times, keep records of their genealogies in order to establish their right to rule and determine who will be the next sovereign. For centuries in various cultures, ones genealogy has been a source of political and social status.
Some countries and indigenous tribes allow individuals to obtain citizenship based on their genealogy. In Ireland and in Greece, for example, an individual can become a citizen if one of their grandparents was born in that country, regardless of their own or their parents' birthplace. In societies such as Australia or the United States, there was by the 20th century growing pride in the pioneers and nation-builders. Establishing descent from these was, and is, important to lineage societies such as the Daughters of the American Revolution and The Mayflower Society. Modern family history explores new sources of status, such as celebrating the resilience of families that survived generations of poverty or slavery, or the success of families in integrating across racial or national boundaries. Some family histories even emphasize links to celebrity criminals, such as the bushranger Ned Kelly in Australia.
Lawyers involved in probate cases do genealogy to locate heirs of property.
Detectives may perform genealogical research using DNA evidence to identify victims of homicides or perpetrators of crimes.
Historians and geneticists may carry out genealogical research to gain a greater understanding of specific topics in their respective fields, and some may employ professional genealogists in connection with specific aspects of their research. They also publish their research in peer-reviewed journals.
The introduction of postgraduate courses in genealogy in recent years has given genealogy more of an academic focus, with the emergence of peer-reviewed journals in this area. Scholarly genealogy is beginning to emerge as a discipline in its own right, with an increasing number of individuals who have obtained genealogical qualifications carrying out research on a diverse range of topics related to genealogy, both within academic institutions and independently.
Historically, in Western societies the focus of genealogy was on the kinship and descent of rulers and nobles, often arguing or demonstrating the legitimacy of claims to wealth and power. The term often overlapped with heraldry, in which the ancestry of royalty was reflected in their coats of arms. Modern scholars consider many claimed noble ancestries to be fabrications, such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that traced the ancestry of several English kings to the god Woden.
Some family trees have been maintained for considerable periods. The family tree of Confucius has been maintained for over 2,500 years and is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest extant family tree. The fifth edition of the Confucius Genealogy was printed in 2009 by the Confucius Genealogy Compilation Committee (CGCC).
In modern times, genealogy became more widespread, with commoners as well as nobility researching and maintaining their family trees. Genealogy received a boost in the late 1970s with the television broadcast of "" by Alex Haley. His account of his family's descent from the African tribesman Kunta Kinte inspired many others to study their own lines.
With the advent of the Internet, the number of resources readily accessible to genealogists has vastly increased, resulting in an explosion of interest in the topic. Genealogy is one of the most popular topics on the Internet. The Internet has become not only a major source of data for genealogists, but also of education and communication.
In India, Charans are the Bards who traditionally keep the written genealogy records of various castes. Some notable places where traditional genealogy records are kept include: Hindu genealogy registers at Haridwar (Uttarakhand), Varanasi and Allahabad (Uttar Pradesh), Kurukshetra (Haryana), Trimbakeshwar (Maharashtra), and Chintpurni (Himachal Pradesh).
Genealogical research in the United States was first systematized in the early 19th century, especially by John Farmer (1789–1838). Before Farmer's efforts, tracing one's genealogy was seen as an attempt by colonists to secure a measure of social standing within the British Empire, an aim that was counter to the new republic's egalitarian, future-oriented ethos. As Fourth of July celebrations commemorating the Founding Fathers and the heroes of the Revolutionary War became increasingly popular, however, the pursuit of 'antiquarianism,' which focused on local history, became acceptable as a way to honor the achievements of early Americans. Farmer capitalized on the acceptability of antiquarianism to frame genealogy within the early republic's ideological framework of pride in one's American ancestors. He corresponded with other antiquarians in New England, where antiquarianism and genealogy were well established, and became a coordinator, booster, and contributor to the growing movement. In the 1820s, he and fellow antiquarians began to produce genealogical and antiquarian tracts in earnest, slowly gaining a devoted audience among the American people. Though Farmer died in 1839, his efforts led to the creation of the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS), one of New England's oldest and most prominent organizations dedicated to the preservation of public records. NEHGS publishes the "New England Historical and Genealogical Register."
The Genealogical Society of Utah, founded in 1894, later became the Family History Department of the LDS Church. The department's research facility, the Family History Library, which Utah.com states is "the largest genealogical library in the world," was established to assist in tracing family lineages for special religious ceremonies which Latter-day Saints believe will seal family units together for eternity. Latter-day Saints believe that this fulfilled a biblical prophecy stating that the prophet Elijah would return to "turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers." There is a network of church-operated Family History Centers all over the country and around the world, where volunteers assist the public with tracing their ancestors. Brigham Young University offers bachelor's degree, minor, and concentration programs in Family History, and is the only school in North America to offer this.
The American Society of Genealogists is the scholarly honorary society of the U.S. genealogical field. Founded by John Insley Coddington, Arthur Adams, and Meredith B. Colket, Jr., in December 1940, its membership is limited to 50 living fellows. ASG publishes "The Genealogist", a scholarly journal of genealogical research semi-annually since 1980. Fellows of the American Society of Genealogists, who bear the post-nominal acronym FASG, have written some of the most notable genealogical materials of the last half-century.
Some of the most notable scholarly American genealogical journals are "The American Genealogist", "National Genealogical Society Quarterly", "The New England Historical and Genealogical Register", "The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record", and "The Genealogist".
Genealogical research is a complex process that uses historical records and sometimes genetic analysis to demonstrate kinship. Reliable conclusions are based on the quality of sources, ideally original records, the information within those sources, ideally primary or firsthand information, and the evidence that can be drawn, directly or indirectly, from that information. In many instances, genealogists must skillfully assemble indirect or circumstantial evidence to build a case for identity and kinship. All evidence and conclusions, together with the documentation that supports them, is then assembled to create a cohesive genealogy or family history.
Genealogists begin their research by collecting family documents and stories. This creates a foundation for documentary research, which involves examining and evaluating historical records for evidence about ancestors and other relatives, their kinship ties, and the events that occurred in their lives. As a rule, genealogists begin with the present and work backward in time. Historical, social, and family context is essential to achieving correct identification of individuals and relationships. Source citation is also important when conducting genealogical research. To keep track of collected material, family group sheets and pedigree charts are used. Formerly handwritten, these can now be generated by genealogical software.
Because a person's DNA contains information that has been passed down relatively unchanged from early ancestors, analysis of DNA is sometimes used for genealogical research. Three DNA types are of particular interest: mitochondrial DNA that we all possess and that is passed down with only minor mutations through the matrilineal (direct female) line; the Y-chromosome, present only in males, which is passed down with only minor mutations through the patrilineal (direct male) line; and the Autosomal DNA, which is found in the 22 non-gender specific chromosomes (autosomes) inherited from both parents, which can uncover relatives from any branch of the family. A genealogical DNA test allows two individuals to find the probability that they are, or are not, related within an estimated number of generations. Individual genetic test results are collected in databases to match people descended from a relatively recent common ancestor. See, for example, the Molecular Genealogy Research Project. These tests are limited to either the patrilineal or the matrilineal line.
Most genealogy software programs can export information about persons and their relationships in a standardized format called GEDCOM. In that format it can be shared with other genealogists, added to databases, or converted into family web sites. Social networking service (SNS) websites allow genealogists to share data and build their family trees online. Members can upload their family trees and contact other family historians to fill in gaps in their research. In addition to the (SNS) websites, there are other resources that encourage genealogists to connect and share information such as rootsweb.ancestry.com and rsl.rootsweb.ancestry.com.
Volunteer efforts figure prominently in genealogy. These range from the extremely informal to the highly organized.
On the informal side are the many popular and useful message boards such as Rootschat and mailing lists on particular surnames, regions, and other topics. These forums can be used to try to find relatives, request record lookups, obtain research advice, and much more. Many genealogists participate in loosely organized projects, both online and off. These collaborations take numerous forms. Some projects prepare name indexes for records, such as probate cases, and publish the indexes, either online or off. These indexes can be used as finding aids to locate original records. Other projects transcribe or abstract records. Offering record lookups for particular geographic areas is another common service. Volunteers do record lookups or take photos in their home areas for researchers who are unable to travel.
Those looking for a structured volunteer environment can join one of thousands of genealogical societies worldwide. Most societies have a unique area of focus, such as a particular surname, ethnicity, geographic area, or descendancy from participants in a given historical event. Genealogical societies are almost exclusively staffed by volunteers and may offer a broad range of services, including maintaining libraries for members' use, publishing newsletters, providing research assistance to the public, offering classes or seminars, and organizing record preservation or transcription projects.
Genealogy software is used to collect, store, sort, and display genealogical data. At a minimum, genealogy software accommodates basic information about individuals, including births, marriages, and deaths. Many programs allow for additional biographical information, including occupation, residence, and notes, and most also offer a method for keeping track of the sources for each piece of evidence.
Most programs can generate basic kinship charts and reports, allow for the import of digital photographs and the export of data in the GEDCOM format (short for GEnealogical Data COMmunication) so that data can be shared with those using other genealogy software. More advanced features include the ability to restrict the information that is shared, usually by removing information about living people out of privacy concerns; the import of sound files; the generation of family history books, web pages and other publications; the ability to handle same-sex marriages and children born out of wedlock; searching the Internet for data; and the provision of research guidance. Programs may be geared toward a specific religion, with fields relevant to that religion, or to specific nationalities or ethnic groups, with source types relevant for those groups. Online resources involve complex programming and large data bases, such as censuses.
Genealogists use a wide variety of records in their research. To effectively conduct genealogical research, it is important to understand how the records were created, what information is included in them, and how and where to access them.
Records that are used in genealogy research include:
To keep track of their citizens, governments began keeping records of persons who were neither royalty nor nobility. In England and Germany, for example, such record keeping started with parish registers in the 16th century. As more of the population was recorded, there were sufficient records to follow a family. Major life events, such as births, marriages, and deaths, were often documented with a license, permit, or report. Genealogists locate these records in local, regional or national offices or archives and extract information about family relationships and recreate timelines of persons' lives.
In China, India and other Asian countries, genealogy books are used to record the names, occupations, and other information about family members, with some books dating back hundreds or even thousands of years. In the eastern Indian state of Bihar, there is a written tradition of genealogical records among Maithil Brahmins and Karna Kayasthas called "Panjis", dating to the 12th century CE. Even today these records are consulted prior to marriages.
In Ireland, genealogical records were recorded by professional families of "senchaidh" (historians) until as late as the mid-17th century. Perhaps the most outstanding example of this genre is Leabhar na nGenealach/The Great Book of Irish Genealogies, by Dubhaltach MacFhirbhisigh (d. 1671), published in 2004.
The LDS Church has engaged in large-scale microfilming of records of genealogical value. Its Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah, houses over 2 million microfiche and microfilms of genealogically relevant material, which are also available for on-site research at over 4500 Family History Centers worldwide.
FamilySearch's website includes many resources for genealogists: a FamilyTree database, historical records, digitized family history books, resources and indexing for African American genealogy such as slave and bank records, and a Family History Research Wiki containing research guidance articles.
Indexing is the process of transcribing parish records, city vital records, and other reports, to a digital database for searching. Volunteers and professionals participate in the indexing process. Since 2006, the microfilm in the FamilySearch granite mountain vault is in the process of being digitally scanned, available online, and eventually indexed.
For example, after the 72-year legal limit for releasing personal information for the United States Census was reached in 2012, genealogical groups cooperated to index the 132 million residents registered in the 1940 United States Census.
Between 2006 and 2012, the FamilySearch indexing effort produced more than 1 billion searchable records.
Sometimes genealogical records are destroyed, whether accidentally or on purpose. In order to do thorough research, genealogists keep track of which records have been destroyed so they know when information they need may be missing. Of particular note for North American genealogy is the 1890 United States Census, which was destroyed in a fire in 1921. Although fragments survive, most of the 1890 census no longer exists. Those looking for genealogical information for families that lived in the United States in 1890 must rely on other information to fill that gap.
War is another cause of record destruction. During World War II, many European records were destroyed. Communists in China during the Cultural Revolution and in Korea during the Korean War destroyed genealogy books kept by families.
Often records are destroyed due to accident or neglect. Since genealogical records are often kept on paper and stacked in high-density storage, they are prone to fire, mold, insect damage, and eventual disintegration. Sometimes records of genealogical value are deliberately destroyed by governments or organizations because the records are considered to be unimportant or a privacy risk. Because of this, genealogists often organize efforts to preserve records that are at risk of destruction. FamilySearch has an ongoing program that assesses what useful genealogical records have the most risk of being destroyed, and sends volunteers to digitize such records. In 2017, the government of Sierra Leone asked FamilySearch for help preserving their rapidly deteriorating vital records. FamilySearch has begun digitizing the records and making them available online. The Federation of Genealogical Societies also organized an effort to preserve and digitize United States War of 1812 pension records. In 2010, they began raising funds, which were contribute by genealogists around the United States and matched by Ancestry.com. Their goal was achieved and the process of digitization was able to begin. The digitized records are available for free online.
Genealogists who seek to reconstruct the lives of each ancestor consider all historical information to be "genealogical" information. Traditionally, the basic information needed to ensure correct identification of each person are place names, occupations, family names, first names, and dates. However, modern genealogists greatly expand this list, recognizing the need to place this information in its historical context in order to properly evaluate genealogical evidence and distinguish between same-name individuals. A great deal of information is available for British ancestry with growing resources for other ethnic groups.
Family names are simultaneously one of the most important pieces of genealogical information, and a source of significant confusion for researchers.
In many cultures, the name of a person refers to the family to which he or she belongs. This is called the "family name", "surname", or "last name". Patronymics are names that identify an individual based on the father's name. For example, Marga Olafsdottir is Marga, daughter of Olaf, and Olaf Thorsson is Olaf, son of Thor. Many cultures used patronymics before surnames were adopted or came into use. The Dutch in New York, for example, used the patronymic system of names until 1687 when the advent of English rule mandated surname usage. In Iceland, patronymics are used by a majority of the population. In Denmark and Norway patronymics and farm names were generally in use through the 19th century and beyond, though surnames began to come into fashion toward the end of the 19th century in some parts of the country. Not until 1856 in Denmark and 1923 in Norway were there laws requiring surnames.
The transmission of names across generations, marriages and other relationships, and immigration may cause difficulty in genealogical research. For instance, women in many cultures have routinely used their spouse's surnames. When a woman remarried, she may have changed her name and the names of her children; only her name; or changed no names. Her birth name (maiden name) may be reflected in her children's middle names; her own middle name; or dropped entirely. Children may sometimes assume stepparent, foster parent, or adoptive parent names. Because official records may reflect many kinds of surname change, without explaining the underlying reason for the change, the correct identification of a person recorded identified with more than one name is challenging. Immigrants to America often Americanized their names.
Surname data may be found in trade directories, census returns, birth, death, and marriage records.
Genealogical data regarding given names (first names) is subject to many of the same problems as are family names and place names. Additionally, the use of nicknames is very common. For example, Beth, Lizzie or Betty are all common for Elizabeth, and Jack, John and Jonathan may be interchanged.
Middle names provide additional information. Middle names may be inherited, follow naming customs, or be treated as part of the family name. For instance, in some Latin cultures, both the mother's family name and the father's family name are used by the children.
Historically, naming traditions existed in some places and cultures. Even in areas that tended to use naming conventions, however, they were by no means universal. Families may have used them some of the time, among some of their children, or not at all. A pattern might also be broken to name a newborn after a recently deceased sibling, aunt or uncle.
An example of a naming tradition from England, Scotland and Ireland:
Another example is in some areas of Germany, where siblings were given the same first name, often of a favourite saint or local nobility, but different second names by which they were known ("Rufname"). If a child died, the next child of the same gender that was born may have been given the same name. It is not uncommon that a list of a particular couple's children will show one or two names repeated.
Personal names have periods of popularity, so it is not uncommon to find many similarly named people in a generation, and even similarly named families; e.g., "William and Mary and their children David, Mary, and John".
Many names may be identified strongly with a particular gender; e.g., William for boys, and Mary for girls. Others may be ambiguous, e.g., Lee, or have only slightly variant spellings based on gender, e.g., Frances (usually female) and Francis (usually male).
While the locations of ancestors' residences and life events are core elements of the genealogist's quest, they can often be confusing. Place names may be subject to variant spellings by partially literate scribes. Locations may have identical or very similar names. For example, the village name Brockton occurs six times in the border area between the English counties of Shropshire and Staffordshire. Shifts in political borders must also be understood. Parish, county, and national borders have frequently been modified. Old records may contain references to farms and villages that have ceased to exist. When working with older records from Poland, where borders and place names have changed frequently in past centuries, a source with maps and sample records such as "A Translation Guide to 19th-Century Polish-Language Civil-Registration Documents" can be invaluable.
Available sources may include vital records (civil or church registration), censuses, and tax assessments. Oral tradition is also an important source, although it must be used with caution. When no source information is available for a location, circumstantial evidence may provide a probable answer based on a person's or a family's place of residence at the time of the event.
Maps and gazetteers are important sources for understanding the places researched. They show the relationship of an area to neighboring communities and may be of help in understanding migration patterns. Family tree mapping using online mapping tools such as Google Earth (particularly when used with Historical Map overlays such as those from the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection) assist in the process of understanding the significance of geographical locations.
It is wise to exercise extreme caution with dates. Dates are more difficult to recall years after an event, and are more easily mistranscribed than other types of genealogical data. Therefore, one should determine whether the date was recorded at the time of the event or at a later date. Dates of birth in vital records or civil registrations and in church records at baptism are generally accurate because they were usually recorded near the time of the event. Family Bibles are often a source for dates, but can be written from memory long after the event. When the same ink and handwriting is used for all entries, the dates were probably written at the same time and therefore will be less reliable since the earlier dates were probably recorded well after the event. The publication date of the Bible also provides a clue about when the dates were recorded since they could not have been recorded at any earlier date.
People sometimes reduce their age on marriage, and those under "full age" may increase their age in order to marry or to join the armed forces. Census returns are notoriously unreliable for ages or for assuming an approximate death date. Ages over 15 in the 1841 census in the UK are rounded down to the next lower multiple of five years.
Although baptismal dates are often used to approximate birth dates, some families waited years before baptizing children, and adult baptisms are the norm in some religions. Both birth and marriage dates may have been adjusted to cover for pre-wedding pregnancies.
Calendar changes must also be considered. In 1752, England and her American colonies changed from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. In the same year, the date the new year began was changed. Prior to 1752 it was 25 March; this was changed to 1 January. Many other European countries had already made the calendar changes before England had, sometimes centuries earlier. By 1751 there was an 11-day discrepancy between the date in England and the date in other European countries.
For further detail on the changes involved in moving from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, see: Gregorian calendar.
The French Republican Calendar or French Revolutionary Calendar was a calendar proposed during the French Revolution, and used by the French government for about 12 years from late 1793 to 1805, and for 18 days in 1871 in Paris. Dates in official records at this time use the revolutionary calendar and need "translating" into the Gregorian calendar for calculating ages etc. There are various websites which do this.
Occupational information may be important to understanding an ancestor's life and for distinguishing two people with the same name. A person's occupation may have been related to his or her social status, political interest, and migration pattern. Since skilled trades are often passed from father to son, occupation may also be indirect evidence of a family relationship.
It is important to remember that a person may change occupations, and that titles change over time as well. Some workers no longer fit for their primary trade often took less prestigious jobs later in life, while others moved upwards in prestige. Many unskilled ancestors had a variety of jobs depending on the season and local trade requirements. Census returns may contain some embellishment; e.g., from labourer to mason, or from journeyman to master craftsman. Names for old or unfamiliar local occupations may cause confusion if poorly legible. For example, an ostler (a keeper of horses) and a hostler (an innkeeper) could easily be confused for one another. Likewise, descriptions of such occupations may also be problematic. The perplexing description "ironer of rabbit burrows" may turn out to describe an ironer (profession) in the Bristol district named Rabbit Burrows. Several trades have regionally preferred terms. For example, "shoemaker" and "cordwainer" have the same meaning. Finally, many apparently obscure jobs are part of a larger trade community, such as watchmaking, framework knitting or gunmaking.
Occupational data may be reported in occupational licenses, tax assessments, membership records of professional organizations, trade directories, census returns, and vital records (civil registration). Occupational dictionaries are available to explain many obscure and archaic trades.
Information found in historical or genealogical sources can be unreliable and it is good practice to evaluate all sources with a critical eye. Factors influencing the reliability of genealogical information include: the knowledge of the informant (or writer); the bias and mental state of the informant (or writer); the passage of time and the potential for copying and compiling errors.
The quality of census data has been of special interest to historians, who have investigated reliability issues.
The informant is the individual who provided the recorded information. Genealogists must carefully consider who provided the information and what he or she knew. In many cases the informant is identified in the record itself. For example, a death certificate usually has two informants: a physician who provides information about the time and cause of death and a family member who provides the birth date, names of parents, etc.
When the informant is not identified, one can sometimes deduce information about the identity of the person by careful examination of the source. One should first consider who was alive (and nearby) when the record was created. When the informant is also the person recording the information, the handwriting can be compared to other handwriting samples.
When a source does not provide clues about the informant, genealogists should treat the source with caution. These sources can be useful if they can be compared with independent sources. For example, a census record by itself cannot be given much weight because the informant is unknown. However, when censuses for several years concur on a piece of information that would not likely be guessed by a neighbor, it is likely that the information in these censuses was provided by a family member or other informed person. On the other hand, information in a single census cannot be confirmed by information in an undocumented compiled genealogy since the genealogy may have used the census record as its source and might therefore be dependent on the same misinformed individual.
Even individuals who had knowledge of the fact, sometimes intentionally or unintentionally provided false or misleading information. A person may have lied in order to obtain a government benefit (such as a military pension), avoid taxation, or cover up an embarrassing situation (such as the existence of a non-marital child). A person with a distressed state of mind may not be able to accurately recall information. Many genealogical records were recorded at the time of a loved one's death, and so genealogists should consider the effect that grief may have had on the informant of these records.
The passage of time often affects a person's ability to recall information. Therefore, as a general rule, data recorded soon after the event are usually more reliable than data recorded many years later. However, some types of data are more difficult to recall after many years than others. One type especially prone to recollection errors is dates. Also the ability to recall is affected by the significance that the event had to the individual. These values may have been affected by cultural or individual preferences.
Genealogists must consider the effects that copying and compiling errors may have had on the information in a source. For this reason, sources are generally categorized in two categories: original and derivative. An original source is one that is not based on another source. A derivative source is information taken from another source. This distinction is important because each time a source is copied, information about the record may be lost and errors may result from the copyist misreading, mistyping, or miswriting the information. Genealogists should consider the number of times information has been copied and the types of derivation a piece of information has undergone. The types of derivatives include: photocopies, transcriptions, abstracts, translations, extractions, and compilations.
In addition to copying errors, compiled sources (such as published genealogies and online pedigree databases) are susceptible to misidentification errors and incorrect conclusions based on circumstantial evidence. Identity errors usually occur when two or more individuals are assumed to be the same person. Circumstantial or indirect evidence does not explicitly answer a genealogical question, but either may be used with other sources to answer the question, suggest a probable answer, or eliminate certain possibilities. Compilers sometimes draw hasty conclusions from circumstantial evidence without sufficiently examining all available sources, without properly understanding the evidence, and without appropriately indicating the level of uncertainty.
In genealogical research, information can be obtained from primary or secondary sources. Primary sources are records that were made at the time of the event, for example a death certificate would be a primary source for a person's death date and place. Secondary sources are records that are made days, weeks, months, or even years after an event.
Organizations that educate and certify genealogists have established standards and ethical guidelines they instruct genealogists to follow.
Genealogy research requires analyzing documents and drawing conclusions based on the evidence provided in the available documents. Genealogists need standards to determine whether or not their evaluation of the evidence is accurate. In the past, genealogists in the United States borrowed terms from judicial law to examine evidence found in documents and how they relate to the researcher's conclusions. However, the differences between the two disciplines created a need for genealogists to develop their own standards. In 2000, the Board for Certification of Genealogists published their first manual of standards. The Genealogical Proof Standard created by the Board for Certification of Genealogists is widely distributed in seminars, workshops, and educational materials for genealogists in the United States. Other genealogical organizations around the world have created similar standards they invite genealogists to follow. Such standards provide guidelines for genealogists to evaluate their own research as well as the research of others.
Standards for genealogical research include:
Genealogists often handle sensitive information and share and publish such information. Because of this, there is a need for ethical standards and boundaries for when information is too sensitive to be published. Historically, some genealogists have fabricated information or have otherwise been untrustworthy. Genealogical organizations around the world have outlined ethical standards as an attempt to eliminate such problems. Ethical standards adopted by various genealogical organizations include:
In 2015, a committee presented standards for genetic genealogy at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy. The standards emphasize that genealogists and testing companies should respect the privacy of clients and recognize the limits of DNA tests. It also discusses how genealogists should thoroughly document conclusions made using DNA evidence. In 2019, the Board for the Certification of Genealogists officially updated their standards and code of ethics to include standards for genetic genealogy.
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Gabon
Gabon (; ), officially the Gabonese Republic (), is a country on the west coast of Central Africa. Located on the equator, Gabon is bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, the Republic of the Congo on the east and south, and the Gulf of Guinea to the west. It has an area of nearly and its population is estimated at /1e6 round 1 million people. Its capital and largest city is Libreville.
Since its independence from France in 1960, the sovereign state of Gabon has had three presidents. In the early 1990s, Gabon introduced a multi-party system and a new democratic constitution that allowed for a more transparent electoral process and reformed many governmental institutions.
Abundant petroleum and foreign private investment have helped make Gabon one of the most prosperous countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, with the 7th highest HDI and the fourth highest GDP per capita (PPP) (after Mauritius, Equatorial Guinea and Seychelles) in the region. GDP grew by more than 6% per year from 2010 to 2012. However, because of inequality in income distribution, a significant proportion of the population remains poor.
Gabon's name originates from "gabão", Portuguese for "cloak", which is roughly the shape of the estuary of the Komo River by Libreville.
The earliest inhabitants of the area were Pygmy peoples. They were largely replaced and absorbed by Bantu tribes as they migrated.
In the 15th century, the first Europeans arrived. By the 18th century, a Myeni speaking kingdom known as Orungu formed in Gabon.
On February 10, 1722, Bartholomew Roberts, a Welsh pirate known as Black Bart, died at sea off Cape Lopez. He raided ships off the Americas and West Africa from 1719 to 1722.
French explorer Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza led his first mission to the Gabon-Congo area in 1875. He founded the town of Franceville, and was later colonial governor. Several Bantu groups lived in the area that is now Gabon when France officially occupied it in 1885.
In 1910, Gabon became one of the four territories of French Equatorial Africa, a federation that survived until 1959. In World War II, the Allies invaded Gabon in order to overthrow the pro-Vichy France colonial administration. The territories of French Equatorial Africa became independent on August 17, 1960. The first president of Gabon, elected in 1961, was Léon M'ba, with Omar Bongo Ondimba as his vice president.
After M'ba's accession to power, the press was suppressed, political demonstrations banned, freedom of expression curtailed, other political parties gradually excluded from power, and the Constitution changed along French lines to vest power in the Presidency, a post that M'ba assumed himself. However, when M'ba dissolved the National Assembly in January 1964 to institute one-party rule, an army coup sought to oust him from power and restore parliamentary democracy. French paratroopers flew in within 24 hours to restore M'ba to power.
After a few days of fighting, the coup ended and the opposition was imprisoned, despite widespread protests and riots. French soldiers still remain in the Camp de Gaulle on the outskirts of Gabon's capital to this day. When M'Ba died in 1967, Bongo replaced him as president.
In March 1968, Bongo declared Gabon a one-party state by dissolving the BDG and establishing a new party—the Parti Democratique Gabonais (PDG). He invited all Gabonese, regardless of previous political affiliation, to participate. Bongo sought to forge a single national movement in support of the government's development policies, using the PDG as a tool to submerge the regional and tribal rivalries that had divided Gabonese politics in the past. Bongo was elected President in February 1975; in April 1975, the position of vice president was abolished and replaced by the position of prime minister, who had no right to automatic succession. Bongo was re-elected President in both December 1979 and November 1986 to 7-year terms.
In early 1990 economic discontent and a desire for political liberalization provoked violent demonstrations and strikes by students and workers. In response to grievances by workers, Bongo negotiated with them on a sector-by-sector basis, making significant wage concessions. In addition, he promised to open up the PDG and to organize a national political conference in March–April 1990 to discuss Gabon's future political system. The PDG and 74 political organizations attended the conference. Participants essentially divided into two loose coalitions, the ruling PDG and its allies, and the United Front of Opposition Associations and Parties, consisting of the breakaway Morena Fundamental and the Gabonese Progress Party.
The April 1990 conference approved sweeping political reforms, including creation of a national Senate, decentralization of the budgetary process, freedom of assembly and press, and cancellation of an exit visa requirement. In an attempt to guide the political system's transformation to multiparty democracy, Bongo resigned as PDG chairman and created a transitional government headed by a new Prime Minister, Casimir Oye-Mba. The Gabonese Social Democratic Grouping (RSDG), as the resulting government was called, was smaller than the previous government and included representatives from several opposition parties in its cabinet. The RSDG drafted a provisional constitution in May 1990 that provided a basic bill of rights and an independent judiciary but retained strong executive powers for the president. After further review by a constitutional committee and the National Assembly, this document came into force in March 1991.
Opposition to the PDG continued after the April 1990 conference, however, and in September 1990, two coup d'état attempts were uncovered and aborted. Despite anti-government demonstrations after the untimely death of an opposition leader, the first multiparty National Assembly elections in almost 30 years took place in September–October 1990, with the PDG garnering a large majority.
Following President Omar Bongo's re-election in December 1993 with 51% of the vote, opposition candidates refused to validate the election results. Serious civil disturbances and violent repression led to an agreement between the government and opposition factions to work toward a political settlement. These talks led to the Paris Accords in November 1994, under which several opposition figures were included in a government of national unity. This arrangement soon broke down, however, and the 1996 and 1997 legislative and municipal elections provided the background for renewed partisan politics. The PDG won a landslide victory in the legislative election, but several major cities, including Libreville, elected opposition mayors during the 1997 local election.
Facing a divided opposition, President Omar Bongo coasted to easy re-election in December 1998, with large majorities of the vote. While Bongo's major opponents rejected the outcome as fraudulent, some international observers characterized the results as representative despite many perceived irregularities, and there were none of the civil disturbances that followed the 1993 election. Peaceful though flawed legislative elections held in 2001–2002, which were boycotted by a number of smaller opposition parties and were widely criticized for their administrative weaknesses, produced a National Assembly almost completely dominated by the PDG and allied independents. In November 2005 President Omar Bongo was elected for his sixth term. He won re-election easily, but opponents claim that the balloting process was marred by irregularities. There were some instances of violence following the announcement of his win, but Gabon generally remained peaceful.
National Assembly elections were held again in December 2006. Several seats contested because of voting irregularities were overturned by the Constitutional Court, but the subsequent run-off elections in early 2007 again yielded a PDG-controlled National Assembly.
On June 8, 2009, President Omar Bongo died of cardiac arrest at a Spanish hospital in Barcelona, ushering in a new era in Gabonese politics. In accordance with the amended constitution, Rose Francine Rogombé, the President of the Senate, became Interim President on June 10, 2009. The first contested elections in Gabon's history that did not include Omar Bongo as a candidate were held on August 30, 2009 with 18 candidates for president. The lead-up to the elections saw some isolated protests, but no significant disturbances. Omar Bongo's son, ruling party leader Ali Bongo Ondimba, was formally declared the winner after a 3-week review by the Constitutional Court; his inauguration took place on October 16, 2009.
The court's review had been prompted by claims of fraud by the many opposition candidates, with the initial announcement of election results sparking unprecedented violent protests in Port-Gentil, the country's second-largest city and a long-time bastion of opposition to PDG rule. The citizens of Port-Gentil took to the streets, and numerous shops and residences were burned, including the French Consulate and a local prison. Officially, only four deaths occurred during the riots, but opposition and local leaders claim many more. Gendarmes and the military were deployed to Port-Gentil to support the beleaguered police, and a curfew was in effect for more than three months.
A partial legislative by-election was held in June 2010. A newly created coalition of parties, the Union Nationale (UN), participated for the first time. The UN is composed largely of PDG defectors who left the party after Omar Bongo's death. Of the five hotly contested seats, the PDG won three and the UN won two; both sides claimed victory.
In January 2019, there was an attempted coup d'état led by soldiers against the President Ali Bongo; the coup ultimately failed.
Gabon is a republic with a presidential form of government under the 1961 constitution (revised in 1975, rewritten in 1991, and revised in 2003). The president is elected by universal suffrage for a seven-year term; a 2003 constitutional amendment removed presidential term limits and facilitated a presidency for life. The president can appoint and dismiss the prime minister, the cabinet, and judges of the independent Supreme Court. The president also has other strong powers, such as authority to dissolve the National Assembly, declare a state of siege, delay legislation, and conduct referenda.
Gabon has a bicameral legislature with a National Assembly and Senate. The National Assembly has 120 deputies who are popularly elected for a 5-year term. The Senate is composed of 102 members who are elected by municipal councils and regional assemblies and serve for 6 years. The Senate was created in the 1990–1991 constitutional revision, although it was not brought into being until after the 1997 local elections. The President of the Senate is next in succession to the President.
Despite the democratic system of government, the "Freedom in the World" report lists Gabon as "not free", and elections in 2016 have been disputed.
In 1990, the government made major changes to Gabon's political system. A transitional constitution was drafted in May 1990 as an outgrowth of the national political conference in March–April and later revised by a constitutional committee. Among its provisions were a Western-style bill of rights, creation of a National Council of Democracy to oversee the guarantee of those rights, a governmental advisory board on economic and social issues, and an independent judiciary.
After approval by the National Assembly, the PDG Central Committee, and the President, the Assembly unanimously adopted the constitution in March 1991. Multiparty legislative elections were held in 1990–91, despite the fact that opposition parties had not been declared formally legal. In spite of this, the elections produced the first representative, multiparty National Assembly. In January 1991, the Assembly passed by unanimous vote a law governing the legalization of opposition parties.
After President Omar Bongo was re-elected in 1993, in a disputed election where only 51% of votes were cast, social and political disturbances led to the 1994 Paris Conference and Accords. These provided a framework for the next elections. Local and legislative elections were delayed until 1996–97. In 1997, constitutional amendments put forward years earlier were adopted to create the Senate and the position of vice president, as well as to extend the president's term to seven years.
In October 2009, newly elected President Ali Bongo Ondimba began efforts to streamline the government. In an effort to reduce corruption and government bloat, he eliminated 17 minister-level positions, abolished the vice presidency and reorganized the portfolios of numerous ministries, bureaus and directorates. In November 2009, President Bongo Ondimba announced a new vision for the modernization of Gabon, called "Gabon Emergent". This program contains three pillars: Green Gabon, Service Gabon, and Industrial Gabon. The goals of Gabon Emergent are to diversify the economy so that Gabon becomes less reliant on petroleum, to eliminate corruption, and to modernize the workforce. Under this program, exports of raw timber have been banned, a government-wide census was held, the work day has been changed to eliminate a long midday break, and a national oil company was created.
In provisional results, the ruling Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG) won 84 out of 120 parliamentary seats.
On January 25, 2011, opposition leader André Mba Obame claimed the presidency, saying the country should be run by someone the people really wanted. He also selected 19 ministers for his government, and the entire group, along with hundreds of others, spent the night at UN headquarters. On January 26, the government dissolved Mba Obame's party. AU chairman Jean Ping said that Mba Obame's action "hurts the integrity of legitimate institutions and also endangers the peace, the security and the stability of Gabon." Interior Minister Jean-François Ndongou accused Mba Obame and his supporters of treason. The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, said that he recognized Ondimba as the only official Gabonese president.
The 2016 presidential election was disputed, with very close official results reported. Protests broke out in the capital and met a brutal repression which culminated in the alleged bombing of opposition party headquarters by the presidential guard. Between 50 and 100 citizens were killed by security forces and 1,000 arrested. International observers criticized irregularities, including unnaturally high turnout reported for some districts. The country's supreme court threw out some suspect precincts, but a full recount was not possible because ballots had been destroyed. The election was declared in favor of the incumbent Ondimba. European Parliament issued 2 resolutions denouncing the unclear results of the election and calling for an independent investigation on the human rights violations.
Since independence, Gabon has followed a nonaligned policy, advocating dialogue in international affairs and recognizing each side of divided countries. In inter-African affairs, Gabon espouses development by evolution rather than revolution and favors regulated private enterprise as the system most likely to promote rapid economic growth. Gabon played an important leadership role in the stability of Central Africa through involvement in mediation efforts in Chad, the Central African Republic, Angola, the Republic of the Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (D.R.C.), and Burundi.
In December 1999, through the mediation efforts of President Bongo, a peace accord was signed in the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville) between the government and most leaders of an armed rebellion. President Bongo was also involved in the continuing D.R.C. peace process, and played a role in mediating the crisis in Ivory Coast. Gabonese armed forces were also an integral part of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) mission to the Central African Republic.
Gabon is a member of the United Nations (UN) and some of its specialized and related agencies, as well as of the World Bank; the IMF; the African Union (AU); the Central African Customs Union/Central African Economic and Monetary Community (UDEAC/CEMAC); EU/ACP association under the Lome Convention; the Communaute Financiere Africaine (CFA); the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC); the Nonaligned Movement; and the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS/CEEAC), among others. In 1995, Gabon withdrew from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), rejoining in 2016. Gabon was elected to a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council for January 2010 through December 2011 and held the rotating presidency in March 2010.
Gabon has a small, professional military of about 5,000 personnel, divided into army, navy, air force, gendarmerie, and police force. Gabonese forces are oriented to the defense of the country and have not been trained for an offensive role. A 1,800-member guard provides security for the president.
Gabon is divided into nine provinces, which are further subdivided into 50 departments. The president appoints the provincial governors, the prefects, and the subprefects.
The provinces are (capitals in parentheses):
Gabon is located on the Atlantic coast of central Africa on the equator, between latitudes 3°N and 4°S, and longitudes 8° and 15°E. Gabon generally has an equatorial climate with an extensive system of rainforests, with 89.3% of its land area forested.
There are three distinct regions: the coastal plains (ranging between from the ocean's shore), the mountains (the Cristal Mountains to the northeast of Libreville, the Chaillu Massif in the centre), and the savanna in the east. The coastal plains form a large section of the World Wildlife Fund's Atlantic Equatorial coastal forests ecoregion and contain patches of Central African mangroves especially on the Muni River estuary on the border with Equatorial Guinea.
Geologically, Gabon is primarily ancient Archean and Paleoproterozoic igneous and metamorphic basement rock, belonging to the stable continental crust of the Congo Craton, a remnant section of extremely old continental crust. Some formations are more than two billion years old. Ancient rock units are overlain by marine carbonate, lacustrine and continental sedimentary rocks as well as unconsolidated sediments and soils that formed in the last 2.5 million years of the Quaternary. The rifting apart of the supercontinent Pangaea created rift basins that filled with sediments and formed the hydrocarbons which are now a keystone of the Gabonese economy. Gabon is notable for the Oklo reactor zones, the only known natural nuclear fission reactor on Earth which was active two billion years ago. The site was discovered during uranium mining in the 1970s to supply the French nuclear power industry.
Gabon's largest river is the Ogooué which is long. Gabon has three karst areas where there are hundreds of caves located in the dolomite and limestone rocks. Some of the caves include Grotte du Lastoursville, Grotte du Lebamba, Grotte du Bongolo, and Grotte du Kessipougou. Many caves have not been explored yet. A National Geographic Expedition visited the caves in the summer of 2008 to document them.
Gabon is also noted for efforts to preserve the natural environment. In 2002, President Omar Bongo Ondimba designated roughly 10% of the nation's territory to be part of its national park system (with 13 parks in total), one of the largest proportions of nature parkland in the world. The National Agency for National Parks manages Gabon's national park system.
Natural resources include petroleum, magnesium, iron, gold, uranium, and forests.
Gabon's economy is dominated by oil. Oil revenues constitute roughly 46% of the government's budget, 43% of the gross domestic product (GDP), and 81% of exports. Oil production is currently declining rapidly from its high point of 370,000 barrels per day in 1997. Some estimates suggest that Gabonese oil will be expended by 2025. In spite of the decreasing oil revenues, planning is only now beginning for an after-oil scenario. The Grondin Oil Field was discovered in water depths offshore, in 1971 and produces from the Batanga sandstones of Maastrichtian age forming an anticline salt structural trap which is about deep.
Gabonese public expenditures from the years of significant oil revenues were not spent efficiently. Overspending on the Trans-Gabon Railway, the CFA franc devaluation of 1994, and periods of low oil prices caused serious debt problems that still plague the country.
Gabon earned a poor reputation with the Paris Club and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over the management of its debt and revenues. Successive IMF missions have criticized the government for overspending on off-budget items (in good years and bad), over-borrowing from the Central Bank, and slipping on the schedule for privatization and administrative reform. However, in September 2005 Gabon successfully concluded a 15-month Stand-By Arrangement with the IMF. Another 3-year Stand-By Arrangement with the IMF was approved in May 2007. Because of the financial crisis and social developments surrounding the death of President Omar Bongo and the elections, Gabon was unable to meet its economic goals under the Stand-By Arrangement in 2009. Negotiations with the IMF were ongoing.
Gabon's oil revenues have given it a per capita GDP of $8,600, unusually high for the region. However, a skewed income distribution and poor social indicators are evident. The richest 20% of the population earn over 90% of the income while about a third of the Gabonese population lives in poverty.
The economy is highly dependent on extraction, but primary materials are abundant. Before the discovery of oil, logging was the pillar of the Gabonese economy. Today, logging and manganese mining are the next-most-important income generators. Recent explorations suggest the presence of the world's largest unexploited iron ore deposit. For many who live in rural areas without access to employment opportunity in extractive industries, remittances from family members in urban areas or subsistence activities provide income.
Foreign and local observers have lamented the lack of diversity in the Gabonese economy. Various factors have so far limited the development of new industries:
Further investment in the agricultural or tourism sectors is complicated by poor infrastructure. The small processing and service sectors that do exist are largely dominated by a few prominent local investors.
At World Bank and IMF insistence, the government embarked in the 1990s on a program of privatization of its state-owned companies and administrative reform, including reducing public sector employment and salary growth, but progress has been slow. The new government has voiced a commitment to work toward an economic transformation of the country but faces significant challenges to realize this goal.
Gabon has a population of approximately /1e6 round 1 million. Historical and environmental factors caused Gabon's population to decline between 1900 and 1940. Gabon has one of the lowest population densities of any country in Africa, and the fourth highest Human Development Index in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Almost all Gabonese are of Bantu origin. Gabon has at least forty ethnic groups with differing languages and cultures. The Fang are generally thought to be the largest, although recent census data seem to favor the Nzebi. Others include the Myene, Kota, Shira, Puru, and Kande. There are also various indigenous Pygmy peoples: the Bongo, Kota, and Baka; the latter speak the only non-Bantu language in Gabon. More than 10,000 native French live in Gabon, including an estimated 2,000 dual nationals.
Ethnic boundaries are less sharply drawn in Gabon than elsewhere in Africa. Most ethnicities are spread throughout Gabon, leading to constant contact and interaction among the groups, and there is no ethnic tension. One important reason for this is that intermarriage is extremely common and every Gabonese person is connected by blood to many different tribes. Indeed, intermarriage is often required because among many tribes, marriage within the same tribe is prohibited because it is regarded as incest. This is because those tribes consist of the descendants of a specific ancestor, and therefore all members of the tribe are regarded as close kin to each other (identical to the clan system of Scotland or the Gotra system in the Hindu caste system). French, the language of its former colonial ruler, is a unifying force. The Democratic Party of Gabon (PDG)'s historical dominance also has served to unite various ethnicities and local interests into a larger whole.
French is the country's sole official language. It is estimated that 80% of Gabon's population can speak French, and that 30% of Libreville residents are native speakers of the language. Nationally, 32% of the Gabonese people speak the Fang language as a mother tongue.
The 2013 census found that only 63.7% of Gabon's population could speak a Gabonese language, broken down by 86.3% in rural areas and 60.5% in urban areas speaking at least one national language.
In October 2012, just before the 14th summit of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, the country declared an intention to add English as a second official language, reportedly in response to an investigation by France into corruption in the African country, though a government spokesman insisted it was for practical reasons only. It was later clarified that the country intended to introduce English as a first foreign language in schools, while keeping French as the general medium of instruction and the sole official language.
The majority of people in Gabon are Christians. Major religions practiced in Gabon include Christianity (Roman Catholicism and Protestantism), Bwiti, Islam, and indigenous animistic religion. Many persons practice elements of both Christianity and traditional indigenous religious beliefs. Approximately 73 percent of the population, including noncitizens, practice at least some elements of Christianity, including the syncretistic Bwiti; 12 percent practice Islam. 10 percent practice traditional indigenous religious beliefs exclusively; and 5 percent practice no religion or are atheists. A vivid description of taboos and magic is provided by Schweitzer.
Most of the health services of Gabon are public, but there are some private institutions, of which the best known is the hospital established in 1913 in Lambaréné by Albert Schweitzer. Gabon's medical infrastructure is considered one of the best in West Africa. By 1985 there were 28 hospitals, 87 medical centers, and 312 infirmaries and dispensaries. , there were an estimated 29 physicians per 100,000 people. Approximately 90% of the population had access to health care services.
In 2000, 70% of the population had access to safe drinking water and 21% had adequate sanitation. A comprehensive government health program treats such diseases as leprosy, sleeping sickness, malaria, filariasis, intestinal worms, and tuberculosis. Rates for immunization of children under the age of one were 97% for tuberculosis and 65% for polio. Immunization rates for DPT and measles were 37% and 56% respectively. Gabon has a domestic supply of pharmaceuticals from a factory in Libreville.
The total fertility rate has decreased from 5.8 in 1960 to 4.2 children per mother during childbearing years in 2000. Ten percent of all births were low birth weight. The maternal mortality rate was 520 per 100,000 live births as of 1998. In 2005, the infant mortality rate was 55.35 per 1,000 live births and life expectancy was 55.02 years. As of 2002, the overall mortality rate was estimated at 17.6 per 1,000 inhabitants.
The HIV/AIDS prevalence is estimated to be 5.2% of the adult population (ages 15–49). , approximately 46,000 people were living with HIV/AIDS. There were an estimated 2,400 deaths from AIDS in 2009 – down from 3,000 deaths in 2003.
Gabon's education system is regulated by two ministries: the Ministry of Education, in charge of pre-kindergarten through the last high school grade, and the Ministry of Higher Education and Innovative Technologies, in charge of universities, higher education, and professional schools.
Education is compulsory for children ages 6 to 16 under the Education Act. Most children in Gabon start their school lives by attending nurseries or "Crèche", then kindergarten known as "Jardins d'Enfants". At age 6, they are enrolled in primary school, "École Primaire" which is made up of six grades. The next level is "École Secondaire", which is made up of seven grades. The planned graduation age is 19 years old. Those who graduate can apply for admission at institutions of higher learning, including engineering schools or business schools. In Gabon as of 2012, the literacy rate of its population ages 15 and above was 82%.
The government has used oil revenue for school construction, paying teachers' salaries, and promoting education, including in rural areas. However, maintenance of school structures, as well as teachers' salaries, has been declining. In 2002 the gross primary enrollment rate was 132 percent, and in 2000 the net primary enrollment rate was 78 percent. Gross and net enrollment ratios are based on the number of students formally registered in primary school and therefore do not necessarily reflect actual school attendance. As of 2001, 69 percent of children who started primary school were likely to reach grade 5. Problems in the education system include poor management and planning, lack of oversight, poorly qualified teachers, and overcrowded classrooms.
A country with a primarily oral tradition up until the spread of literacy in the 21st century, Gabon is rich in folklore and mythology. "Raconteurs" are currently working to keep traditions alive such as the mvett among the Fangs and the ingwala among the Nzebis.
Gabon also features internationally celebrated masks, such as the n'goltang (Fang) and the reliquary figures of the Kota. Each group has its own set of masks used for various reasons. They are mostly used in traditional ceremonies such as marriage, birth and funerals. Traditionalists mainly work with rare local woods and other precious materials.
Gabonese music is lesser-known in comparison with regional giants like the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Cameroon. The country boasts an array of folk styles, as well as pop stars like Patience Dabany and Annie-Flore Batchiellilys, a Gabonese singer and renowned live performer. Also known are guitarists like Georges Oyendze, La Rose Mbadou and Sylvain Avara, and the singer Oliver N'Goma.
Imported rock and hip hop from the US and UK are popular in Gabon, as are rumba, makossa and soukous. Gabonese folk instruments include the obala, the , the balafon and traditional drums.
Radio-Diffusion Télévision Gabonaise (RTG), which is owned and operated by the government, broadcasts in French and indigenous languages. Color television broadcasts have been introduced in major cities. In 1981, a commercial radio station, Africa No. 1, began operations. The most powerful radio station on the continent, it has participation from the French and Gabonese governments and private European media.
In 2004, the government operated two radio stations and another seven were privately owned. There were also two government television stations and four privately owned. In 2003, there were an estimated 488 radios and 308 television sets for every 1,000 people. About 11.5 of every 1,000 people were cable subscribers. Also in 2003, there were 22.4 personal computers for every 1,000 people and 26 of every 1,000 people had access to the Internet. The national press service is the Gabonese Press Agency, which publishes a daily paper, "Gabon-Matin" (circulation 18,000 as of 2002).
"L'Union" in Libreville, the government-controlled daily newspaper, had an average daily circulation of 40,000 in 2002. The weekly "Gabon d'Aujourdhui" is published by the Ministry of Communications. There are about nine privately owned periodicals which are either independent or affiliated with political parties. These publish in small numbers and are often delayed by financial constraints. The constitution of Gabon provides for free speech and a free press, and the government supports these rights. Several periodicals actively criticize the government and foreign publications are widely available.
Gabonese cuisine is influenced by French cuisine, but staple foods are also available.
The Gabon national football team has represented the nation since 1962. The Under-23 football team won the 2011 CAF U-23 Championship and qualified for the 2012 London Olympics. Gabon were joint hosts, along with Equatorial Guinea, of the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations, and the sole hosts of the competition's 2017 tournament. The Arsenal striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang plays for the Gabon national team.
The Gabon national basketball team, nicknamed "Les Panthères", finished 8th at the AfroBasket 2015, its best performance ever.
Gabon has competed at most Summer Olympics since 1972. The country's sole Olympic medalist is Anthony Obame, who won a silver medal in taekwondo at the 2012 Olympics, held in London.
Gabon has excellent recreational fishing and is considered one of the best places in the world to catch Atlantic tarpon. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12027 |
History of Gabon
Little is known of the history of Gabon prior to European contact. Bantu migrants settled the area beginning in the 14th century. Portuguese explorers and traders arrived in the area in the late 15th century. The coast subsequently became a center of the slave trade with Dutch, English, and French traders arriving in the 16th century. In 1839 and 1841, France established a protectorate over the coast.
In 1849, captives released from a captured slave ship found in Libreville. In 1862–1887, France expanded its control including the interior of the state, and took full sovereignty.
In 1910 Gabon became part of French Equatorial Africa and in 1960, Gabon became independent.
At the time of Gabon's independence, two principal political parties existed: the Gabonese Democratic Bloc (BDG), led by Léon M'Ba, and the Gabonese Democratic and Social Union (UDSG), led by Jean-Hilaire Aubame. In the first post-independence election, held under a parliamentary system, neither party was able to win a majority; the leaders subsequently agreed against a two-party system and ran with a single list of candidates. In the February 1961 election, held under the new presidential system, M'Ba became president and Aubame became foreign minister. The single-party solution disintegrated in 1963, and there was a single-day bloodless coup in 1964. In March 1967, Leon M'Ba and Omar Bongo were elected president and vice president. M'Ba died later that year. Bongo declared Gabon a one-party state, dissolved the BDG and established the Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG). Sweeping political reforms in 1990 led to a new constitution, and the PDG garnered a large majority in the country's first multi-party elections in 30 years. Despite discontent from opposition parties, Bongo remained president until his death in 2009.
The societies of the indigenous Pygmies were largely displaced from about 1000 AD onwards by migrating Bantu peoples from the north, such as the Fang. Little is known of tribal life before European contact, but tribal art suggests a rich cultural heritage.
Gabon's first confirmed European visitors were Portuguese explorers and traders who arrived in the late 15th century. At this time, the southern coast was controlled by the Kingdom of Loango. The Portuguese settled on the offshore islands of São Tomé, Príncipe, and Fernando Pó, but were regular visitors to the coast.
They named the Gabon region after the Portuguese word "gabão" — a coat with sleeve and hood resembling the shape of the Komo River estuary.
Dutch, English, and French merchants came in the 16th century and, alongside the Portuguese, traded for slaves, ivory and tropical woods.
In 1838 and 1841, France established a protectorate over the coastal regions of Gabon by treaties with Gabonese coastal chiefs.
American missionaries from New England established a mission at the mouth of the Komo River in 1842. In 1849, the French authorities captured an illegal slave ship and freed the captives on board. The captives were released near the mission station, where they founded a settlement which was called Libreville (French for "free town")
French explorers penetrated Gabon's dense jungles between 1862 and 1887. The most famous, Savorgnan de Brazza, used Gabonese bearers and guides in his search for the headwaters of the Congo river. France occupied Gabon in 1885, but did not administer it until 1903. Gabon's first political party, the Jeunesse Gabonais, was founded around 1922.
In 1910 Gabon became one of the four territories of French Equatorial Africa. On 15 July 1960 France agreed to Gabon becoming fully independent. On 17 August 1960 Gabon became an independent country.
At the time of Gabon's independence in 1960, two principal political parties existed: the Gabonese Democratic Bloc (BDG), led by Léon M'Ba, and the Gabonese Democratic and Social Union (UDSG), led by Jean-Hilaire Aubame. In the first post-independence election, held under a parliamentary system, neither party was able to win a majority. The BDG obtained support from three of the four independent legislative deputies, and M'Ba was named Prime Minister. Soon after concluding that Gabon had an insufficient number of people for a two-party system, the two party leaders agreed on a single list of candidates. In the February 1961 election, held under the new presidential system, M'Ba became president and Aubame became foreign minister.
This one-party system appeared to work until February 1963, when the larger BDG element forced the UDSG members to choose between a merger of the parties or resignation. The UDSG cabinet ministers resigned, and M'Ba called an election for February 1964 and a reduced number of National Assembly deputies (from 67 to 47). The UDSG failed to muster a list of candidates able to meet the requirements of the electoral decrees. When the BDG appeared likely to win the election by default, the Gabonese military toppled M'Ba in a bloodless coup on 18 February 1964. French troops re-established his government the next day. Elections were held in April 1964 with many opposition participants. BDG-supported candidates won 31 seats and the opposition 16. Late in 1966, the constitution was revised to provide for automatic succession of the vice president should the president die in office. In March 1967, Leon M'Ba and Omar Bongo (then known as Albert Bongo) were elected President and Vice President, with the BDG winning all 47 seats in the National Assembly. M'Ba died later that year, and Omar Bongo became president.
In March 1968 Bongo declared Gabon a one-party state by dissolving the BDG and establishing a new party: the Gabonese Democratic Party "(Parti Démocratique Gabonais)" (PDG). He invited all Gabonese, regardless of previous political affiliation, to participate. Bongo was elected President in February 1973; in April 1975, the office of vice president was abolished and replaced by the office of prime minister, who had no right to automatic succession. Bongo was re-elected president in December 1979 and November 1986 to 7-year terms. Using the PDG as a tool to submerge the regional and tribal rivalries that divided Gabonese politics in the past, Bongo sought to forge a single national movement in support of the government's development policies.
Economic discontent and a desire for political liberalization provoked violent demonstrations and strikes by students and workers in early 1990. In response to worker grievances, Bongo negotiated on a sector-by-sector basis, making significant wage concessions. In addition, he promised to open up the PDG and to organize a national political conference in March–April 1990 to discuss Gabon's future political system. The PDG and 74 political organizations attended the conference. Participants essentially divided into two loose coalitions, the ruling PDG and its allies, and the United Front of Opposition Associations and Parties, consisting of the breakaway Morena Fundamental and the Gabonese Progress Party.
The April 1990 conference approved sweeping political reforms, including creation of a national Senate, decentralization of the budgetary process, freedom of assembly and press, and cancellation of the exit visa requirement. In an attempt to guide the political system's transformation to multiparty democracy, Bongo resigned as PDG chairman and created a transitional government headed by a new Prime Minister, Casimir Oyé-Mba. The Gabonese Social Democratic Grouping (RSDG), as the resulting government was called, was smaller than the previous government and included representatives from several opposition parties in its cabinet. The RSDG drafted a provisional constitution in May 1990 that provided a basic bill of rights and an independent judiciary but retained strong executive powers for the president. After further review by a constitutional committee and the National Assembly, this document came into force in March 1991. Under the 1991 constitution, in the event of the president's death, the Prime Minister, the National Assembly president, and the defense minister were to share power until a new election could be held.
Opposition to the PDG continued, however, and in September 1990, two coup d'état attempts were uncovered and aborted. Despite anti-government demonstrations after the untimely death of an opposition leader, the first multiparty National Assembly elections in almost 30 years took place in September–October 1990, with the PDG garnering a large majority.
Following President Bongo's re-election in December 1993 with 51% of the vote, opposition candidates refused to validate the election results. Serious civil disturbances led to an agreement between the government and opposition factions to work toward a political settlement. These talks led to the Paris Accords in November 1994, under which several opposition figures were included in a government of national unity, and constitutional reforms were approved in a referendum in 1995. This arrangement soon broke down, however, and the 1996 and 1997 legislative and municipal elections provided the background for renewed partisan politics. The PDG won a landslide victory in the legislative election, but several major cities, including Libreville, elected opposition mayors during the 1997 local election.
President Bongo coasted to easy re-elections in December 1998 and November 2005, with large majorities of the vote against a divided opposition. While Bongo's major opponents rejected the outcome as fraudulent, some international observers characterized the results as representative despite any perceived irregularities. Legislative elections held in 2001–2002, which were boycotted by a number of smaller opposition parties and were widely criticized for their administrative weaknesses, produced a National Assembly almost completely dominated by the PDG and allied independents.
Omar Bongo died at a Spanish hospital on 8 June 2009.
His son Ali Bongo Ondimba was elected president in the August 2009 presidential election. He was re-elected in August 2016, in elections marred by numerous irregularities, arrests, human rights violations and post-election violence.
On 24 October 2018, Ali Bongo Ondimbao was hospitalized in Riyadh for an undisclosed illness. On 29 November 2018 Bongo was transferred to a military hospital in Rabat to continue recovery. On 9 December 2018 it was reported by Gabon's Vice President Moussavou that Bongo suffered a stroke in Riyadh and has since left the hospital in Rabat and is currently recovering at a private residence in Rabat. Since 24 October 2018 Bongo has not been seen in public and due to lack of evidence that he is either alive or dead many have speculated if he is truly alive or not. On 1 January 2019 Gabon gave his first public address via a video posted to social media since falling ill in October 2018 putting to rest any rumors he was dead.
On 7 January 2019, soldiers in Gabon launched a coup d’etat attempt. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12028 |
Demographics of Gabon
The Demographics of Gabon is the makeup of the population of Gabon. As of , Gabon has a population of . Gabon's population is relatively young with 35.5% of its population under 15 years of age and only 4.3% of its population over 65 years old. Gabon has a nearly even split between males and females with 0.99 males for every female in the population. In the age range of 15–65, the ration is exactly 1 male to 1 female. The life expectancy of Gabon is lower than the world average. Gabon's population's life expectancy at birth is 53.11 years while the world average is 67.2 years as of 2010. Ethnically, the biggest group in Gabon are the Fang people with over 500,000 people, or about a third of Gabon's population, belonging to this ethnic group. The biggest religion in Gabon is Christianity, with between 55–75% of the population of Gabon being Christian.
According to the total population was in , compared to only 469,000 in 1950. The proportion of children below the age of 15 in 2010 was 35.5%, 60.2% was between 15 and 65 years of age, while 4.3% was 65 years or older
.
Structure of the population (DHS 2012; males 19,318, females 20,636, total 39,955):
Registration of vital events is in Gabon not complete. The Population Department of the United Nations prepared the following estimates.
Total Fertility Rate (TFR) (Wanted Fertility Rate) and Crude Birth Rate (CBR):
Fertility data as of 2012 (DHS Program):
Demographic statistics according to the World Population Review in 2019.
The following demographic statistics are from the CIA World Factbook.
definition: age 15 and over can read and write (2015 est.)
Broad ethnic groups are:
Specific groups, and estimated population:
Religions:
Roman Catholic 41.9%, Protestant 13.7%, other Christian 32.4%, Islam 6.4%, Animist 0.3%, other 0.3%, None/No Answer 5% (2012 est.)
Languages:
French (official since colonial rule), Fang, Myene, Bateke, Bapounou/Eschira, Bandjabi
Literacy:
"definition:"
age 15 and over can read and write
"total population:"
83.2%
"male:"
85.3%
"female:"
81% (2015 est.) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12030 |
Politics of Gabon
Politics of Gabon takes place in a framework of a republic whereby the President of Gabon is head of state and in effect, also the head of government, since he appoints the prime minister and his cabinet. The government is divided into three branches: the Executive headed by the prime minister (although previously grabbed by the president), the legislative that is formed by the two chambers of parliament. The judicial branch, like other two branches, is technically independent and equal to other three branches, although in practice, since its judges are appointed by the president, it is beholden to the same president. Since independence the party system is dominated by the conservative Gabonese Democratic Party.
In March 1991 a new constitution was adopted. Among its provisions are a Western-style bill of rights, the creation of the National Council of Democracy that also oversees the guarantee of those rights and a governmental advisory board which deals with economic and social issues. Multi-party legislative elections were held in 1990-91 even though opposition parties had not been declared formally legal.
Under the 1961 constitution (revised in 1975 and rewritten in 1991), Gabon became a republic with a presidential form of government. The National Assembly of Gabon has 120 deputies elected for a five-year term. The president is elected by universal suffrage for a seven-year term. The president appoints the prime minister, the cabinet, and judges of the independent Supreme Court. The government in 1990 made major changes in the political system. A transitional constitution was drafted in May as an outgrowth of a national political conference in March–April and later revised by a constitutional committee. Among its provisions were a Western-style bill of rights; creation of a National Council of Democracy, which oversees the guarantee of those rights; a governmental advisory board on economic and social issues; and an independent judiciary. After approval by the National Assembly, the PDG Central Committee, and the president, the Assembly unanimously adopted the constitution in March 1991. Multi-party legislative elections were held in 1990-91 although opposition parties had not been declared formally legal.
After a peaceful transition, the elections produced the first representative, multi-party, National Assembly. In January 1991, the Assembly passed by unanimous vote a law governing the legalization of opposition parties. The president was re-elected in a disputed election in 1993 with 51% of votes cast. Social and political disturbances led to the 1994 Paris Conference and Accords, which provided a framework for the next elections. Local and legislative elections were delayed until 1996-1997. In 1997, constitutional amendments were adopted to create an appointed Senate, the position of Vice President, and to extend the president's term to seven years. Facing a divided opposition, President Omar Bongo was re-elected in December 1998, with 66% of the votes cast. Although the main opposition parties claimed the elections had been manipulated, there was none of the civil disturbance that followed the 1993 election. The president retains strong powers, such as authority to dissolve the National Assembly, declare a state of siege, delay legislation, conduct referendums, and appoint and dismiss the prime minister and cabinet members. For administrative purposes, Gabon is divided into nine provinces, which are further divided into 36 prefectures and eight separate subprefectures. The president appoints the provincial governors, the prefects, and the subprefects.
At the time of Gabon's independence in 1960, two principal political parties existed: the Bloc Democratique Gabonais (BDG), led by Leon M'Ba, and the Union Démocratique et Sociale Gabonaise (UDSG), led by Jean-Hilaire Aubame. In the first post-independence election, held under a parliamentary system, neither party was able to win a majority. The BDG obtained support from three of the four independent legislative deputies, and M'Ba was named prime minister. Soon after concluding that Gabon had an insufficient number of people for a two-party system, the two party leaders agreed on a single list of candidates. In the February 1961 election, held under the new presidential system, M'Ba became president and Aubame foreign minister.
This coalition appeared to work until February 1963, when the larger BDG forced the UDSG members to choose between a merger of the parties or resignation. The UDSG cabinet ministers resigned, and M'Ba called an election for February 1964 and a reduced number of National Assembly deputies (from 67 to 47). The UDSG failed to muster a list of candidates able to meet the requirements of the electoral decrees. When the BDG appeared likely to win the election by default, the Gabonese military toppled M'Ba in a bloodless coup on February 18, 1964. French troops re-established his government the next day. Elections were held in April with many opposition participants. BDG-supported candidates won 31 seats and the opposition 16. Late in 1966, the constitution was revised to provide for automatic succession of the vice president should the president die in office. In March 1967, Leon M'Ba and Omar Bongo (then Albert Bongo) were elected president and vice president. M'Ba died later that year, and Omar Bongo became president.
In March 1968, Bongo declared Gabon a one-party state by dissolving the BDG and establishing a new party—the Gabonese Democratic Party. He invited all Gabonese, regardless of previous political affiliation, to participate. Bongo was elected president in February 1975 and re-elected in December 1979 and November 1986 to seven-year terms. In April 1975, the office of vice president was abolished and replaced by the office of prime minister, who has no right to automatic succession. Under the 1991 constitution, in the event of the president's death, the prime minister, the National Assembly president, and the defense minister share power until a new election is held. Using the PDG as a tool to submerge the regional and tribal rivalries that have divided Gabonese politics in the past, Bongo sought to forge a single national movement in support of the government's development policies.
Opposition to the PDG continued, however, and in September 1990, two coup attempts were uncovered and aborted. Economic discontent and a desire for political liberalization provoked violent demonstrations and strikes by students and workers in early 1990. In response to grievances by workers, Bongo negotiated with them on a sector-by-sector basis, making significant wage concessions. In addition, he promised to open up the PDG and to organize a national political conference in March–April 1990 to discuss Gabon's future political system. The PDG and 74 political organizations attended the conference. Participants essentially divided into two loose coalitions, the ruling PDG and its allies and the United Front of Opposition Associations and Parties, consisting of the breakaway Morena Fundamental and the Gabonese Progress Party.
The April conference approved sweeping political reforms, including creation of a national senate, decentralization of the budgetary process, freedom of assembly and press, and cancellation of the exit visa requirement. In an attempt to guide the political system's transformation to multi-party democracy, Bongo resigned as PDG chairman and created a transitional government headed by a new Prime Minister, Casimir Oye-Mba. The Gabonese Social Democratic Grouping (RSDG), as the resulting government was called, was smaller than the previous government and included representatives from several opposition parties in its cabinet. The RSDG drafted a provisional constitution that provided a basic bill of rights and an independent judiciary but retained strong executive powers for the president. After further review by a constitutional committee and the National Assembly, this document came into force in March 1991.
Despite further anti-government demonstrations after the untimely death of an opposition leader, the first multi-party National Assembly elections in almost 30 years took place in September–October 1990, with the PDG garnering a large majority. Following President Bongo's re-election in December 1993 with 51% of the vote, opposition candidates refused to validate the election results. Serious civil disturbances, which were heavily respressed by the presidential guard, led to an agreement between the government and opposition factions to work toward a political settlement. These talks led to the Paris Accords in November 1994 in which several opposition figures were included in a government of national unity. This arrangement soon broke down, and the 1996 and 1997 legislative and municipal elections provided the background for renewed partisan politics. The PDG won a landslide victory in the legislative election, but several major cities, including Libreville, elected opposition mayors during the 1997 local election. President Bongo coasted to an easy re-election in December 1998 with 66% of the vote against a divided opposition. While Bongo's major opponents rejected the outcome as fraudulent, international observers characterized the result as representative even if the election suffered from serious administrative problems. There was no serious civil disorder or protests following the election in contrast to the 1993 election.
President Omar Ali Bongo narrowly beat rival Jean Ping in the official results of the Presidential election in 2016. With results showing a trend of success for Ping, the final province's results were released after significant delays, showing a remarkable 99.5% support for President Bongo in Haut-Ogooue. This was conveniently just enough to push Ali Bongo into first place. An EU Election Observation Mission present in the country declared that observers had incurred problems accessing the process of vote counting. The right to demonstrate or express oneself was described by the mission as 'restrictive'. The electoral regulations benefitted President Bongo, according to the Mission's report.
The president is elected by popular vote for a seven-year term. He appoints the prime minister. The Council of Ministers is appointed by the prime minister in consultation with the president.
President El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba, in power since 1967 and the longest-serving African head of state, was re-elected to another seven-year term according to poll results returned from elections held on November 27, 2005. According to figures provided by Gabon's Interior Ministry, this was achieved with 79.1% of the votes cast. In 2003 the President amended the Constitution of Gabon to remove any restrictions on the number of terms a president is allowed to serve. The president retains strong powers, such as authority to dissolve the National Assembly, declare a state of siege, delay legislation, conduct referendums, and appoint and dismiss the prime minister and cabinet members.
The Parliament ("Parlement") has two chambers. The National Assembly ("Assemblée Nationale") has 120 members, 111 members elected for a five-year term in single-seat constituencies and nine members appointed by a head of state - the president. The Senate ("Sénat") has 91 members, elected for a six-year term in single-seat constituencies by local and departmental councillors.
Gabon's Supreme Court or "Cour Supreme" consists of three chambers - Judicial, Administrative, and Accounts; Constitutional Court; Courts of Appeal; Court of State Security; County Courts
There are nine provincial administrations. These are headquartered in Estuaire, Haut-Ogooue, Moyen-Ogooue, Ngounie, Nyanga, Ogooué-Ivindo, Ogooué-Lolo, Ogooue-Maritime and Woleu-Ntem.
ACCT, ACP, AfDB, BDEAC, CCC, CEEAC, ECA, FAO, FZ, G-24, G-77, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICC, IDA, IDB, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS (associate), ILO, IMF, IMO, Inmarsat, Intelsat, Interpol, IOC, ITU, ITUC, NAM, OAU, OIC, OPCW, UDEAC, UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNIDO, UPU, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WToO, WTrO
"Original text of this article from Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook at https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/gb.html#Govt" | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12031 |
Economy of Gabon
The economy of Gabon is characterized by strong links with France, large foreign investments, dependence on skilled foreign labor, and decline of agriculture. Gabon enjoys a per capita income four times that of most nations of sub-Saharan Africa, its reliance on resource extraction industry releasing much of the population from extreme poverty.
Gabon depended on timber and manganese until oil was discovered offshore in the early 1970s. The oil sector now accounts for 50% of GDP and 80% of exports. Although there have been recent offshore finds, oil production is now declining from its peak of in 1997, and periods of low oil prices have had a negative impact on government revenues and the economy. In 2012 there were six active oil rigs in Gabon.
The government announced in 2012 that it would reassess exactly how much iron ore the Belinga site contains before awarding the concession to a mining company, most likely to be China's CMEC, which temporarily secured the rights to the ore in 2007.
Overspending on the Trans-Gabon (Transgabonais) Railway and the France CFA devaluation of 1994 have caused debt problems. Gabon has earned a poor reputation with the Paris Club and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for management of its debt and revenues. IMF missions (related to the now lapsed EFF program) have criticized the government for overspending on off-budget items (in good years and bad), over-borrowing from the Central Bank, and slipping on the schedule for privatization and administrative reform.
Gabon's oil revenues have given it a per capita GDP of more than $10,000, unusually high for the region. On the other hand, a skewed income distribution and poor social indicators are evident. The economy is highly dependent on extraction of abundant primary materials. After oil, timber and manganese mining are the other major sectors. Gabon continues to face fluctuating prices for its oil, timber, manganese, and uranium exports. Foreign and Gabonese observers have consistently lamented the lack of transformation of primary materials in the Gabonese economy. Various factors have so far stymied more diversification: a small market of 1 million people, dependence on French imports, inability to capitalize on regional markets, lack of entrepreneurial zeal among the Gabonese, and the fairly regular stream of oil "rent". The small processing and service sectors are largely dominated by just a few prominent local investors.
In 1992, Gabon failed to settle arrears on its bilateral debt, leading to a cancellation of rescheduling agreements with official and private creditors. Devaluation of its CFA franc by 50% on 12 January 1994 sparked a one-time inflationary surge, to 35%; the rate dropped to 6% in 1996. The IMF provided a one-year standby arrangement in 1994–1995 and a three-year Extended Fund Facility (EFF) at near-commercial rates beginning in late 1995. Those agreements mandate progress in privatization and fiscal discipline. France provided additional financial support in January 1997 after Gabon had met IMF targets for mid-1996. In 1997, an IMF mission to Gabon criticized the government for overspending on off-budget items, over-borrowing from the central bank, and slipping on its schedule for privatization and administrative reform. The rebound of oil prices in 1999 helped growth, but drops in production hampered Gabon from fully realizing potential gains.
Animal husbandry is limited by the presence of the tsetse fly, though tsetse-resistant cattle have recently been imported from Senegal to a cattle project. In 2005 there were an estimated 212,000 hogs, 195,000 sheep, 90,000 goats, 35,000 head of cattle, and 3.1 million chickens. In an effort to reduce Gabon's reliance on meat imports, the government set aside in Gabon's unpopulated Savannah region for three ranches at Ngounie, Nyanga, and Lekabi. Currently, however, frozen imports are the most important source of beef, costing four times less than locally produced beef. Poultry production satisfies about one-half of Gabon's consumption demand. Typical annual production of poultry amounts to 3,600 tons.
While there have been recent improvements in the fishing industry, it is still relatively undeveloped. Traditional fishing accounts for two-thirds of total catch. The waters off the Gabonese coast contain large quantities of fish. Gabonese waters are estimated to be able to support an annual catch of 15,000 tons of tuna and 12,000 tons of sardines. The fishing fleet was formerly based chiefly in Libreville. A new fishing port was built at Port-Gentil in 1979, which is now the center of operations for the industrial fleet. Plans for a cannery, fish-meal factory, and refrigerated storage facilities are underway. The total catch in 2003 was 44,855 tons, 80 percent from the Atlantic. By international agreement and Gabonese law, an exclusive economic zone extends off the coast, which prohibits any foreign company to fish in this zone without governmental authorization. However, since Gabon has no patrol boats, foreign trawlers (especially French and Spanish) often illegally capture tuna in Gabonese waters.
Gabon's industry is centered on petroleum, manganese mining, and timber processing. Most industrial establishments are located near Libreville and Port-Gentil. Virtually all industrial enterprises were established with government subsidies in the oil boom years of the 1970s. Timber-related concerns include five veneer plants and a large 50-year-old plywood factory in Port-Gentil, along with two other small plywood factories. Other industries include textile plants, cement factories, chemical plants, breweries, shipyards, and cigarette factories. Gabonese manufacturing is highly dependent on foreign inputs, and import costs rose significantly in 1994 when the CFA franc was devalued. Increased costs and oversized capacity have made the manufacturing sector less competitive and it mainly supplies the domestic market. The government has taken steps to privatize parastatal enterprises.
Because the Gabonese economy is dependent upon oil (crude oil accounts for over 80% of the country's exports, 43% of GDP, and 65% of state revenue), it is subject to worldwide price fluctuations. Gabon is sub-Saharan Africa's third-largest crude oil producer and exporter, although there are concerns that proven reserves are declining and production has declined as well. Thus the country has taken steps to diversify the economy, and to engage in further petroleum exploration. The country produced of oil per day in 2014, a decrease of 35% from the 1997 peak. Gabon's proven oil reserves were estimated at in 2015, and its proven natural gas reserves were estimated at .
The Sogara oil refinery at Port-Gentil is the sole refinery in Gabon, built in 1968 by a consortium that included Total, Shell, Mobil, Texaco, Petrofina and Agip. Sogara (Societe Gabonaise de Raffinage) is owned by the government of Gabon (25%), Total (43.8%), Shell (17%), and Agip (2.5%). In 2012 Gabon signed an agreement with Samsung for the construction of a new refinery at Port-Gentil.
The following table shows the main economic indicators in 1980–2017.
GDP - composition by sector:
"agriculture:"
5.7%
"industry:"
57.2%
"services:"
37% (2008 est.)
Population below poverty line:
NA%
Household income or consumption by percentage share:
"lowest 10%:"
NA%
"highest 10%:"
NA%
Inflation rate (consumer prices):
5% (2008 est.)
Labour force:
592,000 (2008 est.)
Labour force - by occupation:
agriculture 60%, services and government 25%, industry and commerce 15% (2000 est.)
Unemployment rate:
21% (2006 est.)
Budget:
"revenues:"
$4.46 billion
"expenditures:"
$2.75 billion (2008 est.)
Industries:
food and beverage; textile; lumbering and plywood; cement; petroleum extraction and refining; manganese, uranium, and gold mining; chemical production; ship repair
Industrial production growth rate:
1.5% (2008)
Oil - production
Oil - consumption
Oil - exports
Oil - imports
Oil - proven reserves
Natural gas - production
100 million cu m (2006 est.)
Natural gas - consumption
100 million cu m (2006 est.)
Natural gas - exports
0 cu m (2007 est.)
Natural gas - imports
0 cu m (2007 est.)
Natural gas - proven reserves
28.32 billion cu m (1 January 2008 est.)
Electricity - production:
1.671 TWh (2006 est.)
Electricity - production by source:
"fossil fuel:"
27.8%
"hydro:"
72.2%
"nuclear:"
0%
"other:"
0% (1998)
Electricity - consumption:
1.365 GWh (2006 est.)
Electricity - exports:
0 kWh (2006 est.)
Electricity - imports:
0 kWh (1998)
Agriculture - products:
cocoa, coffee, sugar, palm oil, rubber; cattle; okoume (a tropical hardwood); fish
Current account - balance
$591 million (2010 est.)
Currency:
1 Communauté financière africaine franc (CFAF) = 100 centimes
Exchange rates:
Communauté financière africaine francs (CFAF) per US$1 – 507.71 (2010), 472.19 (2009), 447.81 (2008), 481.83 (2007), 522.89 (2006), 647.25 (January 2000), 615.70 (1999), 589.95 (1998), 583.67 (1997), 511.55 (1996), 499.15 (1995)
"note:"
since 1 January 1999, the CFAF is pegged to the euro at a rate of 655.957 CFA francs per euro | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12032 |
Telecommunications in Gabon
Telecommunications in Gabon include radio, television, fixed and mobile telephones, and the Internet.
Radio stations:
Radios:
208,000 (1997).
Television stations:
Television sets:
63,000 (1997).
There are two main broadcasters in Gabon. The state broadcaster, Radiodiffusion Télévision Gabonaise (RTG), operates two main networks - a national network in French and a provincial network in French and vernacular languages. There is also a special programme on RTG's FM frequencies.
Perhaps the most important station in Gabon and one that many shortwave radio listeners are familiar with is the privately owned Afrique Numero Un (Africa Number One) which operates on FM in the capital, Libreville, area and also broadcasts via shortwave. Afrique Numero Un also has relay stations in mostly French-speaking African countries.
Radio France Internationale (RFI) has relay stations throughout Gabon. Other privately owned stations also operate in Gabon, though concentrated mostly in the Libreville area.
Like many former French colonies, Gabon uses the SECAM-K television standard. Two television channels, 4 and 8, are found in the Libreville area. All other channels and repeaters relay channel 4.
The constitution and law provide for freedom of speech and press, and the government generally respects these rights, although the government has suspended newspapers and television stations for disrupting public order or libel.
Calling code: +241
International call prefix: 00
Main lines:
Mobile cellular:
Telephone system: adequate system of cable, microwave radio relay, tropospheric scatter, radiotelephone communication stations, and a domestic satellite system with 12 earth stations; a growing mobile-cellular network with multiple providers is making telephone service more widely available with mobile-cellular teledensity exceeding 100 per 100 persons.
Satellite earth stations: 3 Intelsat (Atlantic Ocean) (2011).
Communications cables: South Atlantic 3/West Africa Submarine Cable (SAT-3/WASC) fiber-optic cable system provides connectivity to Europe and Asia; Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), cable system connecting countries along the west coast of Africa to each other and to Portugal and France.
Top-level domain: .ga
Internet users:
Fixed broadband:
In 2013, Government signs with the World Bank to develop the Central African Backbone. Over 1200 km of fiber optic is deployed around the country. In 2017, over 20 cities and villages are serviced by this new network operated by Axione (Bouygues French company). 70% of the gabonese population can access mobile broadband services.
5,147 subscriptions, 160th in the world; 0.3% of the population, 154th in the world (2012).
Wireless broadband:
Introducing 3G/4G licences in 2014
Unknown (2012).
Internet hosts:
IPv4: 169,472 addresses allocated, less than 0.05% of the world total, 105.4 addresses per 1000 people (2012).
Internet Service Providers (ISPs):
Solsi Gabon, TLDC offer a WiMax network all over Libreville and Port-Gentil.
Through his leadership of the Gabonese Republic, President Ali Bongo Ondimba has led his nation to receive much international recognition for its commitment to progress in the field of ICT in the Central and Francophone Africa region as well as on the African continent.
President Ali Bongo Ondimba has stressed the necessity of establishing infrastructure, access to ICTs, as well as ameliorating broadband connections in both the public and private sectors, especially within households. President Ondimba has affirmed his position on the importance of ICTs in the development of Gabon, stating during the 2011 Broadband Leadership Summit at ITU Telecom World in Geneva that he promised to make high-speed Internet access an irrevocable right for all Gabonese citizens.
There are no government restrictions on access to the Internet or credible reports the government monitors e-mail or Internet chat rooms without appropriate legal authority.
The constitution and law provide for freedom of speech and press, and the government generally respects these rights. Libel can be either a criminal offense or a civil matter. Editors and authors of libelous material may be jailed for two to six months and fined 500,000 to five million CFA francs ($1,008 to $10,080). Penalties for libel, disrupting public order, and other offenses also include a one- to three-month publishing suspension for a first offense and a three- to six-month suspension for repeat offenses.
Although the constitution and law prohibit arbitrary interference with privacy, family, home, or correspondence, the government does not always respect these prohibitions in practice. As part of criminal investigations, police request and easily obtain search warrants from judges, sometimes after the fact. Authorities reportedly monitor private telephone conversations, personal mail, and the movement of citizens. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12033 |
Transport in Gabon
Modes of transport in Gabon include rail, road, water, and air. The one rail link, the Trans-Gabon Railway, connects the port of Owendo with the inland town of Franceville. Most but not all of the country is connected to the road network, much of which is unpaved, and which centres on seven "national routes" identified as N1 to N7. The largest seaports are Port-Gentil and the newer Owendo, and 1,600 km of inland waterways are navigable. There are three international airports, eight other paved airports, and over 40 with unpaved runways. Nearly 300 km of pipelines carry petroleum products, mainly crude oil.
Until the 1970s, Gabon had no railroads. A 936 km railroad construction program, the Trans-Gabon Railway, began in October 1974. In its first stage, completed in 1983, the project linked the port of Owendo with the interior city of Booué (332 km). The second stage, completed in December 1986, linked Booué with Franceville (357 km) via Moanda, thus facilitating exports of manganese from the southeast and forestry exploitation in the same region. A proposed third stage would continue the line from Booué to Belinga in the northeast, where there are iron ore deposits.
In 2003, the railway began the process of installing a satellite based telecommunications system. As of 2004, Gabon State Railways totalled 814 km of standard-gauge track.
"total:" 814 km (Gabon State Railways or OCTRA)"standard gauge:" 814 km 1.435-m gauge; single track (1994)
Main roads connect virtually all major communities, but maintenance work is difficult because of heavy rainfall. In 2002, the road network comprised 8,454 km, of which 838 km
were paved, including 30 km of expressways. A north–south road runs the length of the country, from Bitam to Ndendé. This main north–south link continues into Cameroon in the north and the Congo in the south. An east–west road connects Libreville and Mékambo. Farther south, another road runs from Mayumba to Lastoursville and Franceville. In 1995 there were about 23,000 automobiles and 10,000 commercial vehicles in use.
"total:"
7,670 km
"paved:"
629 km (including 30 km of expressways)
"unpaved:"
7,041 km (1996 est.)
Roads in Gabon link most areas of the country, and many of the main roads are of a reasonable standard. However, remoter areas along the coast and in the east are often not connected to the road network. Major roads are denoted national routes and numbered, with a prefix "N" (sometimes "RN"):
The busiest ports are Port-Gentil, the center for exports of petroleum products and imports of mining equipment, and Owendo, a new port that opened in 1974 on the Ogooué estuary, 10 km north of Libreville. Owendo's capacity, initially 300,000 tons, reached 1.5 million tons in 1979, when the port was enlarged to include timber-handling facilities. The smaller port at Mayumba also handles timber, and a deepwater port is planned for the city.
As of 2002, there was one merchant marine vessel, with a gross tonnage of 2,419/.
Gabon has 1,600 km of perennially navigable waterways, including 310 km on the Ogooué River.
Gabon had an estimated 56 airports in 2004, but only 11 of which had paved runways as of 2005. There are three international airports: Libreville, Port-Gentil, and Franceville. Numerous airlines provide international flights. Nouvelle Air Affaires Gabon handles scheduled domestic service. In 2003, about 386,000 passengers were carried on scheduled domestic and international airline flights.
"total:"
11
"over 3,047 m:"
1
"2,438 to 3,047 m:"
1
"1,524 to 2,437 m:"
8
"914 to 1,523 m:"
1 (1999 est.)
"total:"
45
"1,524 to 2,437 m:"
9
"914 to 1,523 m:"
16
"under 914 m:"
25 (1999 est.)
Crude oil 270 km; petroleum products 14 km | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12034 |
Foreign relations of Gabon
Gabon has followed a non-aligned policy, advocating dialogue in international affairs and recognizing both parts of divided countries. Since 1973, the number of countries establishing diplomatic relations with Gabon has doubled. In inter-African affairs, Gabon espouses development by evolution rather than revolution and favors regulated free enterprise as the system most likely to promote rapid economic growth. Concerned about stability in Central Africa and the potential for intervention, Gabon has been directly involved with mediation efforts in Chad, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, Angola, and former Zaire. In December 1999, through the mediation efforts of President Bongo, a peace accord was signed in the Republic of Congo between the government and most leaders of an armed rebellion. President Bongo has remained involved in the continuing Congolese peace process. Gabon has been a strong proponent of regional stability, and Gabonese armed forces played an important role in the UN Peacekeeping Mission to the Central African Republic (MINURCA).
Gabon is a member of the UN and some of its specialized and related agencies, including the World Bank; Organisation of African Unity (OAU); Central African Customs Union (UDEAC/CEMAC); EC association under Lome Convention; Communaute Financiere Africaine (CFA); Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC); Non-Aligned Movement; withdrew from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
Gabon is also a member of the International Criminal Court with a Bilateral Immunity Agreement of protection for the US-military (as covered under Article 98). | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12036 |
Gaza Strip
The Gaza Strip (; ' ), or simply Gaza"', is a self-governing Palestinian territory on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, that borders Egypt on the southwest for and Israel on the east and north along a border. Gaza and the West Bank are claimed by the "de jure" sovereign State of Palestine.
The territories of Gaza and the West Bank are separated from each other by Israeli territory. Both fell under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority, but Gaza has since June 2007 been governed by Hamas, a Palestinian fundamentalist militant Islamic organization which came to power in free elections in 2006. It has been placed under an Israeli and U.S.-led international economic and political boycott from that time onwards.
The territory is long, and from wide, with a total area of . With around 1.85 million Palestinians on some 362 square kilometers, Gaza ranks as the 3rd most densely populated polity in the world. An extensive Israeli buffer zone within the Strip renders much land off-limits to Gaza's Palestinians. Gaza has an annual population growth rate of 2.91% (2014 est.), the 13th highest in the world, and is often referred to as overcrowded. The population is expected to increase to 2.1 million in 2020. By that time, Gaza may be rendered unliveable, if present trends continue. Due to the Israeli and Egyptian border closures and the Israeli sea and air blockade, the population is not free to leave or enter the Gaza Strip, nor allowed to freely import or export goods. Sunni Muslims make up the predominant part of the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip.
Despite the 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza, the United Nations, international human rights organisations, and the majority of governments and legal commentators consider the territory to be still occupied by Israel, supported by additional restrictions placed on Gaza by Egypt. Israel maintains direct external control over Gaza and indirect control over life within Gaza: it controls Gaza's air and maritime space, and six of Gaza's seven land crossings. It reserves the right to enter Gaza at will with its military and maintains a no-go buffer zone within the Gaza territory. Gaza is dependent on Israel for its water, electricity, telecommunications, and other utilities. The system of control imposed by Israel is described as an "indirect occupation". Some other legal scholars have disputed the idea that Israel still occupies Gaza. In addition, the extent of self-rule exercised in the Gaza Strip has led some to describe the territory as a "de facto" independent state.
When Hamas won a majority in the 2006 Palestinian legislative election, the opposing political party Fatah refused to join the proposed coalition, until a short-lived unity government agreement was brokered by Saudi Arabia. When this collapsed under joint Israeli and United States pressure, the Palestinian Authority instituted a non-Hamas government in the West Bank while Hamas formed a government on its own in Gaza. Further economic sanctions were imposed by Israel and the European Quartet against Hamas. A brief civil war between the two Palestinian groups had broken out in Gaza when, apparently under a U.S.-backed plan, Fatah contested Hamas's administration. Hamas emerged the victor and expelled Fatah-allied officials and members of the PA's security apparatus from the Strip, and has remained the sole governing power in Gaza since that date.
Gaza was part of the Ottoman Empire, before it was occupied by the United Kingdom (1918–1948), Egypt (1948–1967), and then Israel, which in 1994 granted the Palestinian Authority in Gaza limited self-governance through the Oslo Accords. Since 2007, the Gaza Strip has been "de facto" governed by Hamas, which claims to represent the Palestinian National Authority and the Palestinian people.
The territory is still considered to be occupied by Israel by the United Nations, International human rights organisations, and the majority of governments and legal commentators, despite the 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza. Israel maintains direct external control over Gaza and indirect control over life within Gaza: it controls Gaza's air and maritime space, and six of Gaza's seven land crossings. It reserves the right to enter Gaza at will with its military and maintains a no-go buffer zone within the Gaza territory. Gaza is dependent on Israel for its water, electricity, telecommunications, and other utilities.
The Gaza Strip acquired its current northern and eastern boundaries at the cessation of fighting in the 1948 war, confirmed by the Israel–Egypt Armistice Agreement on 24 February 1949. Article V of the Agreement declared that the demarcation line was not to be an international border. At first the Gaza Strip was officially administered by the All-Palestine Government, established by the Arab League in September 1948. All-Palestine in the Gaza Strip was managed under the military authority of Egypt, functioning as a puppet state, until it officially merged into the United Arab Republic and dissolved in 1959. From the time of the dissolution of the All-Palestine Government until 1967, the Gaza Strip was directly administered by an Egyptian military governor.
Israel captured the Gaza Strip from Egypt in the Six-Day War in 1967. Pursuant to the Oslo Accords signed in 1993, the Palestinian Authority became the administrative body that governed Palestinian population centers while Israel maintained control of the airspace, territorial waters and border crossings with the exception of the land border with Egypt which is controlled by Egypt. In 2005, Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip under their unilateral disengagement plan.
In July 2007, after winning the 2006 Palestinian legislative election, Hamas became the elected government. In 2007, Hamas expelled the rival party Fatah from Gaza. This broke the Unity Government between Gaza Strip and the West Bank, creating two separate governments for the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
In 2014, following reconciliation talks, Hamas and Fatah formed a Palestinian unity government within the West Bank and Gaza. Rami Hamdallah became the coalition's Prime Minister and has planned for elections in Gaza and the West Bank. In July 2014, a set of lethal incidents between Hamas and Israel led to the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict. The Unity Government dissolved on 17 June 2015 after President Abbas said it was unable to operate in the Gaza Strip.
Following the takeover of Gaza by Hamas, the territory has been subjected to a blockade, maintained by Israel and Egypt, with Israel arguing that it is necessary to impede Hamas from rearming and to restrict Palestinian rocket attacks and Egypt preventing Gaza residents from entering Egypt. The blockades by Israel and Egypt extends to drastic reductions in basic construction materials, medical supplies, and food stuffs.after intensive air strikes on the city in December 2008. A leaked UN report in 2009 warned that the blockade was "devastating livelihoods" and causing gradual "de-development". It pointed out that glass was prohibited Under the blockade, Gaza is viewed by some critics as an "open-air prison", | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12047 |
Geography of Georgia (country)
Georgia is a country in the Caucasus region. Situated at the juncture of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the south by Turkey and Armenia, and to the east by Azerbaijan. Georgia covers an area of .
Georgia is located in the mountainous South Caucasus region of Eurasia, straddling Western Asia and Eastern Europe between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Georgia's northern border with Russia roughly runs along the crest of the Greater Caucasus mountain range – a commonly reckoned boundary between Europe and Asia. In Philip Johan von Strahlenberg's 1730 definition of Europe, which was used by the Russian Tsars and which first set the Urals as the eastern border of the continent, the continental border was drawn from the Kuma-Manych Depression to the Caspian Sea, thereby including all of Georgia (and the whole of the Caucasus) in Asia.
Georgia's proximity to the bulk of Europe, combined with various cultural and political factors, has led increasingly to the inclusion of Georgia in Europe. Some sources place the country in that region; as well, Georgia has joined European organizations such as the Council of Europe, and is seeking membership in NATO and accession to the European Union.
Georgia is on the same parallel as Naples, Madrid, Istanbul, New York, Chicago, London, Toronto (Canada), Omaha (USA), Eureka (USA), Odate (Japan), Shenyang (China) and Tirana.
Despite its small area, Georgia has one of the most varied topographies of the former Soviet republics. Georgia lies mostly in the Caucasus Mountains, and its northern boundary is partly defined by the Greater Caucasus range. The Lesser Caucasus range, which runs parallel to the Turkish and Armenian borders, and the Surami and Imereti ranges, which connect the Greater Caucasus and the Lesser Caucasus, create natural barriers that are partly responsible for cultural and linguistic differences among regions. Because of their elevation and a poorly developed transportation infrastructure, many mountain villages are virtually isolated from the outside world during the winter. Earthquakes and landslides in mountainous areas present a significant threat to life and property. Among the most recent natural disasters were massive rock- and mudslides in Ajaria in 1989 that displaced thousands in southwestern Georgia, and two earthquakes in 1991 that destroyed several villages in northcentral Georgia and South Ossetia.
Georgia has about 25,000 rivers, many of which power small hydroelectric stations. Drainage is into the Black Sea to the west and through Azerbaijan to the Caspian Sea to the east. The largest river is the Kura River, which flows 1,364 km from northeast Turkey across the plains of eastern Georgia, through the capital, Tbilisi, and into the Caspian Sea. The Rioni River, the largest river in western Georgia, rises in the Greater Caucasus and empties into the Black Sea at the port of Poti. Soviet engineers turned the river lowlands along the Black Sea coast into prime subtropical agricultural land, embanked and straightened many stretches of river, and built an extensive system of canals. Deep mountain gorges form topographical belts within the Greater Caucasus.
The coastline of Georgia is 310 km long. Out of the Georgian coastline, 57 km is the coastline of Ajaria (Ajara), and 200 km is the coastline of Abkhazia. The "Encyclopedia of the Nations" lists the total length of the coastline as 315 km long. Georgia has an Exclusive Economic Zone of in the Black Sea.
Georgia's climate is affected by subtropical influences from the west and continental influences from the east. The Greater Caucasus range moderates local climate by serving as a barrier against cold air from the north. Warm, moist air from the Black Sea moves easily into the coastal lowlands from the west. Climatic zones are determined by distance from the Black Sea and by altitude. Along the Black Sea coast, from Abkhazia to the Turkish border, and in the region known as the Kolkhida Lowlands inland from the coast, the dominant subtropical climate features high humidity and heavy precipitation ( per year; the Black Sea port of Batumi receives per year). Several varieties of palm trees grow in these regions, where the midwinter average temperature is and the midsummer average is .
The plains of eastern Georgia are shielded from the influence of the Black Sea by mountains that provide a more continental climate. Summer temperatures average to , winter temperatures to . Humidity is lower, and rainfall averages per year. Alpine and highland regions in the east and west, as well as a semi-arid region on the Iori Plateau to the southeast, have distinct microclimates.
At higher elevations, precipitation is sometimes twice as heavy as in the eastern plains. In the west, the climate is subtropical to about ; above that altitude (and to the north and east) is a band of moist and moderately warm weather, then a band of cool and wet conditions. Alpine conditions begin at about , and above snow and ice are present year-round.
Beginning in the 1980s, Black Sea pollution has greatly harmed Georgia's tourist industry. Inadequate sewage treatment is the main cause of that condition. In Batumi, for example, only 18 percent of wastewater is treated before release into the sea. An estimated 70 percent of surface water contains health-endangering bacteria to which Georgia's high rate of intestinal disease is attributed.
The war in Abkhazia did substantial damage to the ecological habitats unique to that region. In other respects, experts considered Georgia's environmental problems less serious than those of more industrialized former Soviet republics. Solving Georgia's environmental problems was not a high priority of the national government in the post-Soviet years, however; in 1993 the minister for protection of the environment resigned to protest this inactivity. In January 1994, the Cabinet of Ministers announced a new, interdepartmental environmental monitoring system to centralize separate programs under the direction of the Ministry of Protection of the Environment. The system would include a central environmental and information and research agency. The Green Party used its small contingent in the parliament to press environmental issues in 1993.
Georgia participates in a number of international environmental agreements. It is a party to: Air Pollution, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Climate Change-Kyoto Protocol, Desertification, Endangered Species, Hazardous Wastes, Law of the Sea, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution, and Wetlands. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12059 |
Demographics of Georgia (country)
The demographic features of the population of Georgia include population growth, population density, ethnicity, education level, health, economic status, religious affiliations, and other aspects of the population.
The demographic situation in Georgia, like that of some other former Soviet republics (especially Estonia and Latvia), has been characterized by two prominent features since independence: decline in total population and significant "Georgianization" of the ethnic composition. The proportion of ethnic Georgians increased by full 10 percentage points between 1989 and 2002, rising from 73.7% to 83.7% of the population.
The population grew steadily while Georgia was part of the Soviet Union and during the first years of independence, rising from less than 4 million in the 1950s to a peak of 5.5 million in 1992. Then the trend changed and the population began to decline, dropping to 4.5 million in 2005 according to the estimates by the Georgian Department of Statistics. This figure represents the total population, including the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, whose population in 2005 was estimated at 178,000 and 49,200, respectively. Without Abkhazia and South Osetia, the population in the regions controlled by the central government of Georgia was 4,321,500 in 2005 and 4,382,100 in 2008 (compare the 2008 figure with the CIA estimate of 4,630,841 for all of Georgia, including Abkhazia and South Osetia).
Georgia was named among the highest-emigration countries in the world (with respect to population) in the 2007 World Bank report. The 2002 population census in Georgia revealed a net migration loss of 1.1 million persons, or 20% of the population, since the early 90s. The decline in Georgia's population is caused by the emigration in search of employment, and a sharp fall of birth rates. Over 300,000 Russians, 200,000 Georgians, 200,000 Armenians, 85,000 Greeks, 50,000 Azerbaijanis, 50,000 Ukrainians and 20,000 Jews have migrated from Georgia since independence.
Sources: "United Nations" "and" "GeoStat"
1Births and deaths until 1959 are estimates.
Structure of the population (01.07.2012) (Estimates) :
Georgians are the predominant ethnic group in Georgia, according to the 2014 census 86.8% of the population. The proportion in 2014 was much higher than in preceding censuses as in 2014 Abkhazia and South Ossetia were not under government control and therefore not included. As a result of this the proportion of Ossetians and Abkhazians was very low (0.4% and 0.3%, respectively).
Ethnic groups:
Languages:
Religions:
Age structure:
Median age:
Population growth rate:
Sex ratio:
Infant mortality rate:
Life expectancy at birth:
Total fertility rate: 1.71 children born/woman (2012 est.)
HIV/AIDS
Nationality:
Literacy:, age 15 and over can read and write | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12060 |
Politics of Georgia (country)
Politics in Georgia involve a parliamentary representative democratic republic with a multi-party system. The President of Georgia is the ceremonial head of state and the Prime Minister of Georgia is the head of government. The President and the Government wield executive power. Legislative power is vested in both the Government and the unicameral Parliament of Georgia.
After the Rose Revolution of 2003, the National Movement – Democrats dominated the party system. Georgia became a democratic republic following the first multiparty, democratic parliamentary elections of October 28, 1990. The Georgian state is highly centralized, except for the autonomous regions of Abkhazia and Adjara and the former autonomous region of South Ossetia. Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which had autonomy within the Georgian SSR during Soviet rule, unilaterally seceded from Georgia in the 1990s. While, , the Georgian government recognizes Abkhazia as autonomous within Georgia, it does not recognize South Ossetia as having any special status.
Consideration of replacing Georgia's republic with some form of constitutional monarchy has become part of Georgian political debate since the Georgian Orthodox primate and other leading Georgians suggested the idea in 2007.
Following a crisis involving allegations of ballot fraud in the 2003 parliamentary elections, Eduard Shevardnadze resigned as president on November 23, 2003, in the bloodless Rose Revolution. The interim president was the speaker of the outgoing parliament (whose replacement was annulled), Nino Burjanadze. On January 4, 2004 Mikheil Saakashvili, leader of the United National Movement won the country's presidential election and was inaugurated on January 25.
Fresh parliamentary elections were held on March 28, 2004, where the United National Movement's parliamentary faction, the National Movement - Democrats (NMD), secured the vast majority of the seats (with ca. 75% of the votes). Only one other party reached the 7% threshold: the Rightist Opposition with ca. 7.5%. The vote is believed to have been one of the freest ever held in independent Georgia although an upsurge of tension between the central government and the Ajarian leader Aslan Abashidze affected the elections in this region. Despite recognizing progress the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe noted the tendency to misuse state administration resources in favor of the ruling party.
Tensions between Georgia and separatist authorities in Ajaria increased after the elections, climaxing on May 1, 2004 when Abashidze responded to military maneuvers held by Georgia near the region by having the three bridges connecting Ajaria and the rest of Georgia over the Choloki River blown up. On May 5, Abashidze was forced to flee Georgia as mass demonstrations in Batumi called for his resignation and Russia increased their pressure by deploying Security Council secretary Igor Ivanov.
On February 3, 2005, Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania died of carbon monoxide poisoning in an apparent gas leak at the home of Raul Usupov, deputy governor of Kvemo Kartli region. Later, Zhvania's close friend and a long-time ally, Finance Minister Zurab Nogaideli was appointed for the post by President Saakashvili.
Under the Saakasvili administration Georgia has achieved considerable progress in eradicating corruption. In 2008 Transparency International ranked Georgia 67th in its Corruption Perceptions Index, with a score of 3.9 points out of 10 possible. This represents the best result among the CIS countries and a dramatic improvement on Georgia's score in 2004, when the country was ranked 133rd with 2.0 points.
Georgia also strengthened fight against the thieves-in-law. In December 2005 Georgian criminal code was reorganized to charge the criminal authorities with aggravating circumstances. Abuses of human rights were revealed in Georgian prisons after the 2012 Gldani prison scandal as prisoners had been permanently tortured and beaten by the penal servants. The further investigation revealed the head of Penitentiary Department of Ministry of Justice of Georgia Bachana Akhalaia was the one who had been managing the process of torturing the prisoners.
In June 2004 the prominent Georgian tycoon Kakha Bendukidze was called by the president Mikheil Saakashvili to hold position of Minister of Economy. Kakha Bendukidze was known as a committed right-wing libertarian, who supported the Laissez-faire, deregulation of market and low taxes. Under his terms of ministerial office the thoroughgoing reformation was onset. The taxes were significantly lowered and privatisation was restarted. As a result, Georgia became one of the most favourable country in the world to start investing in. It resulted in the high growth of GDP. Nevertheless, economic growth was not able to fully settle the problems of unemployment and one-fourth of the nation living under the poverty rate.
In January 2006 a new party, Georgia's Way, was created. The movement is led by former Foreign Minister Salome Zourabichvili, and appears to be relatively popular. An opinion poll conducted by the Georgian weekly Kviris Palitra and published on April 10, 2006 suggested that Salome Zourabichvili would garner 23.1% of votes if a presidential election were held today. President Saakashvili ranked first with 33% - an all-time low for the Georgian President - whilst no other individual managed to surpass double-digit levels of support. Georgia's Way has said it intends to have candidates for all the seats in Georgia's upcoming local elections, with Zourabichvili hoping to become Tbilisi Mayor.
On November 7, 2007, during a period of mass protests, President Saakashvili declared Tbilisi to be in a state of emergency. There were massive demonstrations and protests by the civil opposition, demanding the resignation of President Saakashvili. The Georgian police used teargas, batons, water cannons and high tech acoustic weapons in the streets of Tbilisi. Later that day, the President declared a state of emergency in the whole country of Georgia. The Russian government denied accusations of being involved or of interfering in the situation. President Saakashvili rejected all demands that he resign his position, but announced early presidential elections to be held in January 2008, effectively cutting his term in office by a year.
On November 16, 2007, Prime Minister of Georgia Zurab Noghaideli announced his resignation due to poor health conditions. Noghaideli underwent heart operation in April 2007 at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital in Houston, Texas, which was led by the leading U.S. surgeon Dr. Charles Frazier.
President Saakashvili invited Vladimer ("Lado") Gurgenidze, MBA holder from Emory University, United States and former business executive, to succeed Noghaideli on the position of the PM on the same day. Gurgenidze was formally approved on the position and granted the trust of the Parliament of Georgia on November 22, 2007. Gurgenidze implemented only two changes in the Cabinet of Georgia so far, replacing Alexandre Lomaia, the former Minister for Education and Science and new Secretary of National Security Council with Maia Miminoshvili, former Head of the National Assessment and Examination Centre (NAEC). Prime Minister also invited Koba Subeliani, former Head of Municipal Accomplishment Service to succeed Giorgi Kheviashvili, former Minister for Refugees and Accommodation. New Prime Minister and two Ministers Koba Subeliani and Maia Miminoshvili were approved on their positions on November 22, 2007 by a confidence vote of the Parliament of Georgia.
Mikheil Saakashvili resigned from the position of the President on November 25, 2007 as the Constitution of Georgia requires the president stands down at least 45 days before the next election to be eligible for retaking part him/herself. The Speaker of the Parliament of Georgia Mrs. Nino Burjanadze took over the position until the results were announced on January 5, 2008.
Twenty-two people registered for the presidential elections, including the most recent president Mikheil Saakashvili, approved candidate of the united opposition Levan Gachechiladze, influential businessman Badri Patarkatsishvili, Leader of the New Right Party David Gamkrelidze, the Leader of the Georgian Labour Party Shalva Natelashvili, the Leader of Hope Party Irina Sarishvili-Chanturia and Giorgi Maisashvili.
Debate on the possible installation of a constitutional monarchy in Georgia was revitalized following the 7 October 2007 sermon of Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II, the popular head of the Georgian Orthodox Church. The patriarch said, during his Sunday service at the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, that restoration of the Bragrationi royal family was a "desirable dream of the Georgian people". He also emphasized that if the people of Georgia chose this model of governance, "a candidate to the crown should be selected among representatives of the royal dynasty, and he should be suitably raised to be king from childhood."
Competition arose among the old dynasty's princes and supporters, as historians and jurists debated which Bagrationi has the strongest hereditary right to a throne that has been vacant for two centuries. Although some Georgian monarchists support the Gruzinsky branch's claim, others support that of the re-patriated Mukhrani branch. Both branches descend in unbroken, legitimate male line from the medieval kings of Georgia down to Constantine II of Georgia who died in 1505.
David Bagration of Mukhrani, married Ana Bagration-Gruzinsky on 8 February 2009 at the Tbilisi Sameba Cathedral. The marriage united the Gruzinsky and Mukhrani branches of the former Georgian royal family, and drew a crowd of 3,000 spectators, officials, and foreign diplomats, as well as extensive coverage by the Georgian media.
After the Rose Revolution Georgia started looking westwards. The government aims at EU and NATO membership, and has created a Ministry for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, which was dissolved on 22 December 2017 after passing constitutional amendments by Georgian Parliament. Within NATO, Georgia is currently in Intensified Dialogue; membership in the EU is a more distant project.
On 5 January 2008 alongside Georgian presidential elections was held non-binding referendum on joining NATO. 77% of total number of voters supported integration of Georgia into NATO.
The Abkhaz separatist dispute absorbs much of the government's attention. While a cease-fire is in effect about 250,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) who were driven from their homes during the conflict, constitute a vocal lobby. The government has offered the region considerable autonomy to encourage a settlement that would allow the IDPs (mainly ethnic Georgians from the Gali district) to return home, however the Abkhaz side refused to accept it.
Currently, Russian peacekeepers are stationed in Abkhazia under the authority of the Commonwealth of Independent States, along with United Nations observers but both groups have recently had to restrict their activities due to increased mining and guerrilla . So far (by 2007) the negotiations have not resulted in any settlement. France, United Kingdom, Germany, Russia and the United States (who act as the members of the United Nations and the OSCE) continue to encourage a comprehensive settlement consistent with Georgian independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity. The UN observer force and other organizations are quietly encouraging grassroots cooperative and confidence-building measures in the region.
The parliament has instituted wideranging political reforms supportive of higher human rights standards, because between 1992 and 2003 (before the Rose Revolution of November 23, 2003) the Georgian human rights situation had been complicated. Despite the reforms by the new government, there are still numerous problems concerning respect for human rights in the country. Prisoners are frequently maltreated, journalists are intimidated by the authorities and much of the mainstream media is owned by government supporters. The police are often accused of planting evidence, beatings and the unnecessary killing of suspects.
The head of state is the President, who is elected for a term of five years. His constitutional successor is the Chairman of the Parliament speaker of parliament. The president appoints a Prime Minister, who serves as the head of government.
The Parliament of Georgia (Sak'art'velos Parlamenti) has 150 members, elected for a four-year term - 77 seats by proportional representation, 73 in single-seat constituencies.
Current Speaker of Parliament is Archil Talakvadze.
Georgia has a Supreme Court, with judges elected by the Parliament on the president's recommendation, and a Constitutional Court.
Georgia is divided into 2 autonomous republics ("avtonomiuri respublika"), 9 region ("mkhare"), and a capital territory.
The regions and autonomous republics are subdivided into 67 municipalities (Georgian: მუნიციპალიტეტი; before 2006 - raioni, Georgian: რაიონი) and cities with local government:
BSEC, Council of Europe, EAPC, EBRD, ECE, FAO, GUAM, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, International Chamber of Commerce, International Criminal Court (ICC), ITUC, IDA, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, ILO, IMF, International Maritime Organization, Inmarsat, Interpol, IOC, IOM, ISO (correspondent), ITU, OAS (observer), OPCW, OSCE, PFP, United Nations, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNIDO, UPU, WCO, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WTO | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12061 |
Economy of Georgia (country)
The economy of Georgia is an emerging free market economy. Its gross domestic product fell sharply following the collapse of the Soviet Union but recovered in the mid-2000s, growing in double digits thanks to the economic and democratic reforms brought by the peaceful Rose Revolution. Georgia continued its economic progress since, "moving from a near-failed state in 2003 to a relatively well-functioning market economy in 2014". In 2007, the World Bank named Georgia the World's number one economic reformer, and has consistently ranked the country at the top of its ease of doing business index.
Georgia's economy is supported by a relatively free and transparent atmosphere in the country. According to Transparency International's 2018 report, Georgia is the least corrupt nation in the Black Sea region, outperforming all of its immediate neighbors, as well as nearby European Union states. With a mixed news media environment, Georgia is also the only country in its immediate neighborhood where the press is not deemed unfree.
Since 2014, Georgia is part of the European Union's Free Trade Area, with the EU continuing to be the country's largest trading partner, accounting for over a quarter of Georgia's total trade turnover. Following the EU trade pact, 2015 was marked by further increase in bilateral trade, whereas trade with the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) decreased precipitously.
Before the 20th century Georgia had a largely agrarian economy.
Georgia's modern economy has traditionally revolved around Black Sea tourism, cultivation of citrus fruits, tea and grapes; mining of manganese and copper; and the output of a large industrial sector producing wine, metals, machinery, chemicals, and textiles.
Like many post-Soviet countries, Georgia went through a period of sharp economic decline during the 1990s, with high inflation and large budget-deficits, due to persistent tax evasion. In 1996 Georgia's budget deficit rose to as much as 6.2%. During that period international financial institutions played a critical role in Georgia's budgetary calculations. Multilateral and bilateral grants and loans totaled 116.4 million lari in 1997; they totaled 182.8 million lari in 1998.
Economic recovery had been hampered by the separatist disputes in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, resistance to reform on the part of some corrupt and reactionary factions, and the Asian financial crisis of 1997. Under the leadership of President Shevardnadze (in office 1995-2003), the government nonetheless made some progress on basic market reforms: it liberalized all prices and most trade, introduced a stable national currency (the lari), and massively downsized government.
During the late 1990s more than 10,500 small enterprises had been privatized, and although privatization of medium- and large-sized firms had been slow, more than 1,200 medium - and large-sized companies had been set up as joint stock companies. A law and a decree establishing the legal basis and procedures for state property privatization reduced the number of companies controlled by the state.
The United States began assisting Georgia in the process of reform soon after the country gained independence from Soviet Union. Gradually, the focus shifted from humanitarian to technical and institution-building programs. Provision of legal and technical advisors was complemented by training opportunities for parliamentarians, law enforcement officials, and economic advisers.
Over the last few years Georgian economy has been one of the fastest in the FSU. Since 2003's Rose Revolution, the new Government of Georgia implemented broad and comprehensive reforms, that touched every aspect of the country's life. Economic reforms were addressed to liberalization of the economy and provision of sustainable economic growth, based on the private sector development. Establishment of an attractive business environment led to significant inflow of Foreign Direct Investment in the country, facilitating high economic growth rates.
In 2013, Georgia ranked in the top ten countries in the Emerging Market Energy Security Growth Prosperity Index, according to an article published by "CISTRAN Finance" news. The index identifies emerging nations that have strong growth potential based on energy reserves and GDP.
Based on the economic reforms, Georgian economy has been diversified showing an upward tendency with average 10% of annual GDP real growth in 2004-2007 and reached the highest level – 12.3 percent in 2007. In overall, during 2004-2007 the economy of Georgia expanded by 35%.
Due to reforms and liberalization of economy policy Georgia has demonstrated some resilience to external shocks – the war with Russia in 2008 and global financial crisis. Despite this, in 2008 Georgia economy grew by 2.3%. After a slight slowdown of economy in 2009 (-3.8%) country recovered shortly with 6.3% GDP real growth 2010. In 2011 GDP real growth reached 7.0%.
Unemployment rate for 2010 constituted 16.3% and it was decreased from 16.9% in 2009.
In 2013 the annual inflation rate in Georgia equaled 2.4%. It has been decreased significantly after 11.2% in 2010. Growth of inflation rate was the result of increasing food prices in the world and essential share of the inflation fluctuations came on variability of food prices, as far as the share of food is relatively high in consumer basket of Georgia.
In 2011, IMF estimated current account balance of Georgia was -1.489 BN USD. Georgia has moderate deficits among the European and Transcaucasian Post-Soviet states:
The trade with Georgia's major partners continued growing. As an example, in 2016, Georgia exported $87,263.53 worth of products to Armenia, and imported $144,931.92 worth of products from Armenia. Deficits in current account have been more than offset by strong foreign capital inflows, allowing the Georgian currency to appreciate.
The government has managed to preserve financial stability thanks to the considerable aid provided by the US and international institutions. EBRD analysts believe that substantial international financial support and remittances from workers living abroad will cover the current account deficit in the medium term. IMF positively evaluated government's economic policy.
Large inflows of Foreign direct investment (FDI) have been a driving factor behind a rapid economic growth in Georgia since 2003.
An attractive and liberal investment environment and equal approach to local and foreign investors makes the country an attractive destination for FDI.
Stable economic development, liberal and free market oriented economic policy, 6 taxes only and reduced tax rates, reduced number of licenses and permissions, dramatically simplified administrative procedures, preferential trade regimes with foreign countries, advantageous geographic location, well developed, integrated and multimodal transport infrastructure, educated, skilled and competitive workforce presents a solid ground for successful business in Georgia.
From 2003 to 2011, FDI in Georgia amounted to US$8511.5 million. The highest volume of FDI – 2,015.0 million USD was reached in 2007, with 69.3% yearly growth. High rate of investment was maintained until 2008. In 2007, the EC27 accounted for over 56% of FDI inflows and in 2008 the EC, UAE, and Turkey accounted for nearly 60%. In 2009, FDI inflows were characterized by decreasing trend. The main reasons of decreasing were external shocks - Russian-Georgian war and the influences of global financial crisis.
• In 2009-2011 the largest share of FDI felt on Industry sector (31.2) amounted to US$765 billion, real estate sector (15.8%) amounting to US$389 billion.
The table below shows FDI stock as a percentage of GDP in selected FSU countries. For statistical purposes, FDI is defined as a foreign company owning 10% or more of the ordinary shares of an incorporated firm or its equivalent for an unincorporated firm.
Foreign direct investment in the country of Georgia by year.
Since 2014, Georgia is part of the European Union's Free Trade Area, with the EU continuing to be the country's largest trading partner, accounting for over a quarter of Georgia's total trade turnover. Following the EU trade pact, 2015 was marked by further increase in bilateral trade, whereas trade with the Russian-led Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) decreased by 22%.
As of 2015, in the order of magnitude, Georgia's main exports were: copper ores and concentrates, ferroalloys, hazelnut, medications, nitrogen fertilizers, wine, crude oil, mineral water, non-denatured ethanol and spirits.
In 2015, Georgia's main imports, in the order of magnitude, were: oil products, vehicles, hydrocarbons, copper ores and concentrates, mobile phones and other wireless phones, wheat, cigarettes, iron tubes and pipes, structures and parts of structures of iron.
Money transferred from abroad to Georgia in 2011 amounted to a record high of US$1.26 billion, up 20.5% from 2010, according to figures released by Georgia's central bank. Money transfers from Russia, which has been the largest source of remittances for Georgia for many years already, stood at US$655.2 million in 2011.
Among other largest sources of remittances for Georgia are: Greece with US$144.6 million in 2011, followed by Italy - USD 109.1 million; the United States – USD 75.5 million; Ukraine - USD 52.4 million; Spain - USD 30.9 million; Turkey - USD 27.6 million; Kazakhstan - USD 26.1 million; the UK - USD 14.6 million; Israel - USD 14.3 million; India - USD 13.2 million and Germany - USD 12.9 million.
Under the Saakashvili administration, Georgia undertook a number of profound institutional reforms aimed at modernizing the economy and improving business climate. Kakha Bendukidze (1956-2014) was one of the most notable team members during his governance, coordinating the Ministry of Economical Reforms of Georgia. Implemented institutional reforms created an effective, professional and transparent public sector, motivated to protect the principles of democracy. Due to the economic deregulation policy, number of state regulated spheres sharply decreased, as well as regulation procedures were simplified.
Georgia succeeded in fighting against corruption, that was the one of the main obstacles for development. Success of Georgia is recognized by different rating agencies. According to the Transparency International, Georgia is the top country in the post-Soviet region in terms of fighting corruption. According to the Corruption Perception Index published by Transparency International, Georgia ranked 50th in 2014 (up from 113rd in 2004). "Global Corruption Barometer 2010" ranks Georgia the first among world countries in the term of decrease corruption level. According to International Finance Corporation Business Perception Survey 2012 only 0.11% of surveyed (1 respondent out of 920) named corruption as a problem in relations with public organizations.
Georgia has the most liberal tax jurisdiction in Europe. The number of taxes is decreased from 21 to only 6, tax rates were reduced also. In addition, significant procedural and institutional reforms was implemented - simplified system of tax disputes was established, tax administration system was streamlined and most of taxes currently are paid on-line.
Due to the customs reform customs procedures were dramatically simplified. Customs tariffs reform significantly simplified and sharply reduced the costs connected to the foreign trade. Number of import tariffs was abolished on approximately 90% of products and only 3 tariff rates exist instead of previous 16. Currently 86% of tariff lines are duty-free compared to 26% in 2005. Modern Customs Clearance Zones were established and customs clearness procedures could be made starting from 15 minutes only.
Modernization of system of licenses and permits resulted in decrease of number of licenses and permits and simplification of related administrative procedures.
Privatization of state property – Starting from 2004, provision of transparent privatization policy was one of the important reforms of the Government of Georgia, that was addressed to denationalization of the remained state property in order to attract foreign investments, increase and develop the private sector and effective use of country's resources.
Liberal labour legislation simplified the relations between employers and employees. As a result of the reform, ”Heritage Foundation” and other analytical centers named Georgian Labour Code as one of the most liberal in the world, because it significantly reduced hiring and firing expenses.
Georgia offers the most simplified procedures for registration of business, property, for getting different documentations via “One-Stop-Shops”, where the most procedures could be done on-line. Doing Business 2012 report (WB) places Georgia 16th in terms of Ease of Doing Business index (up from 112 in 2006), naming Georgia as the top reformer amongst the 174 countries over the last 5 years. Georgia is amongst the leaders in other ratings, namely, registering property – first place; Dealing Construction Permits - 4th place, Starting a Business - 7th place; Getting Credits - 8th place.
Due to the reform of the system of licenses and permits, the number licenses and permits was reduced by 90%. Currently, licenses and permits are only used in the production of highly risky goods and services; also usage of natural resources and specific activities. The procedures of issuing licenses and permits were significantly simplified, the “One-Stop Shop” and “Silence is Consent” principles were introduced which implies that if person is not notified with argumentation rejection about issuance of license in limited framework, the license is considered as issued from the relevant body.
The procedures for getting a construction permits was dramatically simplified and it requires just 3 procedures. The time for getting the construction permits was sharply reduced. According to Doing Business 2012 (WB) Georgia is the best performer in the Eastern Europe and Central Asia (ECA) region and places on 4-th position in the world. The number of procedures and days, the cost (% of income per capita) is much more lower, than in ECA region and OECD countries.
Things have changed after new Law on Issuance of Licenses and Permits was introduced in 2005. The approval process for building a warehouse in Georgia is now more efficient than in all EU countries except Denmark.
Since January, 2011 the new Tax Code came into force. It unifies the old Tax and Customs Codes. The new Tax Code increased confidence towards the Georgian tax system and enhanced trust in the Georgian tax authorities, by improving communication between taxpayers and the tax authorities, by protecting the taxpayers’ rights, by making administration more efficient, and by harmonizing the Georgian laws with the best international tax practices and EU directives.
Only 6 taxes exist in Georgia with law tax rates: Income Tax (personal income tax) 20%; Profit Tax (corporate tax) – 15%; Value Added Tax – 18%; Excise - varies; Property Tax up to 1% of the self-assessed value of property; Customs Tax – 0%; 5%; 12%. In addition, significant procedural and institutional reforms were performed, simplified tax dispute settlement, streamlined tax administration decreased the time and cost of paying taxes. Georgia made paying taxes easier for firms by simplifying the reporting for value added tax and introducing electronic filling and payment of taxes.
Number of import tariffs was abolished on approximately 90% of products and only 3 tariff rates (0%, 5%, 12%) exist instead of previous 16. Georgia sets Import Taxes on only several kinds of agricultural and manufactured goods . In addition, there are no quantitative restrictions (quotas) on imports and exports.
With unemployment around 16% and many jobs in the informal sector, Georgia undertook a far-reaching reform of labour regulation. The new Labour Code was adopted on 17 December 2010. The new law eases restrictions on the duration of term contracts and the number of overtime hours and discards the premium required for overtime work. It also eliminates the requirement to notify and get permission from the labour union to fire a redundant worker. The new law provides for 1 month's severance pay at least, replacing complex rules under which required notice periods depended on seniority and the manager had to write long explanations to labor unions and the relevant ministry. In general, new regulation makes Georgian labor market much more flexible.
Coupled with the fact that Georgia also reduced the social security contributions paid on wages by businesses from 31% to 20% in 2005, and abolished them entirely starting January 2008, these changes make Georgia the sixth easiest place to employ workers globally.
Reducing corruption in courts was one of the chief priorities of the new government. Since 2004, when the Saakashvili administration came in, seven judges have been detained for taking bribes and 15 brought before the criminal courts. In 2005 alone the judicial disciplinary council reviewed cases against 99 judges, about 40% of the judiciary, and 12 judges were dismissed. At the same time judges’ salaries were increased fourfold, to reduce dependence on bribe money.
According to Global Property Guide index, Georgia currently holds 40 points out of 100. That stands for "The court system is highly inefficient, and delays are so long that they deter the use of the court system. Corruption is present, and the judiciary is influenced by other branches of government. Expropriation is possible."
Some unsatisfied responses concerning the judiciary system may be found among Georgian websites, though its genuineness is controversial.
Unemployment has been a persistent problem in Georgia ever since the country gained independence in 1991. According to National Statistics Office (Georgia) unemployment rate stood at 15.1% in 2011 and it has been decreased from 16.3% in 2010.
In 2014 the unemployment rate decreased to 13.7%
Nearly a half of Georgia's population lives in rural areas, where low-intensity self-sufficient farming provides the principal source of livelihood. Georgian statistics service puts individual persons into the category of self-employed workers. As of 2007 416,900 persons were listed as self-employed in agriculture. For large families, heads of households are typically described as "individual entrepreneurs", members of the family that help to cultivate land are classified as "unpaid family business workers". The use of this methodology produces relatively low unemployment rates for rural areas rather in urban areas and in Tbilisi.
Neighbouring countries show somewhat similar results. For example, Armenia in 2015 had 18.26% unemployment rate, which is 532.644 people.
In recent years Georgia has fully deregulated its electricity sector, and now there is free and open access to the market.
Georgia has a sizable hydroelectric capacity, a factor that has become an increasingly important component of its energy supplies and policies. The country's topography and abundance of hydro resources give it serious potential to dominate hydroelectric markets in the Caucasus region. The Georgian Ministry of Energy estimates that there are around 26,000 rivers within Georgian territory, with approximately 300 of those rivers being significant in terms of energy production. The Ministry also claims that current projects for hydroelectric power plants total around US$2.4 billion. Alexander Khetaguri, the former Georgian Minister of Energy, proposed new hydroelectric projects worth well over 22,000 megawatts of capacity, which would cost over US$40 billion and would be privately funded. These projects alone would transform Georgia into the world's second-largest hydropower producer.
In 2007, Georgia generated 8.34 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity while consuming 8.15 billion kWh. Most of Georgia's electricity generation comes from hydroelectric facilities. In 2005, the country generated 6.17 billion kWh of hydropower, or 86% of total electricity generation. In 2006 rapid growth in hydroelectricity output (by 27%) was matched by equally strong growth in thermal electricity (by 28%). Since then the share of hydropower has grown even bigger, when Inguri power plant reached full capacity in November 2007. In addition to state-owned Inguri, which has an installed capacity of 1,300 megawatts, Georgia's hydroelectric infrastructure consists of many small private plants.
In recent years, Georgia became a major exporter of electricity in the region, exporting 1.3 billion KWh in 2010. Hydropower stations of Georgia produce 80-85% of the electricity utilized within the country, the remaining 15-20% is produced by thermal power stations. According to Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, so far Georgia has been exploiting only 18% of its hydro resource potential.
Georgia's reliance on hydropower leaves the country vulnerable to climatic fluctuations, which requires imports to meet seasonal shortages, but also opens the possibility of exports during wetter conditions. Georgia still has the potential to increase hydro-generated power, through refurbishing existing facilities, as well as constructing new hydropower plants.
One of the more difficult realities facing many of the former Soviet republics was the loss of Soviet-subsidized fuel and utility transfers. Prior to 2004, Georgia's transmission network was in critical condition, with electricity blackouts being common throughout the country. In response to mounting pressures, the Georgian government initiated a series of legislative reforms in 1998 and 1999 to begin to develop the power sector and electricity markets. While measures were taken to unbundle and liberalize the energy sector, a new law was drafted and Georgia's independent regulatory authority, the Georgian National Energy Regulatory Commission (GNERC), was formed. In addition to providing government subsidies, the GNERC was able to increase the prices of electricity and natural gas in Georgia to buffer the costs of recovery from the state's reform process. Following these reforms, distribution has been increasingly more reliable, approaching consistent 24-hour-a-day services. Investments in infrastructure have been made as well.
Currently, a privately owned Energo-Pro Georgia controls 62.5% of the electricity distribution market.
Georgia has transmission lines that connect its power grid to Russia, Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan. In July 2008 Georgia began exporting electricity to Russia through the Kavkasioni power line. Later in 2009, Georgian Energy Minister Alexander Khetaguri incited scandal for a business deal struck with the Russian energy company, Inter RAO, to jointly manage the Georgian Inguri hydropower plant for 10 years. Khetaguri's proposal would entail a cash flow of around US$9 million into Georgia for use of the plant. Tensions ran high, however, as the Inguri hydropower plant provides nearly 40 to 50 percent of the country's electricity and is located at the administrative border of the Russian-occupied Abkhazia region.
Georgian Natural gas consumption stood at 1.8 billion cubic meters in 2007. Natural gas used to be supplied to Georgia by Russia. In recent years, however, Georgia has been able to eliminate its dependency on imports from Russia, thanks to increased hydroelectricity production, and the availability of natural gas sources from Azerbaijan. In addition, all Russian gas exports to Armenia pass through the Georgian pipeline system. Georgia takes 10% of that gas as a transit fee.
Georgia is a partner country of the EU INOGATE energy programme, which has four key topics: enhancing energy security,
convergence of member state energy markets on the basis of EU internal energy market principles,
supporting sustainable energy development, and attracting investment for energy projects of common and regional interest.
Currently, about 55% of the total labor force is employed in agriculture, though much of this is subsistence farming.
Georgian agricultural production is beginning to recover following the devastation caused by the civil unrest and the necessary restructuring following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Livestock production is beginning to rebound, although it continues to be confronted by minor and sporadic disease outbreaks. Domestic grain production is increasing, and government invests in improvement of infrastructure improvements to ensure appropriate distribution and revenues to farmers. Tea, hazelnut and citrus production have suffered greatly as a result of the conflict in Abkhazia, a crucial area for planting the latter crops.
Approximately 7% of the Georgian GDP (2011) is generated by the agrarian sector.
Viticulture and winemaking are the most important fields of Georgia's agriculture. Over 450 species of local vine are bred in Georgia, and the country is considered as one of the oldest places of producing top-quality wines in the world. Russia was traditionally the biggest export market for Georgian wine. This, however, changed in 2006, when Russia banned imports of wine and mineral water from Georgia, preceded by statements of Georgian governmental officials about low quality requirements of the Russian market. Since then Georgian wine producers have struggled to maintain output and break into new markets.
In 2011 Georgia sold wine in total amount of 54 mln USD in 48 countries and alcoholic beverages in total amount of 68 mln USD in 32 countries. Vines and alcoholic beverages are in the top 10 export commodity's list with 2,5% and 3.1% share respectively.
According to National Wine Agency of Georgia export of Georgian wine is increasing. 2011 wine export is 109% higher than 2007 exports. According to 2012 information, Georgia trades wine with 43 countries, selling over 23 million bottles. Biggest export partners for Georgia in wine industry are Ukraine (47.3% of wine export), Kazakhstan (18.9%) and Belarus (6.9%).
In 2011 export of vines, mineral waters and alcoholic beverages exceeded export of all years after 2006.
Georgia is rich with spring waters and production of mineral waters is one of the main spheres of industry. Export of mineral waters in 2011 amounted to 48 mln USD in 35 countries. Share of mineral water in total export is 2.1%.
Food processing industry is developing align with the primary agricultural production and export of processed products is increasing year by year. Export of nuts constituted about 6% of Georgian export (2011) and is among 10 top export commodity list with total amount of 130 mln USD. Nuts was exported in 53 countries.
Rural population as a percentage of total population in Georgia was 48.2% in 2011 and decreased to 46.3% in 2014.
Tourism in Georgia (country) is one of the fastest growing sectors of the local economy, which has high potential for further development. During recent years the number of visitors to Georgia increased significantly contributing to the growth of other tourism related sectors. In 2011, more, about 3 million visitors visited Georgia 40 percent more, than in 2010. To foster the development of the tourism sector the Government of Georgia invests heavily in the development of the transportation and basic infrastructure, renovation and development of tourism destinations, which is a stimulus for the private investment generation. In 2011, total output of tourism related services production increased by 77% compared to 2006 and constituted 7.1% of total output of economy. In 2018 tourism generated 3.4 billion dollars in tax revenue for Georgia.
The following table shows the monthly average for incoming tourists in Georgia by citizenship and number of visits (in thousands).
Georgia is one of the key members in international TRACECA programme due to its important geographical and political location. Since it is situated right in between of Europe and Asia, the country is supposed to become a busy transitional hub of a modern Silk Road in the near future. On March 11 of 2015, Georgian media declared that the Chinese and Georgian companies have reached an agreement in Beijing concerning the developing of the deep-water port at Anaklia, which existence is crucial for the TRACECA route. The port will be constructed on a plot of over 1,000 hectares and have access to a deep sea canyon. US-Based SSA Marine was later finally chosen to Invest in and Operate Container Terminal of Anaklia Deep Sea Port in Georgia by signing an agreement with Anaklia Development Consortium on 1 August 2017.
First train containing 82 containers and 41 platforms came from China to Baku, Azerbaijan on July 28. It is planned to launch a first carriage using this way through Georgia to Istanbul in September 2015. Baku–Tbilisi–Kars railway became operationable on October 30, 2017.
Re-exportation of vehicles which is one of the income sources for Georgia has lowered much during 2014-2015 stagnation, most noticeably to Azerbaijan: it became 5.1 times less (on 10 337 cars) comparing to the previous year.
Like most other post-soviet countries, Georgia's finance sector is dominated by banks. As of 2015, there were 21 commercial banks, of which 5 large banks controlled most of financial assets. There are some major challenges facing the banking sector. For instance, banks play a limited role in financing the real economy and in investing in activities that are required to stabilize the country's persistent trade.
Human Development Index is a composite statistic of life expectancy, education, and income indices used to rank countries into four tiers of human development.
Georgia's HDI value for 2017 is 0.780— in the high human development category—positioning it at 70 out of 189 countries and territories. The rank is shared with Antigua and Barbuda. Between 2000 and 2017, Georgia's HDI value increased from 0.673 to 0.780, an increase of 15.9 percent or average annual increase of about 0.9 percent. Between 1990 and 2017, Georgia's life expectancy at birth increased by 3.1 years, mean years of schooling increased by 1.1 years and expected years of schooling increased by 2.6 years, also Georgia's GNI per capita increased by about 21.0%. However, it is misleading to compare values and rankings with those of previously published reports, because the underlying data and methods have changed over time. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12062 |
Telecommunications in Georgia (country)
Telecommunications in Georgia include radio, television, fixed and mobile telephones, and the Internet.
The TLC sector in Georgia comprised 6.88% of the GDP, mostly due to mobile telephony (63%), followed by fixed telephony (29%) and broadcasting (7.7%).
There are three cellular telephone networks: MagtiCom LTD, Silknet JSC, and Mobitel Georgia (Russian Beeline group). The cellular network market counts more than 3,000,000 active customers in total.
Coverage extends to over 98% of the populated territory as of 2010; In urban areas there are 20 telephones per 100 people and in rural areas 4 telephones per 100 people.
The fixed telephony, internet and IP television in Georgia is mainly operated by the Silknet, New Net and MagtiCom controlled 90% of the market in 2018. By the end of 2008, there were 618,000 fixed telephone users in Georgia. In urban areas there are 20 telephones per 100 people, and in rural areas there are four telephones per 100 people.
Fiber-optic lines connect the major cities and Georgia and Bulgaria are connected with fiber-optic line between Poti and Varna (Bulgaria).
Listed as engaged in selective Internet filtering in the political and conflict/security areas and as no evidence of filtering in the social and Internet tools areas by the OpenNet Initiative (ONI) in November 2010.
Access to Internet content in Georgia is largely unrestricted as the legal constitutional framework, developed after the 2003 Rose Revolution, established a series of provisions that should, in theory, curtail any attempts by the state to censor the Internet. At the same time, these legal instruments have not been sufficient to prevent limited filtering on corporate and educational networks. Georgia's dependence on international connectivity makes it vulnerable to upstream filtering, evident in the March 2008 blocking of YouTube by Turk Telecom.
On March 14, 2016, access to YouTube was restricted nationwide. This restriction of access was to presumably prevent Georgian citizens from accessing a video which threatened a number of journalists and opposition figures with the exposure of covertly recorded video tapes of sex acts. YouTube access went down throughout Georgia until the threatening video was removed from the internet. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12063 |
Transport in Georgia (country)
For Soviet transportation, see Transport in the Soviet Union.
"total:"
1,683 km in common carrier service; does not include industrial lines
"broad gauge:"
1,583 km of gauge (1993)
"narrow gauge:"
100 km of gauge.
City with metro system: Tbilisi (see Tbilisi Metro).
The road network in Georgia consists of 1,603 kilometers of main or international highways that are considered to be in good condition and some 18,821 kilometers of secondary and local roads that are, generally, in poor condition. Only 7,854 km out of over 20,000 km of Georgian roads are paved.
Georgia has a small motorway system, that is currently under development, essentially when the motorway will be finished will link Tbilisi, the capital, and Batumi, Georgia's second largest city. The multilane road is part of the S1 highway, which runs from Mukhatgverdi (Tbilisi West) until Agarebi, a village near Khashuri, and has a length of 110 km, bypassing Mtskheta and Gori.
Crude oil 370 km; refined products 300 km; natural gas 440 km (1992)
Batumi, Poti, Sokhumi, Kulevi Oil Terminal
"total:"
17 ships (with a volume of or over) totaling /
"ships by type:"
cargo ship 10, chemical tanker 1, petroleum tanker 6 (1999 est.)
28 (1994 est.)
In February 2007 a brand new, modern and fully equipped international Airport was inaugurated in Tbilisi.
"total:"
14
"over 3,047 m:"
1
"2,438 to 3,047 m:"
7
"1,524 to 2,437 m:"
4
"914 to 1,523 m:"
1
"under 914 m:"
1 (1994 est.)
"total:"
14
"over 3,047 m:"
1
"2,438 to 3,047 m:"
1
"1,524 to 2,437 m:"
1
"914 to 1,523 m:"
5
"under 914 m:"
6 (1994 est.) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12064 |
Defense Forces of Georgia
The Defense Forces of Georgia (), or Georgian Defense Forces, known as the Georgian Armed Forces () until December 2018, are the combined military forces of Georgia, tasked with the defense of the nation’s independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity. They consist of the Land Force, Air Force, National Guard, and Special Operations Forces. The Defense Forces are under overall leadership of the Minister of Defense of Georgia and directly headed by the Chief of Defense Forces.
The first regular military was established in the first Georgian Republic in 1918 and was in existence until after the republic's overthrow by the invading Soviet Russian forces in 1921. The modern Georgian military were founded in accordance with the government decree of 24 April 1991. 30 April, the day when the first conscripts were called up for military service in 1991, has been celebrated as the day of the Georgian military forces.
The Georgian military have fought in the civil war and separatist conflicts in the 1990s and the Russo-Georgian War of 2008 as well as major international military missions such as in Iraq and Afghanistan. Georgia was one of the first former Soviet republics to join the NATO Partnership for Peace program in 1994 and Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP) in 2004 and has sought to bring its military in line with the NATO standards.
The Georgia Train and Equip Program (GTEP) training was conducted using U.S. Special Operations Forces and U.S. Marine Corps forces from May 2002 to May 2004. During this time approximately 2,600 Georgian soldiers, including a headquarters staff element and 5 tactical units, received training. Another assistance program, the Georgia Security and Stability Operations Program (Georgia SSOP), was launched in January 2005 as a continuation of the (GTEP) of 2002-2004. Georgian contingents were involved in the Kosovo Force and continue to participate in the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The DFG have been extensively reformed in the recent years to meet Georgia’s aspirations to join NATO and for better response to the existing challenges such as the ongoing tensions in the unresolved separatist conflict areas in Abkhazia and South Ossetia as well as to the threats of global terrorism. Georgia also views a large-scale foreign invasion and the spillover of conflicts from Russia’s North Caucasus as the worst potential near- and long-term scenarios, respectively.
On August 8, 2008 the Georgian military conducted an operation in Georgia's breakaway region South Ossetia (see 2008 South Ossetia War). The operation led to an armed conflict with forces from the Russian Federation and resulted in the defeat and expulsion of Georgian forces from South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Following the military operations, Russia recognized independence of the regions, declared a decade ago.
The military budget of Georgia increased more than 50 times over the period from 2002 (US$18 mln.) to 2007 (US$780 mln.), reaching over 7% of Georgia's GDP. The military budget was then
doubled to the end of 2008 and currently since February 2009, counts 660 mln lari (US$366 mln.)
In August 2008, following a series of fierce clashes in South Ossetia, Georgia attempted to re-take the separatist territory by force. In the resulting military conflict with Russia, Georgia was driven out of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and lost parts of its military capabilities. According to Defence Minister Davit Kezerashvili, Georgia lost $400 million of material worth. Out of its original 200 T-72 tanks, some 55 were abandoned and captured by the enemy and 10 destroyed in combat. Much of the captured equipment that was not subsequently destroyed got transferred to Russia or given to the separatists. Parts of Georgia's relatively modern artillery and anti-aircraft units were captured and later destroyed. Russian forces sank four Georgian naval vessels in the port of Poti, a coast guard gunboat in a naval skirmish, and hauled away nine rigid-hull inflatable boats. The Georgian Air Force lost two L-29 jet trainers, one AN-2 airplane, and four helicopters, all destroyed on the ground. Despite these mostly non combat losses, President Mikheil Saakashvili claimed that Georgia had lost less than 5% of its military hardware, contradicting figures from the Georgian military itself.
Georgia immediately began a process of re-armament after the war. The conflict was immediately followed by a very quick replenishment program of the gaps in the single GAF arms components with an additional massive re-equipment and modernization program. Two Georgian naval vessels sunk in Poti were raised and returned to service, although one had to undergo repairs. The Georgian Navy's remaining operational naval units were merged into the Georgian Coast Guard, which received training in search and seizure tactics from the United States. Ukraine delivered munitions and artillery systems to Georgia in September 2008, and later supplied Georgia with 25 T-72 tanks, three BTR-80 armored personnel carriers, sixty portable air defence missiles, munitions for rocket launchers, and anti-tank guided missiles. Ukraine continued to supply shipments of arms to Georgia, and announced that it would only stop if the United Nations Security Council imposed an arms embargo. Israel supplied Georgia with firearms after the war. The United States also delivered some amounts of arms and light military equipment to Georgia after the war, and trained Georgian personnel. Israel sold Georgia numerous unmanned aerial vehicles, and supplied Georgia with two helicopters. The United States also trained Georgian soldiers to be deployed in Afghanistan. Georgia also rebuilt its damaged military bases. In August 2010, Georgia was reported to be spending 30 times more on its military budget than on economic development. By late 2010 the Georgian military had reached a strength greater than pre-war levels and, after completing the reforms, decisively reduced military spending. Beginning in 2010, Georgia started to produce its own line of armoured fighting vehicles, small arms, artillery systems, and unmanned aerial vehicles.
The most recent major reforms started in late 2013 and have been expanded by the NATO Wales summit resolution of 2014. NATO officially announced the complete support of the country's efforts in establishing the efficient military force that is required to defend the country against any regional threats and agreed on delivering high end sophisticated defense capabilities and boosting the overall quality of the GAF. The package also includes a group of NATO experts monitoring the process in order to control and ensure its successful implementation for the given time period. Further a large training center for joint military drills will be constructed. NATO did not state that it would directly arm the GAF but fully assist in acquiring requested military hardware and that it would lift the general arms embargo on Georgia that was in effect since 2008. After the last major conflict with Russia, Georgia repeatedly was denied the delivery of modern anti-air and anti-tank weapons and other heavy equipment despite heavy shortage on said weapons and numerous demands and harsh criticism from both the former and current ruling parties.
Almost immediately after the summit US defense secretary Chuck Hagel announced during his visit to Georgia that the US will start providing long requested UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters which is an arrangement reportedly outside the NATO package. Russia reacted very critical to the plan of building an international training center in Georgia claiming it would bring instability to the region. The statement was denied by NATO reminding that Georgia is a PFP member and already provides similar capabilities such as an alpine warfare school for NATO and partner nations.
Despite knowing that there would not be any newcomers announced during the Wales summit, the Georgian government was confident that their country would at least receive the Membership Action Plan, which is the primary precondition for aspirant nations to become NATO member. Instead of the MAP Georgia was offered an alternative route which got accepted by the country's officials yet was met with very mixed reception. The new level of cooperation brings Georgia onto the list of special NATO partners together with Sweden and four other countries.
The overall strength of the DFG in 2013 was 43,475, including 37,825 active duty personnel, 1,940 civilians in the education sphere, 533 in health insurance, and 3,177 for supply duties. The Georgian legislation (17 December 2010) had established that the strength of the armed forces should not exceed 37,000 up to the year 2011. Recruitment and size have been increased since 2008. Limitations do not extend to the state of war, military reserve and temporary staff of the Defence Ministry of Georgia. Currently there are 37,000 active personnel. The number is to be maintained in 2017 as well.
The Defense Forces of Georgia consist of four branches: Land Forces, Air Force, National Guard, and Special Operations Forces.
The overall command is exercised by the Chief of Defense Forces, who is aided by the General Staff of the Defense Forces. The Defense Forces are further organized into several structural units:
In wartime, several other bodies fall under the control of the Defense Forces additionally. These are:
The Eastern Command and its Western counterpart are two main regional operational groupings, respectively, for eastern and western Georgia. They were created in the 2010s in order to have two autonomous territorial commands, with their own military staffs, logistical and administrative resources.
The Eastern Command consists of:
The Western Command consists of:
The Land Forces form the largest component of the DFG responsible for providing land defence against any threat to the nation’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, supporting Border Police in border protection and civil authorities in counter-terrorist operations as well as providing units for NATO-led and coalition operations abroad. They are organized into infantry brigades, artillery and other supporting capacities operating at a battalion level.
The Special Operations Forces are responsible for conducting special reconnaissance, unconventional warfare and counter-terrorism operations. The Georgian National Guard organizes and trains reservists in the peacetime and mobilizes them during a crisis or wartime.
The structure of the Georgian Land Forces is based on brigade and battalion-sized military units. The main force consists of four infantry, two artillery, one air defence brigades and several independent battalions. Georgian brigades have a total manpower of 3,000 each excluding non-combat personnel. The overall strength of the land forces in 2013 was 37,825 (excluding active reserve), from which 21 were high-ranking officers, 6,166 officers and sergeants, 28,477 corporals and privates, 125 cadets and 388 civilians. Accordingly, to NATO structures and higher standards reached the brigades were downsized to optimal as well as the 5th brigade disbanded, also to increase the percentage of spending on arms acquirement, which was previously 2%, to 6% of the military budget. The goal is to reach at least 15% until 2020. The ground forces are equipped with a variety of weapons and vehicles. Special forces operate independently under MOD direction.
The Georgian Land Force consists of following primary combat formations (incomplete):
In 2011 the Georgian high command decided to divide its military forces into two main operational units; the Eastern and Western Operational Groups. The aim was to create two independently acting military districts which would consist of forces in accordance to the strategic value of their deployment areas yet being balanced in their type of equipment. In case of war each group will be able to coordinate its operations independently from high command, having its own logistical and administrative reserves.
The Special Operations Forces of the Defence Forces of Georgia were established to conduct unconventional warfare and the full spectrum of special operation missions. They also serve in supporting capacity for regular military forces, primarily in the areas of education and training.
Georgian special forces became first active in 1999 as part of KFOR. Georgian commandos participated in the Iraq War from 2003 until the complete withdrawal of the Georgian contingent in 2008 due to an escalation of hostilities in South Ossetia. According to independent accounts, a number of Georgian operatives were also deployed prior in Afghanistan to aide US Special Forces in hunting down Taliban leaders. Georgian officials have stated that a group of servicemen were deployed in Afghanistan for medical purposes.
The Strategic Defence Review in 2007 described the Air Force consists of aviation and air defence assets and provides security to Georgia’s airspace.
The Georgian Air Force was merged into the Army in 2010, and was renamed the Army Air Section, undergoing massive reorganization and restructuring. The additional operative section of the Georgian Land Forces currently consists of an unknown amount of planes, transport helicopters, gunships and 3,000 personnel. The Georgian Air Force lost two helicopters and a number of transport and trainer aircraft on ground during the 2008 South Ossetia War,
Two major airfields are located near Tbilisi at Alekseevka and Marneuli.
In 2007 the Strategic Defence Review said the Georgian Navy protects Georgia’s territorial waters and contributes to the collective maritime defence in the Black Sea region.
The Georgian Navy was abolished in 2009 and was incorporated into the Coast Guard, which is not structurally part of the Defense Forces, but rather it is a subunit of the Border Guard of Georgia, which is under the control of Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia. The Coast Guard of Georgia is responsible for maintenance of the sovereignty of the country and for protection of internal territorial waters and economic zones. The headquarters and a principal Coast Guard base are located at the Black Sea port of Poti.
The other, smaller Coast Guard base is in Batumi. Besides the naval force, the navy also includes a Special Counter-terrorist Detachment force. Georgia is also one of the founding members and a participant of the Black Sea Naval Co-operation Task Group. Before the war with Russia, the Georgian navy had 19 naval vessels. Four of them were sunk during the conflict, and nine rigid-hull inflatables were captured by Russia. The Georgians raised and returned to service two of the sunken vessels, and partially replaced their losses with Turkish-built patrol/fast attack boats. Their heaviest armaments are 25−30mm cannons. However, no Georgian navy vessels are armed with ship-to-ship missiles.
The National Guard of Georgia was established on December 20, 1990 and was manned mainly by volunteers. It represents the first Georgian armed formation, which became the base of the foundation for modern Defense Forces of Georgia. The Guard actively participated in the conflicts that occurred in Georgian territory (Samachablo, Abkhazia).
The National Guard used to consist of 20,554 personnel, but has now been reduced to 550. The main missions of the National Guard are:
The Army Reserve is a professional reserve force consisting of former regular army personnel only. Due to the amount of experience, the Reserve personnel would be set-in for replacement of losses in the ranks of regular formations and will if needed also operate in the vanguard of a combined mechanized group or an infantry assault.
The Territorial Defence Forces were established for immediate readiness of the population in crisis events, such as war. Its main goals would be the fortification and defence of all populated and strategically important areas as well as providing quick aid or security for evacuation operations in case of natural catastrophes.
Other than the active army reserve which consists of only ex military personnel, the Territorial Defence Forces are rather sparsely prepared for complex military operations. It instead provides more comfort for the regular forces in case of war. By acting as additional logistical arm and leaving the actual combat to them. With the land forces and reserve army engaged in direct action the Defence Force's most important task would be to construct trenches, bunkers and obstacles around strategically important areas and position themselves on systematically formed defensive lines. The number of conscripts does not exceed 140,000 and is reasonably large, as it is in the strategy's intention to use any possible geographical advantage over the enemy, when professionalism is compensated by that factor.
The TDF reservist is comparably poorly equipped for modern warfare. The number of combat, protection gear and supplies will be most likely limited in the event of war. The Territorial Defence Force consists of ordinary citizens of all occupations who undertake training in the basics of modern warfare. The weapons trained on are mainly of soviet origin and abandoned material used formerly by the regular land forces, including tanks. Such weapons are the AK series assault rifles and the RPG-7 rocket propelled launchers.
The Defense Forces have been participating in peacekeeping missions (the Balkans, Persian Gulf) since 1999.
Units participating in peacekeeping missions are manned by professional soldiers, the duration of the mission is six months and participation is voluntary. The readiness assessment criteria are, as follows: health condition, physical fitness, professional skills and experience.
About 200 Georgian troops were deployed in the Kosovo (KFOR) in 1999–2008, 70 were deployed in Iraq (OIF) in 2003 and 50 in Afghanistan in 2004 (ISAF). From 2004 in Iraq were 300 Georgian troops. From 2005 approximately 850 troops were serving under Coalition Command (OIF and UNAMI). On July 2007 Georgia sent an extra 1,400 troops to Iraq; that brought the total number of troops in Iraq to 2,000. About 300 of these troops were assigned to Taskforce Petro and stationed at COP Cleary outside the town of Wahida near Salman Pak, Iraq. On August 8, 2008 Georgia announced it will withdraw 1,000 troops from Iraq due to rising hostilities with Russia. Their preparedness and training skills are evaluated on highest level by international experts. The entire Iraq contingent has been airlifted back to Georgia.
Hence, owing to participation in international peacekeeping missions the military members are able to obtain practical experience and to show readiness to cooperate with NATO and with other partner countries' forces.
Currently there are more than 1,570 Georgian combat troops deployed in Helmand, Afghanistan where Georgia has thus far suffered 22 deaths and over a hundred injuries. In September 2012, Georgia stated that it would continue its contributions in Afghanistan following the 2014 NATO withdrawal.
In November 2012, Georgia had doubled the number of troops deployed to fight with Nato-led forces in Afghanistan to over 1,500. Georgia has 1,570 troops serving there, making the small Caucasus country of 4.5 million people the largest non-Nato contributor to the Afghanistan mission.
Since 2014 Georgia has contributed 140 troops to the EUFOR RCA peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic.
The Chief of General Staff is the highest-ranking officer in the military, heading the General Staff and being the ex officio Deputy Chief of the Defense Forces, who is the commander of the Defense Forces, being appointed by the Minister of Defense. The senior enlisted advisor of the Georigan military is the Sergeant Major of the Georgian Defense Forces (), currently Sergeant Major Koba Tsirekidze (appointed on 11 April 2016).
Georgia has a long history of weapon production tracing back to ancient times. More recent developments however have their roots in the Soviet Union. In 1941 Georgia became one of the most important Soviet weapon manufacturing countries during the Second World War. It was responsible for providing the Soviet Army with all types of aircraft and ammunition. Tbilisi Aircraft Manufacturing's role didn't change after the war. Up until 1990 Georgia was producing various types of fighter aircraft, most notably the Su-25 since it was produced almost exclusively in Georgia, unmanned areal vehicles, missiles, satellite components and orbital satellites. The company lost most of its functionality and production capability when the Soviet Union dissolved, yet was not abandoned. In the late 1990s Georgia's JSC RMP and later the newly established Ministry of Defence section "Delta" started to work on the development of ballistic equipment using their own ingredients. The advanced research unit had successfully developed a variety of personal protection gear, such as bomb disposal suits and level I-IV body armour using classified mixtures of domestic resource. These projects never went beyond some prototypes, mainly due to poor attention and financing from the government.
With foreign support primarily from the United States since 2005, Georgia became able to start building a solid industrial base for the military. From 2001 to 2007, Delta experimented with unmanned aerial vehicles and modified parts for helicopters and Su-25 aircraft until it got involved in the modification of Georgia's T-72 tank fleet. In 2009-10, with enough experience and expertise and the assistance of designer Zviad Tsikolia, Delta created its first prototype of an armored personnel carrier, the Didgori. Early tests were highly successful so that its first production line started already in 2011. Two versions would initially serve in the armed forces in 2012, followed by different modifications from 2013 on. The Lazika is Delta's attempt to manufacture a suitable modular infantry fighting vehicle created for multiple tasks. While still under development, some Lazikas are already in active service. Delta considers the Lazika as one of the best vehicles of its class bearing armour technology similar to that of Israel. The remotely operated systems are locally produced as well. Due to "misdirected financing" and heavy interfering of former government officials, project Lazika was temporarily cancelled in late 2012, also due to "sabotage" and shortcomings in its armour research, but then later continued in early 2013 when a newly elected government took charge.
As of 2007 Georgia has been domestically producing uniforms for its military personnel. Early products were of poor quality, and such shortcomings were only corrected beginning in 2012. Since then only high quality fabrics are licensed for use. Other main production lines include various types of artillery systems such as MLRS, mortars and corresponding ammunition, anti-tank weapons and devices, full uniform sets for ceremonies and for all service branches, including boots, hats, assault vests, pouches, and backpacks. New kind of ballistic vests and helmets have been developed and produced for military service since 2013. The Georgian production uses techniques based on know-how from aerospace research whose methods differ slightly yet significantly from foreign ones. Among the first units to use these new items is the peacekeeping contingent currently stationed in the Central African Republic.
2005 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=12065 |
Levellers
The Levellers were a political movement during the English Civil War (1642–1651) committed to popular sovereignty, extended suffrage, equality before the law and religious tolerance. The hallmark of Leveller thought was its populism, as shown by its emphasis on equal natural rights, and their practice of reaching the public through pamphlets, petitions and vocal appeals to the crowd.
The Levellers came to prominence at the end of the First English Civil War (1642–46) and were most influential before the start of the Second Civil War (1648–49). Leveller views and support were found in the populace of the City of London and in some regiments in the New Model Army. Their ideas were presented in their manifesto "Agreement of the People". In contrast to the Diggers, the Levellers opposed common ownership, except in cases of mutual agreement of the property owners.
The Levellers were not a political party in the modern sense of the term. They were organised at the national level, with offices in a number of London inns and taverns such as The Rosemary Branch in Islington, which got its name from the sprigs of rosemary that Levellers wore in their hats as a sign of identification.
From July 1648 to September 1649, they published a newspaper, "The Moderate", and were pioneers in the use of petitions and pamphleteering to political ends. They identified themselves by sea-green ribbons worn on their clothing.
After Pride's Purge and the execution of Charles I, power lay in the hands of the Grandees in the Army (and to a lesser extent with the Rump Parliament). The Levellers, along with all other opposition groups, were marginalised by those in power and their influence waned. By 1650, they were no longer a serious threat to the established order.
The term "leveller" had been used in 17th-century England as a term of abuse for rural rebels. In the Midland Revolt of 1607, the name was used to refer to those who levelled hedges in enclosure riots.
As a political movement, the term first referred to a faction of New Model Army Agitators and their London supporters who were allegedly plotting to assassinate Charles I of England. But the term was gradually attached to John Lilburne, Richard Overton, and William Walwyn and their "faction". Books published in 1647–1648 often reflect this terminological uncertainty. The public "identification" was largely due to the aspersions by Marchamont Needham, the author of the newspaper "Mercurius Pragmaticus". Lilburne, John Wildman and Richard Baxter later thought that Oliver Cromwell and Henry Ireton had applied the term to Lilburne's group during the Putney Debates of late 1647. Lilburne considered the term pejorative and called his supporters "Levellers so-called" and preferred "Agitators". The term suggested that the "Levellers" aimed to bring all down to the lowest common level. The leaders vehemently denied the charge of "levelling", but adopted the name because it was how they were known to the majority of people. After their arrest and imprisonment in 1649, four of the "Leveller" leaders – Walwyn, Overton, Lilburne and Thomas Prince – signed a manifesto in which they called themselves Levellers.
The "Oxford English Dictionary" dates the first written use of the term for a political movement to 1644, in Marchamont Needham's pamphlet "The Case for the Commonwealth of England Stated" which however dates from 1650. The OED notes the term was also used in a letter of 1 November 1647.
The 19th-century historian S. R. Gardiner suggested that it existed as a nickname before this date. Blair Worden, the most recent historian to publish on the subject, concluded that the 1 November letter was the first recorded use of the term. The letter referred to extremists among the Army agitators: "They have given themselves a new name, viz. Levellers, for they intend to sett all things straight, and rayse a parity and community in the kingdom". Worden shows that the term first appeared in print in a book by Charles I called "His Majesties Most Gracious Declaration". This tract was a printing of a letter that had been read in the House of Lords on 11 November 1647. Although George Thomason did not date this tract, the last date internal to the document was Saturday 13 November 1647, suggesting a publication date of 15 November 1647.
The Levellers' agenda developed in tandem with growing dissent within the New Model Army in the wake of the First Civil War. Early drafts of the Agreement of the People emanated from army circles and appeared before the Putney Debates of October and November 1647, and a final version, appended and issued in the names of prominent Levellers Lt. Col. Lilburne, Walwyn, Overton and Prince appeared in May 1649. It called for an extension of suffrage to include almost all the adult male population, electoral reform, biennial elections, religious freedom, and an end to imprisonment for debt. They were committed broadly to the abolition of corruption within the parliamentary and judicial process, toleration of religious differences, the translation of law into the common tongue and, arguably, something that could be considered democracy in its modern form – arguably the first time contemporary democratic ideas had been formally framed and adopted by a political movement. The Levellers have been seen as having undemocratic tendencies by some as they excluded household servants and those dependent upon charitable handouts from suffrage as Levellers feared that poor, dependent men would simply vote as their masters wished. It would also have excluded women; most adult women were married and, as wives, were legally and financially dependent on their husbands.
Some Levellers like Lilburne argued that the English Common law, particularly the Magna Carta, was the foundation of English rights and liberties, but others, like William Walwyn, compared the Magna Carta to a "mess of potage". Lilburne also harked back in his writing to the notion of a Norman yoke that has been imposed on the English people and to some extent argued that the English were simply seeking to reclaim those rights they had enjoyed before the Conquest.
Levellers tended to hold fast to a notion of "natural rights" that had been violated by the King's side in the Civil Wars (1642–1651). At the Putney Debates in 1647, Colonel Thomas Rainsborough defended natural rights as coming from the law of God expressed in the Bible. Richard Overton considered that liberty was an innate property of every person. Michael Mendle has demonstrated the development of Leveller ideas from elements of early parliamentarian thought as expressed by men such as Henry Parker.
According to George Sabine, Levellers held to "the doctrine of consent by participation in the choice of representatives".
In July 1645, John Lilburne was imprisoned for denouncing Members of Parliament who lived in comfort while the common soldiers fought and died for the Parliamentary cause. His offence was slandering William Lenthall, the Speaker of the House of Commons, whom he accused of corresponding with Royalists. He was freed in October 1645 after a petition requesting his release, signed by over 2,000 leading London citizens, was presented to the House of Commons.
In July 1646, Lilburne was imprisoned again, this time in the Tower of London, for denouncing his former army commander, the Earl of Manchester, as a Royalist sympathiser because he had protected an officer who had been charged with treason. It was the campaigns to free Lilburne from prison that spawned the movement known as the Levellers. Richard Overton was arrested in August 1646 for publishing a pamphlet attacking the House of Lords. During his imprisonment, he wrote an influential Leveller manifesto, "An Arrow Against All Tyrants and Tyranny".
The soldiers in the New Model Army elected "Agitators" from each regiment to represent them. These Agitators were recognised by the Army's commanders and had a seat on the General Council. However, by September 1647, at least five regiments of cavalry had elected new unofficial agitators and produced a pamphlet called "The Case of the Army truly stated". This was presented to the commander-in-chief, Sir Thomas Fairfax, on 18 October 1647. In this, they demanded a dissolution of Parliament within a year and substantial changes to the constitution of future Parliaments that were to be regulated by an unalterable "law paramount".
The senior officers in the Army (nicknamed "Grandees") were angered by the "Case of the Army" and ordered the unofficial Agitators to give an account of their principles before the General Council of the Army. These debates, known as the Putney Debates, were held in St. Mary's Church, Putney, in the county of Surrey between 28 October and 11 November 1647. The Agitators were assisted by some civilians, notably John Wildman and Maximillian Petty, who had been connected to the Army as civilian advisers since July 1647. On 28 October, the Agitator Robert Everard presented a document entitled "An Agreement of the People". This manifesto, which was inherently republican and democratic, appeared to conflict with the terms of settlement that had already been endorsed by the General Council in July entitled "The Heads of the Proposals" The "Heads of the Proposals" contained many demands that looked towards social justice but relied upon the King to agree to them and bring them into law through acts of Parliament. The new Agitators, who distrusted the King, demanded that England be settled from "the bottom up" rather than the "top down" by giving the vote to most adult males. The debates help to throw light on the areas on which supporters of the Parliamentarian side agreed and those on which they differed. For example, Ireton asked whether the phrase in the Agreement "according to the number of the inhabitants" gave a foreigner just arrived in England and resident in a property the right to vote. He argued that a person must have a "permanent interest of this kingdom" to be entitled to vote, and that "permanent interest" means owning property, which is where he and the Levellers disagreed. To modern eyes, the debates seem to draw heavily on the Bible to lay out certain basic principles. This is to be expected in an age still racked by religious upheavals in the aftermath of the reformation and particularly in an army where soldiers were, in part, selected for their religious zeal. It is notable that John Wildman resisted religious language, arguing that the Bible produced no model for civil government and that reason should be the basis of any future settlement.
The Corkbush Field rendezvous on 17 November 1647, was the first of three meetings to take place as agreed in the Putney Debates. The Army commanders Thomas Fairfax and Cromwell were worried by the strength of support for Levellers in the Army, so they decided to impose "The Heads of the Proposals" as the army's manifesto instead of the Levellers' "Agreement of the People". When some refused to accept this (because they wanted the army to adopt the Levellers' document), they were arrested and one of the ringleaders, Private Richard Arnold, was executed. At the other two meetings, the troops who were summoned agreed to the manifesto without further protest.
The Levellers' largest petition, titled "To The Right Honourable The Commons Of England", was presented to Parliament on 11 September 1648 after amassing signatories including about a third of all Londoners.
On 30 October 1648, Thomas Rainsborough was killed. He was a Member of Parliament and a Leveller leader who had spoken at the Putney Debates. His funeral was the occasion for a large Leveller-led demonstration in London, with thousands of mourners wearing the Levellers' ribbons of sea-green and bunches of rosemary for remembrance in their hats.
On 20 January 1649, a version of the "Agreement of the People" that had been drawn up in October 1647 for the Army Council and subsequently modified was presented to the House of Commons.
At the end of January 1649, Charles I of England was tried and executed for treason against the people. In February, the Grandees banned petitions to Parliament by soldiers. In March, eight Leveller troopers went to the commander-in-chief of the New Model Army, Thomas Fairfax, and demanded the restoration of the right to petition. Five of them were cashiered out of the army.
In April, 300 infantrymen of Colonel John Hewson's regiment, who declared that they would not serve in Ireland until the Levellers' programme had been realised, were cashiered without arrears of pay. This was the threat that had been used to quell the mutiny at the Corkbush Field rendezvous. Later that month, in the Bishopsgate mutiny, soldiers of the regiment of Colonel Edward Whalley stationed in Bishopsgate London made demands similar to those of Hewson's regiment; they were ordered out of London. When they refused to go, 15 soldiers were arrested and court martialed. Six of their number were sentenced to death. Of these, five were later pardoned, while Robert Lockyer (or Lockier), a former Levellers agitator, was hanged on 27 April 1649. "At his burial a thousand men, in files, preceded the corpse, which was adorned with bunches of rosemary dipped in blood; on each side rode three trumpeters, and behind was led the trooper’s horse, covered with mourning; some thousands of men and women followed with black and green ribbons on their heads and breasts, and were received at the grave by a numerous crowd of the inhabitants of London and Westminster."
In 1649, Lieutenant-Colonel John Lilburne, William Walwyn, Thomas Prince, and Richard Overton were imprisoned in the Tower of London by the Council of State (see above). It was while the leaders of the Levellers were being held in the Tower that they wrote an outline of the reforms the Levellers wanted, in a pamphlet entitled "An Agreement Of The Free People Of England" (written on 1 May 1649). It includes reforms that have since been made law in England, such as the right to silence, and others that have not been, such as an elected judiciary.
Shortly afterwards, Cromwell attacked the "Banbury mutineers", 400 troopers who supported the Levellers and who were commanded by Captain William Thompson. Several mutineers were killed in the skirmish. Captain Thompson escaped only to be killed a few days later in another skirmish near the Diggers community at Wellingborough. The three other leaders – William Thompson's brother, Corporal Perkins, and John Church – were shot on 17 May 1649. This destroyed the Levellers' support base in the New Model Army, which by then was the major power in the land. Although Walwyn and Overton were released from the Tower, and Lilburne tried and acquitted, the Leveller cause had effectively been crushed.
The Moderate was a newspaper published by the Levellers from July 1648 to September 1649.
In a 1724 rising against enclosures in Galloway, a number of men who took part in it were called "Levellers" or "Dykebreakers". They were confronted by six troops of dragoons, after which nocturnal attacks continued for six months, making it the most serious rural disturbance in 18th-century Scotland. The word was also used in Ireland during the 18th century to describe a secret revolutionary society similar to the Whiteboys. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30558 |
Glossary of topology
This is a glossary of some terms used in the branch of mathematics known as topology. Although there is no absolute distinction between different areas of topology, the focus here is on general topology. The following definitions are also fundamental to algebraic topology, differential topology and geometric topology.
All spaces in this glossary are assumed to be topological spaces unless stated otherwise.
Here are some facts about submaximality as a property of topological spaces: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30562 |
Theodore Sturgeon
Theodore Sturgeon (; born Edward Hamilton Waldo, February 26, 1918 – May 8, 1985) was an American fiction author of primarily fantasy, science fiction and horror, as well as a critic. He wrote approximately 400 reviews and more than 120 short stories, 11 novels and several Star Trek scripts.
Sturgeon's science fiction novel "More Than Human" (1953) won the 1954 International Fantasy Award (for SF and fantasy) as the year's best novel and the Science Fiction Writers of America ranked "Baby is Three" number five among the "Greatest Science Fiction Novellas of All Time" to 1964. Ranked by votes for all of their pre-1965 novellas, Sturgeon was second among authors, behind Robert Heinlein.
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame inducted Sturgeon in 2000, its fifth class of two dead and two living writers.
Sturgeon was born Edward Hamilton Waldo in Staten Island, New York in 1918. His name was legally changed to Theodore Sturgeon at age eleven after his mother's divorce and remarriage to William Dicky ("Argyll") Sturgeon.
He sold his first story in 1938 to the McClure Syndicate, which bought much of his early work. At first he wrote mainly short stories, primarily for genre magazines such as "Astounding" and "Unknown", but also for general-interest publications such as "Argosy Magazine". He used the pen name "E. Waldo Hunter" when two of his stories ran in the same issue of "Astounding". A few of his early stories were signed "Theodore H. Sturgeon."
Sturgeon ghost-wrote one Ellery Queen mystery novel, "The Player on the Other Side" (Random House, 1963). This novel gained critical praise from critic H. R. F. Keating: "[I] had almost finished writing "Crime and Mystery: the 100 Best Books", in which I had included "The Player on the Other Side" ... placing the book squarely in the Queen canon" when he learned that it had been written by Sturgeon. Similarly, William DeAndrea, author and winner of Mystery Writers of America awards, selecting his ten favorite mystery novels for the magazine "Armchair Detective", picked "The Player on the Other Side" as one of them. He said: "This book changed my life ... and made a raving mystery fan (and therefore ultimately a mystery writer) out of me. ... The book must be 'one of the most skilful pastiches in the history of literature. An amazing piece of work, whomever did it'."
Disliking arguments with Campbell over editorial decisions, after 1950 Sturgeon only published one story in "Astounding". Sturgeon wrote the screenplays for the "" episodes "Shore Leave" (1966) and "Amok Time" (1967, written up and published as a Bantam Books "Star Trek Fotonovel" in 1978). The latter featured the first appearance of pon farr, the Vulcan mating ritual, the sentence "Live long and prosper" and the Vulcan hand symbol. Sturgeon published the "first stories in science fiction which dealt with homosexuality, 'The World Well Lost' [June 1953] and 'Affair With a Green Monkey' [May 1957]", and sometimes put gay subtext in his work, such as , or in his Western story, "Scars". Sturgeon also wrote several episodes of "" that were never produced. One of these first introduced the Prime Directive. He also wrote an episode of the Saturday morning show "Land of the Lost", "The Pylon Express", in 1975. Two of Sturgeon's stories were adapted for "The New Twilight Zone". One, "A Saucer of Loneliness", was broadcast in 1986 and was dedicated to his memory. Another short story, "Yesterday was Monday", was the inspiration for "The New Twilight Zone" episode "A Matter of Minutes". His 1944 novella "Killdozer!" was the inspiration for the 1970s made-for-TV movie, Marvel comic book, and alternative rock band of the same name.
Sturgeon is well known among readers of classic science-fiction anthologies. At the height of his popularity in the 1950s he was the most anthologized English-language author alive. Describing "To Here and the Easel" as "a stunning portrait of personality disassociation as perceived from the inside", Carl Sagan said that many of Sturgeon's works were among the "rare few science‐fiction novels [that] combine a standard science‐fiction theme with a deep human sensitivity". John Clute wrote in "The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction": "His influence upon writers like Harlan Ellison and Samuel R. Delany was seminal, and in his life and work he was a powerful and generally liberating influence in post-WWII US sf". He is not much known by the general public, however, and he won comparatively few awards. (One was the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement from the 1985 World Fantasy Convention.) His best work was published before the establishment and consolidation of the leading genre awards, while his later production was scarcer and weaker. He was listed as a primary influence on the much more famous Ray Bradbury.
Sturgeon's original novels were all published between 1950 and 1961, and the bulk of his short story work dated from the 1940s and 1950s. Though he continued to write through 1983, his work rate dipped noticeably in the later years of his life; a 1971 story collection entitled "Sturgeon Is Alive And Well" addressed Sturgeon's seeming withdrawal from the public eye in a tongue-in-cheek manner. Sturgeon lived for several years in Springfield, Oregon. He died on May 8, 1985, of lung fibrosis, at Sacred Heart General Hospital in the neighboring city of Eugene.
He was a member of the all-male literary banqueting club the Trap Door Spiders, which served as the basis of Isaac Asimov's fictional group of mystery solvers the Black Widowers. Sturgeon was the inspiration for the recurrent character of Kilgore Trout in the novels of Kurt Vonnegut.
In 1951, Sturgeon coined what is now known as Sturgeon's Law: "Ninety percent of [science fiction] is crud, but then, ninety percent of "everything" is crud." This was originally known as Sturgeon's Revelation; Sturgeon has said that "Sturgeon's Law" was originally "Nothing is always absolutely so." However, the former statement is now widely referred to as Sturgeon's Law. He is also known for his dedication to a credo of critical thinking that challenged all normative assumptions: "Ask the next question." He represented this credo by the symbol of a Q with an arrow through it, an example of which he wore around his neck and used as part of his signature in the last 15 years of his life.
Theodore's birth father, Edward Waldo, was a color and dye manufacturer of middling success. With his second wife, Anne, he had one daughter, Joan. Theodore's mother, Christine Hamilton Dicker (Waldo) Sturgeon, was a well-educated writer, watercolorist, and poet who published journalism, poetry, and fiction under the name Felix Sturgeon. His stepfather, William Dickie Sturgeon (sometimes known as Argyll), was a mathematics teacher at a prep school and then Romance Languages Professor at Drexel Institute [later Drexel Institute of Technology] in Philadelphia. Sturgeon's sibling, Peter Sturgeon, wrote technical material for the pharmaceutical industry and the WHO, and founded the American branch of Mensa.
Sturgeon held a wide variety of jobs during his lifetime. As an adolescent, he wanted to be a circus acrobat; an episode of rheumatic fever prevented him from pursuing this. From 1935 (aged 17) to 1938, he was a sailor in the merchant marine, and elements of that experience found their way into several stories. He sold refrigerators door to door. He managed a hotel in Jamaica around 1940–1941, worked in several construction and infrastructure jobs (driving a bulldozer in Puerto Rico, operating a gas station and truck lubrication center, work at a drydock) for the US Army in the early war years, and by 1944 was an advertising copywriter. In addition to freelance fiction and television writing, he also operated a literary agency (which was eventually transferred to Scott Meredith), worked for "Fortune" magazine and other Time Inc. properties on circulation, and edited various publications. Sturgeon had somewhat irregular output, frequently suffering from writer's block.
Theodore Sturgeon vividly recalled being in the same room with L. Ron Hubbard, when Hubbard became testy with someone there and retorted, "Y'know, we're all wasting our time writing this hack science fiction! You wanta make real money, you gotta start a religion!" Reportedly Sturgeon also told this story to others.
Sturgeon played guitar and wrote music which he sometimes performed at Science Fiction Conventions.
Sturgeon was married three times, had two long-term committed relationships outside of marriage, divorced once, and fathered a total of seven children.
Sturgeon was a lifelong pipe smoker. His death from lung fibrosis may have been caused by exposure to asbestos during his Merchant Marine years.
Sturgeon, under his own name, was hired to write novelizations of the following movies based on their scripts (links go to articles about the movies):
Sturgeon published numerous short story collections during his lifetime, many drawing on his most prolific writing years of the 1940s and 1950s.
Note that some reprints of these titles (especially paperback editions) may cut one or two stories from the line-up. Statistics herein refer to the original editions only.
The following table includes sixteen volumes (one of them collecting western stories). These are considered "original" collections of Sturgeon material, in that they compiled previously uncollected stories. However, some volumes did contain a few reprinted stories: this list includes books that collected only previously uncollected material, as well as those volumes that collected "mostly" new material, but also contained up to three stories (representing no more than half the book) that were previously published in a Sturgeon collection.
The following six collections consisted entirely of reprints of previously collected material:
North Atlantic Books released the chronologically assembled "The Complete Short Stories of Theodore Sturgeon", edited by Paul Williams. The series consisted of 13 volumes published between 1994 and 2010. Introductions were provided by Harlan Ellison, Samuel R. Delany, Kurt Vonnegut, Gene Wolfe, Connie Willis, Jonathan Lethem, and others. Extensive story notes were provided by Paul Williams and, in the last two volumes, Sturgeon's daughter Noël.
Sturgeon was best known for his short stories and novellas. The best-known include: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30564 |
The Yellow Kid
The Yellow Kid is an American comic strip character that appeared from 1895 to 1898 in Joseph Pulitzer's "New York World", and later William Randolph Hearst's "New York Journal". Created and drawn by Richard F. Outcault in the comic strip "Hogan's Alley" (and later under other names as well), it was one of the first Sunday supplement comic strips in an American newspaper, although its graphical layout had already been thoroughly established in political and other, purely-for-entertainment cartoons. Outcault's use of word balloons in the "Yellow Kid" influenced the basic appearance and use of balloons in subsequent newspaper comic strips and comic books.
"The Yellow Kid" is also famous for its connection to the coining of the term "yellow journalism." The idea of "yellow journalism" was the sensationalized stories for the sake of selling papers, which was named from the "Yellow Kid" cartoons. Although a cartoon, Outcault's work aimed its humor and social commentary at Pulitzer's adult readership. The strip has been described as "... a turn-of-the-century theater of the city, in which class and racial tensions of the new urban, consumerist environment were acted out by a mischievous group of New York City kids from the wrong side of the tracks."
Mickey Dugan, better known as The Yellow Kid, was a bald, snaggle-toothed barefoot boy who wore an oversized yellow nightshirt and hung around in a slum alley typical of certain areas of squalor that existed in late 19th-century New York City. Hogan's Alley was filled with equally odd characters, mostly other children. With a goofy grin, the Kid habitually spoke in a ragged, peculiar slang, which was printed on his shirt, a device meant to lampoon advertising billboards.
The Yellow Kid's head was drawn wholly shaved as if having been recently ridden of lice, a common sight among children in New York's tenement ghettos at the time. His nightshirt, a hand-me-down from an older sister, was white or pale blue in the first color strips.
The character who would later become the Yellow Kid first appeared on the scene in a minor supporting role in a cartoon panel published in "Truth" magazine in 1894 and 1895. The four different black-and-white single panel cartoons were deemed popular, and one of them, "Fourth Ward Brownies", was reprinted on 17 February 1895 in Joseph Pulitzer's "New York World", where Outcault worked as a technical drawing artist. The "World" published another, newer "Hogan's Alley" cartoon less than a month later, and this was followed by the strip's first color printing on 5 May 1895. "Hogan's Alley" gradually became a full-page Sunday color cartoon with the Yellow Kid (who was also appearing several times a week) as its lead character.
In 1896 Outcault was hired away at a much higher salary to William Randolph Hearst's "New York Journal American" where he drew the Yellow Kid in a new full-page color strip which was significantly violent and even vulgar compared to his first panels for "Truth" magazine. Because Outcault failed in his attempt to copyright the Yellow Kid, Pulitzer was able to hire George Luks to continue drawing the original (and now less popular) version of the strip for the "World" and hence the Yellow Kid appeared simultaneously in two competing papers for about a year. Luks's version of the Yellow Kid introduced a pair of twins, Alex and George, also dressed in yellow nightshirts. Outcault produced three subsequent series of Yellow Kid strips at the "Journal American", each lasting no more than four months:
Publication of both versions stopped abruptly after only three years in early 1898, as circulation wars between the rival papers dwindled. Moreover, Outcault may have lost interest in the character when he realized he couldn't retain exclusive commercial control over it. The Yellow Kid's last appearance is most often noted as 23 January 1898 in a strip about hair tonic. On 1 May 1898, the character was featured in a rather satirical cartoon called "Casey Corner Kids Dime Museum" but he was drawn as a bearded, balding old man wearing a green nightshirt which bore the words: "Gosh I've growed old in making dis collection."
The Yellow Kid appeared now and then in Outcault's later cartoon strips, most notably "Buster Brown".
The two newspapers which ran the Yellow Kid, Pulitzer's "World" and Hearst's "Journal American", quickly became known as the "yellow kid papers". This was contracted to the "yellow papers" and the term "yellow kid journalism" was at last shortened to "yellow journalism", describing the two newspapers' editorial practices of taking (sometimes even fictionalized) sensationalism and profit as priorities in journalism.
The Yellow Kid's image was an early example of lucrative merchandising and appeared on mass market retail objects in the greater New York City area such as "billboards, buttons, cigarette packs, cigars, cracker tins, ladies' fans, matchbooks, postcards, chewing gum cards, toys, whiskey and many other products". With the Yellow Kid's merchandising success as an advertising icon, the strip came to represent the crass commercial world it had originally lampooned.
Entertainment entrepreneur Gus Hill staged vaudeville plays based on the comic strip. His version of "McFadden's Flats" was made into films in 1927 and 1935.
The Yellow Kid made an appearance in the Marvel Universe in the Joss Whedon-written "Runaways" story (volume 2, issue 27). In this take on the character, he exhibits superhuman powers.
In the "Ziggy" of 16 February 1990, Ziggy points to a smiling old man seated next to him on a park bench and says, "No kidding... You were The Yellow Kid!"
The Yellow Kid Awards are Italian comics awards presented by the International Cartoonists Exhibition and distributed at the annual Italian comic book and gaming convention Lucca Comics & Games.
Historian Nicholas Mariner relates the Yellow Kid to the titular hero of the contemporary Canadian animated show "Caillou". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30565 |
The Little Bears
The Little Bears is an American comic strip created by Jimmy Swinnerton, regarded as a progenitor of the funny animal genre, as well as one of the first American comic strips with recurring characters – the titular bears. The feature emerged from a series of spot illustrations of a bear cub that began appearing in "The San Francisco Examiner" starting October 14, 1893. The strip was launched as a regular feature on the children's page starting June 2, 1895, and ran through June 7, 1897.
Jimmy Swinnerton started his career in 1892 as a young illustrator for the "San Francisco Examiner", one of William Randolph Hearst's newspapers. His chief task was to provide drawings for news stories in the days before photoengraving, however, he also drew editorial cartoons and other illustrations for the paper.
In 1893, the "Examiner" used an illustration by Frank "Cozy" Noble of a bear as the paper's mascot for the San Francisco Mid-Winter Exposition of 1894. Following this, Swinnerton was asked to provide a bear illustration every day to accompany the paper's coverage of the fair. Swinnerton's first bear illustration appeared on October 14, 1893, and rapidly evolved into a cute little bear cub. When the fair closed, the Little Bear disappeared from the paper, but he returned on September 10, 1894, and started accompanying the weather report from October 2, 1894 until May 1895.
Starting June 2, 1895, "The Little Bears" became a regular feature on the children's page; each strip consisted of multiple illustrations of the bears, connected by a theme for the day. Human children were introduced to the strip on January 26, 1896, and the title changed to "Little Bears & Tykes". It was probably the first American comic strip to include recurring characters.
The "Little Bears" strip continued until June 7, 1897, when Swinnerton moved to New York City to draw cartoons for another Hearst paper, the "New York Journal". In the "Journal", Swinnerton's feature switched from bears to tigers as he launched "The Little Tigers" on February 20, 1898. The change of animals apparently took place at the request of Hearst. Gradually a defined, philandering character emerged from the strip, and on October 4, 1903, the Sunday feature was retitled "Mr. Jack".
After Swinnerton ended the regular "Little Bears" strip, he continued to draw sporadic strips for the "Examiner". The Little Bear continued to appear in spot cartoons and with the weather forecast for several years, drawn by other artists including Grant Wallace, Ralph Yardley and Bob Edgren.
"The Little Bears" was an obvious influence on Gene Carr whose "Bearville" (aka "Bear Land") which ran in the "New York Evening Journal" from April 19 to May 7, 1901. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30566 |
Týr
Týr (; Old Norse: "Týr", ), Tíw (Old English), and Ziu (Old High German) is a god in Germanic mythology. Stemming from the Proto-Germanic deity "*Tīwaz" and ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European chief deity *"Dyeus", little information about the god survives beyond Old Norse sources. Due to the etymology of the god's name and the shadowy presence of the god in the extant Germanic corpus, some scholars propose that Týr may have once held a more central place among the deities of early Germanic mythology.
Týr is the namesake of the Tiwaz rune (), a letter of the runic alphabet corresponding to the Latin letter "T". By way of the process of "interpretatio germanica", the deity is the namesake of Tuesday ('Týr's day') in Germanic languages, including English. "Interpretatio romana", in which Romans interpreted other gods as forms of their own, generally renders the god as "Mars", the ancient Roman war god, and it is through that lens that most Latin references to the god occur. For example, the god may be referenced as "Mars Thingsus" (Latin 'Mars of the Thing') on 3rd century Latin inscription, reflecting a strong association with the Germanic thing, a legislative body among the ancient Germanic peoples.
In Norse mythology, from which most surviving narratives about gods among the Germanic peoples stem, Týr sacrifices his arm to the monstrous wolf Fenrir, who bites off his limb while the gods bind the animal. Týr is foretold to be consumed by the similarly monstrous dog Garmr during the events of Ragnarök. In Old Norse sources, Týr is alternately described as the son of the jötunn Hymir (in "Hymiskviða") or of the god Odin (in "Skáldskaparmál"). "Lokasenna" makes reference to an unnamed otherwise unknown consort, perhaps also reflected in the continental Germanic record (see Zisa (goddess)).
Various place names in Scandinavia refer to the god, and a variety of objects found in England and Scandinavia may depict the god or invoke him.
The Old Norse theonym "Týr" has cognates including Old English "tíw" and "tíʒ", and Old High German "Ziu". A cognate form appears in Gothic to represent the "T" rune (discussed in more depth below). Like Latin "Jupiter" and Greek "Zeus", Proto-Germanic "*Tīwaz" ultimately stems from the Proto-Indo-European theonym *"Dyeus". Outside of its application as a theonym, the Old Norse common noun "týr" means '(a) god' (plural "tívar"). In turn, the theonym "Týr" may be understood to mean ""the" god". Modern English writers frequently anglicize the god's name by dropping the proper noun's diacritic, rendering Old Norse "Týr" as "Tyr".
The modern English weekday name "Tuesday" means 'Tíw's day', referring to the Old English extension of the deity. "Tuesday" derives from Old English "tisdæi" (before 1200), which develops from an earlier "tywesdæi" (1122), which itself extends from Old English "Tīwesdæg" (before 1050). The word has cognates in numerous other Germanic languages, including Old Norse "týsdagr", Frisian "tīesdi", Old High German "zīostag", Middle High German "zīestac", and Alemannic "zīstac". All of these forms derive from a Proto-Germanic weekday name meaning 'day of Tīwaz', itself a result of "interpretatio germanica" of Latin "dies Martis" (meaning 'day of Mars'). This attests to an early Germanic identification of *Tīwaz with Mars.
The god is the namesake of the rune representing /"t"/ (the Tiwaz rune) in the runic alphabets, the indigenous alphabets of the ancient Germanic peoples prior to their adaptation of the Latin alphabet. The name of the rune first occurs in the historical record as "tyz", a character in the Gothic alphabet (4th century).
The name of Týr may occur in runes as on the 8th century Ribe skull fragment.
Germanic weekday names for 'Tuesday' that do not transparently extend from the above lineage may also ultimately refer to the deity, including modern German "Dienstag", Middle Dutch "dinxendach" and "dingsdag". These forms may refer to the god's association with the thing, a traditional legal assembly common among the ancient Germanic peoples with which the god is associated. This may be either due to another form of the god's name (Proto-Germanic "*Þingsaz", meaning 'god of the thing') or may simply be due to the god's strong association with the assembly.
A variety of place names in Scandinavia refer to the god. For example, Tyrseng, Viby, Jutland, Denmark (Old Norse "*Týs eng", 'Týr's meadow') was once a stretch of meadow near a stream called "Dødeå" ('stream of the dead' or 'dead stream'). Viby also contained another theonym, "Onsholt" ("Odin's Holt"), and religious practices associated with Odin and Týr may have occurred in these places. A spring dedicated to Holy Niels that was likely a Christianization of prior indigenous pagan practice also exists in Viby. "Viby" may mean "the settlement by the sacred site". Archaeologists have found traces of sacrifices going back 2,500 years in Viby.
While Týr's etymological heritage reaches back to the Proto-Indo-European period, very few direct references to the god survive prior to the Old Norse period. Like many other non-Roman deities, Týr receives mention in Latin texts by way of the process of "interpretatio romana", in which Latin texts refer to the god by way of a perceived counterpart in Roman mythology. Latin inscriptions and texts frequently refer to Týr as Mars.
The first example of this occurs on record in Roman senator Tacitus's ethnography "Germania":
These deities are generally understood by scholars to refer to *"Wōđanaz" (known widely today as "Odin"), *"Þunraz" (known today widely as "Thor"), and *"Tīwaz", respectively. The identity of the "Isis" of the Suebi remains a topics of debate among scholars. Later in "Germania", Tacitus also mentions a deity referred to as "regnator omnium deus" venerated by the Semnones in a grove of fetters, a sacred grove. Some scholars propose that this deity is in fact *"Tīwaz".
A votive altar has been discovered during excavations at Housesteads Roman Fort at Hadrian's Wall in England that had been erected at the behest of Frisian legionaries. The altar dates from the 3rd century CE and bears the Latin inscription "Deo Marti Thingso Et Duabus Alaisiagis Bede Et Fimmilene". In this instance, the epithet "Thingsus" is a Latin rendering of Proto-Germanic theonym *"Þingsaz". This deity is generally interpreted by scholars to refer to Týr. The goddesses referred to as "Beda" and "Fimmilene" are otherwise unknown, but their names may refer to Old Frisian legal terms.
In the sixth century, the Roman historian Jordanes writes in his "De origine actibusque Getarum" that the Goths, an east Germanic people, saw the same "Mars" as an ancestral figure:
By the Viking Age, *Tīwaz had developed among the North Germanic peoples into Týr. The god receives numerous mentions in North Germanic sources during this period, but far less than other deities, such as Odin, Freyja, or Thor. The majority of these mentions occur in the "Poetic Edda", compiled in the 13th century from traditional source material reaching into the pagan period, and the "Prose Edda", composed by Icelandic skald and politician Snorri Sturluson in the 13th century.
Although Týr receives several mentions in the "Poetic Edda", of the three poems in which he is mentioned—"Hymiskviða", "Sigrdrífumál", and "Lokasenna"—only the incomplete poem, "Hymiskviða", features him in a prominent role. In "Hymiskviða", Týr says that his father, Hymir, owns a tremendous cauldron with which he and his fellow gods can brew fathoms of ale. Thor and Týr set out to retrieve it. Týr meets his nine-hundred headed grandmother ("who hates him"), and a girl clad in gold helps the two hide from Hymir.
Upon his return from hunting, Hymir's wife (unnamed) tells Hymir that his son has come to visit, that Týr has brought with him Thor, and that the two are behind a pillar. With just one glance, Hymir immediately smashes the pillar and eight nearby kettles. The kettle containing Týr and Thor, particularly strong in its construction, does not break, and out of it the two gods stride.
Hymir sees Thor and his heart jumps. The jötunn orders three headless oxen boiled for his guests, and Thor eats two of the beasts. Hymir tells the two that the following night, "we'll have to hunt for us three to eat". Thor asks for bait so that he might row out into the bay. Hymir says that the god can take one of his oxen for bait; Thor immediately chooses a black ox, and the poem continues without further mention of Týr.
In "Sigrdrífumál", the valkyrie Sigrdrífa imparts in the hero Sigurd knowledge of various runic charms. One charm invokes the god Týr:
In "Lokasenna", the gods hold a feast. Loki bursts in and engages in flyting, a contest of insults, with the gods. The prose introduction to the poem mentions that "Tyr was in attendance, even though he had only one hand because the wolf Fenrir had recently ripped off the other while the wolf was being bound." Loki exchanges insults with each of the gods. After Loki insults the god Freyr, Týr comes to Freyr's defense. Loki says that "you can't be the right hand of justice among the people" because his right hand was torn off by Fenrir, elsewhere described as Loki's child. Týr says that although he misses his hand, Loki misses Fenrir, who is now bound and will remain so until the events of Ragnarök.
Loki's response contains an otherwise unknown claim about Týr's otherwise unidentified consort: "Shut up, Tyr, my son came from your wife. And you haven't been paid a penny or an ell of cloth as recompense for this, you rat."
The "Prose Edda" sections "Gylfaginning" and "Skáldskaparmál" reference Týr several times. The god is introduced in part 25 of the "Gylfaginning" section of the book:
This tale receives further treatment in section 34 of "Gylfaginning" ("The Æsir brought up the wolf at home, and it was only Tyr who had the courage to approach the wolf and give it food."). Later still in "Gylfaginning", High discusses Týr's foreseen death during the events of Ragnarök:
"Skáldskaparmál" opens with a narrative wherein twelve gods sit upon thrones at a banquet, including Týr. Later in "Skáldskaparmál", the skald god Bragi tells Ægir (described earlier in "Skáldskaparmál" as a man from the island of Hlesey) how kennings function. By way of kennings, Bragi explains, one might refer to the god Odin as "Victory-Tyr", "Hanged-Tyr", or "Cargo-Tyr"; and Thor may be referred to as "Chariot-Tyr".
Section nine of "Skáldskaparmál" provides skalds with a variety of ways in which to refer to Týr, including "the one handed As", "feeder of the wolf", "battle-god", and "son of Odin". The narrative found in "Lokasenna" occurs in prose later in "Skáldskaparmál". Like in "Lokasenna", Týr appears here among around a dozen other deities. Similarly, Týr appears among a list of Æsir in section 75.
In addition to the above mentions, Týr's name occurs as a kenning element throughout "Skáldskaparmál" in reference to the god Odin.
Scholars propose that a variety of objects from the archaeological record depict Týr. For example, a Migration Period gold bracteate from Trollhättan, Sweden, features a person receiving a bite on the hand from a beast, which may depict Týr and Fenrir. A Viking Age hogback in Sockburn, County Durham, North East England may depict Týr and Fenrir.
Due in part to the etymology of the god's name, scholars propose that Týr once held a far more significant role in Germanic mythology than the scant references to the deity indicate in the Old Norse record. Some scholars propose that the prominent god Odin may have risen to prominence over Týr in prehistory, at times absorbing elements of the deity's domains. For example, according to scholar Hermann Reichert, due to the etymology of the god's name and its transparent meaning of ""the" god", "Odin ... must have dislodged Týr from his pre-eminent position. The fact that Tacitus names two divinities to whom the enemy's army was consecrated ... may signify their co-existence around 1 A.D."
The "Sigrdrífumál" passage above has resulted in some discourse among runologists. For example, regarding the passage, runologists Mindy MacLeod and Bernard Mees say: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30569 |
Trajan
Trajan ( ; ; born Marcus Ulpius Traianus; 18 September 538August 117) was Roman emperor from 98 to 117. Officially declared by the Senate "optimus princeps" ("best ruler"), Trajan is remembered as a successful soldier-emperor who presided over the greatest military expansion in Roman history, leading the empire to attain its maximum territorial extent by the time of his death. He is also known for his philanthropic rule, overseeing extensive public building programs and implementing social welfare policies, which earned him his enduring reputation as the second of the Five Good Emperors who presided over an era of peace and prosperity in the Mediterranean world.
Trajan was born in Italica, close to modern Seville in present-day Spain, an Italic settlement in the Roman province of Hispania Baetica. Although misleadingly designated by some later writers as a provincial, his family came from Umbria and he was born a Roman citizen. Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Domitian. Serving as a legatus legionis in Hispania Tarraconensis, in 89 Trajan supported Domitian against a revolt on the Rhine led by Antonius Saturninus. In September 96, Domitian was succeeded by the old and childless Nerva, who proved to be unpopular with the army. After a brief and tumultuous year in power, culminating in a revolt by members of the Praetorian Guard, he was compelled to adopt the more popular Trajan as his heir and successor. Nerva died in 98 and was succeeded by his adopted son without incident.
As a civilian administrator, Trajan is best known for his extensive public building program, which reshaped the city of Rome and left numerous enduring landmarks such as Trajan's Forum, Trajan's Market and Trajan's Column. Early in his reign, he annexed the Nabataean Kingdom, creating the province of Arabia Petraea. His conquest of Dacia enriched the empire greatly, as the new province possessed many valuable gold mines.
Trajan's war against the Parthian Empire ended with the sack of the capital Ctesiphon and the annexation of Armenia and Mesopotamia. His campaigns expanded the Roman Empire to its greatest territorial extent. In late 117, while sailing back to Rome, Trajan fell ill and died of a stroke in the city of Selinus. He was deified by the Senate and his ashes were laid to rest under the Column. He was succeeded by his cousin Hadrian, whom Trajan supposedly adopted on his deathbed.
As an emperor, Trajan's reputation has enduredhe is one of the few rulers whose reputation has survived nineteen centuries. Every new emperor after him was honoured by the Senate with the wish "felicior Augusto, melior Traiano" (that he be "luckier than Augustus and better than Trajan"). Among medieval Christian theologians, Trajan was considered a virtuous pagan. In the Renaissance, Machiavelli, speaking on the advantages of adoptive succession over heredity, mentioned the five successive good emperors "from Nerva to Marcus"a trope out of which the 18th-century historian Edward Gibbon popularized the notion of the Five Good Emperors, of whom Trajan was the second.
As far as ancient literary sources are concerned, an extant continuous account of Trajan's reign does not exist. An account of the Dacian Wars, the "Commentarii de bellis Dacicis", written by Trajan himself or a ghostwriter and modelled after Caesar's "Commentarii de Bello Gallico", is lost with the exception of one sentence. Only fragments remain of the "Getica", a book by Trajan's personal physician Titus Statilius Criton. The "Parthica", a 17-volume account of the Parthian Wars written by Arrian, has met a similar fate. Book68 in Cassius Dio's "Roman History", which survives mostly as Byzantine abridgments and epitomes, is the main source for the political history of Trajan's rule. Besides this, Pliny the Younger's "Panegyricus" and Dio of Prusa's orations are the best surviving contemporary sources. Both are adulatory perorations, typical of the High Imperial period, that describe an idealized monarch and an equally idealized view of Trajan's rule, and concern themselves more with ideology than with actual fact. The tenth volume of Pliny's letters contains his correspondence with Trajan, which deals with various aspects of imperial Roman government, but this correspondence is neither intimate nor candid: it is an exchange of official mail, in which Pliny's stance borders on the servile. It is certain that much of the text of the letters that appear in this collection over Trajan's signature was written and/or edited by Trajan's Imperial secretary, his "ab epistulis". Therefore, discussion of Trajan and his rule in modern historiography cannot avoid speculation. Non-literary sources such as archaeology, epigraphy, and numismatics are also useful for reconstructing his reign.
Marcus Ulpius Trajanus was born on 18 September 53AD in the Roman province of Hispania Baetica (in what is now Andalusia in modern Spain), in the city of Italica (now in the municipal area of Santiponce, in the outskirts of Seville). Although frequently designated the first provincial emperor, and dismissed by later writers such as Cassius Dio (himself of provincial origin) as "an Iberian, and neither an Italian nor even an Italiot", Trajan appears to have hailed on his father's side from the area of Tuder (modern Todi) in Umbria, at the border with Etruria, and on his mother's side from the gens Marcia, of an Italic family of Sabine origin. Trajan's birthplace of Italica was founded as a Roman military colony of "Italian" settlers in 206BC, though it is unknown when the Ulpii arrived there. It is possible, but cannot be substantiated, that Trajan's ancestors married local women and lost their citizenship at some point, but they certainly recovered their status when the city became a municipium with Latin citizenship in the mid-1st century BC.
Trajan was the son of Marcia, a Roman noblewoman and sister-in-law of the second Flavian Emperor Titus, and Marcus Ulpius Trajanus, a prominent senator and general from the "gens Ulpia". Marcus Ulpius Trajanus the elder served Vespasian in the First Jewish-Roman War, commanding the "Legio X "Fretensis"". Trajan himself was just one of many well-known Ulpii in a line that continued long after his own death. His elder sister was Ulpia Marciana, and his niece was Salonina Matidia. The "patria" of the Ulpii was Italica, in Spanish Baetica.
As a young man, he rose through the ranks of the Roman army, serving in some of the most contested parts of the Empire's frontier. In 7677, Trajan's father was Governor of Syria ("Legatus pro praetore Syriae"), where Trajan himself remained as "Tribunus legionis". From there, after his father's replacement, he seems to have been transferred to an unspecified Rhine province, and Pliny implies that he engaged in active combat duty during both commissions. In about 86, Trajan's cousin P.Aelius Afer died, leaving his young children Hadrian and Paulina orphans. Trajan and a colleague of his, Publius Acilius Attianus, became co-guardians of the two children.
In 91, Trajan was created ordinary Consul for the year, which was a great honour as he was in his late thirties and therefore just above the minimum legal age (32) for holding the post. This can be explained in part by the prominence of his father's career, as his father had been instrumental to the ascent of the ruling Flavian dynasty, held consular rank himself and had just been made a patrician. Around this time Trajan brought Apollodorus of Damascus with him to Rome and also married Pompeia Plotina, a noble woman from the Roman settlement at Nîmes; the marriage ultimately remained childless.
It has been remarked by authors such as Julian and Cassius Dio that Trajan was personally inclined towards homosexuality. Trajan's putative lovers included Hadrian, pages of the imperial household, the actor Pylades, a dancer called Apolaustus, and senator Lucius Licinius Sura.
As the details of Trajan's military career are obscure, it is only sure that in 89, as legate of Legio VII Gemina in Hispania Tarraconensis, he supported Domitian against an attempted "coup". Later, after his 91 consulate (held with Acilius Glabrio, a rare pair of consuls at the time, in that neither consul was a member of the ruling dynasty), he held some unspecified consular commission as governor on either Pannonia or Germania Superiorpossibly both. Plinywho seems to deliberately avoid offering details that would stress personal attachment between Trajan and the "tyrant" Domitianattributes to him, at the time, various (and unspecified) feats of arms.
Since Domitian's successor, Nerva, was unpopular with the army and had just been forced by his Praetorian Prefect Casperius Aelianus to execute Domitian's killers, he felt the need to gain the support of the military in order to avoid being ousted. He accomplished this in the summer of 97 by naming Trajan as his adoptive son and successor, allegedly solely on Trajan's outstanding military merits. There are hints, however, in contemporary literary sources that Trajan's adoption was imposed on Nerva. Pliny implied as much when he wrote that, although an emperor could not be coerced into doing something, if this were the way in which Trajan was raised to power, then it was worth it. Alice König argues that the notion of a natural continuity between Nerva's and Trajan's reigns was an "ex post facto" fiction developed by authors writing under Trajan, like Tacitus and Pliny.
According to the "Augustan History", it was the future Emperor Hadrian who brought word to Trajan of his adoption. Hadrian was then retained on the Rhine frontier by Trajan as a military tribune, becoming privy to the circle of friends and relations with which Trajan surrounded himselfamong them the then governor of Germania Inferior, the Spaniard Lucius Licinius Sura, who became Trajan's chief personal adviser and official friend. As a token of his influence, Sura would later become consul for the third time in 107. Some ancient sources also tell about his having built a bath named after him on the Aventine Hill in Rome, or having this bath built by Trajan and then named after him, in either case a signal of honour as the only exception to the established rule that a public building in the capital could be dedicated only to a member of the imperial family. These baths were later expanded by the third century emperor Decius as a means of stressing his link to Trajan. Sura is also described as telling Hadrian in 108 about his selection as imperial heir. According to a modern historian, Sura's role as kingmaker and éminence grise was deeply resented by some senators, especially the historian Tacitus, who acknowledged Sura's military and oratory virtues but at the same time resented his rapacity and devious ways, similar to those of Vespasian's éminence grise Licinius Mucianus.
As governor of Lower Germany during Nerva's reign, Trajan received the impressive title of "Germanicus" for his skillful management and rule of the volatile Imperial province. When Nerva died on 27 January 98, Trajan succeeded to the role of emperor without any outward incident. However, the fact that he chose not to hasten towards Rome, but instead to make a lengthy tour of inspection on the Rhine and Danube frontiers, hints to the possible fact that his power position in Rome was unsure and that he had first to assure himself of the loyalty of the armies at the front. Trajan ordered Prefect Aelianus to attend him in Germany, where he was apparently executed ("put out of the way"), with his post being taken by Attius Suburanus. Trajan's accession, therefore, could qualify more as a successful "coup" than an orderly succession.
On his entry to Rome, Trajan granted the plebs a direct gift of money. The traditional donative to the troops, however, was reduced by half. There remained the issue of the strained relations between the emperor and the Senate, especially after the supposed bloodiness that had marked Domitian's reign and his dealings with the Curia. By feigning reluctance to hold power, Trajan was able to start building a consensus around him in the Senate. His belated ceremonial entry into Rome in 99 was notably understated, something on which Pliny the Younger elaborated.
By not openly supporting Domitian's preference for equestrian officers, Trajan appeared to conform to the idea (developed by Pliny) that an emperor derived his legitimacy from his adherence to traditional hierarchies and senatorial morals. Therefore, he could point to the allegedly republican character of his rule. In a speech at the inauguration of his third consulship, on 1January 100, Trajan exhorted the Senate to share the care-taking of the Empire with himan event later celebrated on a coin. In reality, Trajan did not share power in any meaningful way with the Senate, something that Pliny admits candidly: "[E]verything depends on the whims of a single man who, on behalf of the common welfare, has taken upon himself all functions and all tasks". One of the most significant trends of his reign was his encroachment on the Senate's sphere of authority, such as his decision to make the senatorial provinces of Achaea and Bithynia into imperial ones in order to deal with the inordinate spending on public works by local magnates and the general mismanagement of provincial affairs by various proconsuls appointed by the Senate.
In the formula developed by Pliny, however, Trajan was a "good" emperor in that, by himself, he approved or blamed the same things that the Senate would have approved or blamed. If in reality Trajan was an autocrat, his deferential behavior towards his peers qualified him to be viewed as a virtuous monarch. The whole idea was that Trajan wielded autocratic power through "moderatio" instead of "contumacia"moderation instead of insolence. In short, according to the ethics for autocracy developed by most political writers of the Imperial Roman Age, Trajan was a good ruler in that he ruled less by fear, and more by acting as a role model, for, according to Pliny, "men learn better from examples".
Eventually, Trajan's popularity among his peers was such that the Roman Senate bestowed upon him the honorific of "optimus", meaning "the best", which appears on coins from 105 on. This title had mostly to do with Trajan's role as benefactor, such as in the case of him returning confiscated property.
That Trajan's ideal role was a conservative one becomes evident from Pliny's works as well as from the orations of Dio of Prusain particular his four "Orations on Kingship", composed early during Trajan's reign. Dio, as a Greek notable and intellectual with friends in high places, and possibly an official friend to the emperor ("amicus caesaris"), saw Trajan as a defender of the "status quo". In his third kingship oration, Dio describes an ideal king ruling by means of "friendship"that is, through patronage and a network of local notables who act as mediators between the ruled and the ruler. Dio's notion of being "friend" to Trajan (or any other Roman emperor), however, was that of an "informal" arrangement, that involved no formal entry of such "friends" into the Roman administration.
As a senatorial Emperor, Trajan was inclined to choose his local base of political support from among the members of the ruling urban oligarchies. In the West, that meant local senatorial families like his own. In the East, that meant the families of Greek notables. The Greeks, though, had their own memories of independenceand a commonly acknowledged sense of cultural superiorityand, instead of seeing themselves as Roman, disdained Roman rule. What the Greek oligarchies wanted from Rome was, above all, to be left in peace, to be allowed to exert their right to self-government (i.e., to be excluded from the provincial government, as was Italy) and to concentrate on their local interests. This was something the Romans were not disposed to do as from their perspective the Greek notables were shunning their responsibilities in regard to the management of Imperial affairsprimarily in failing to keep the common people under control, thus creating the need for the Roman governor to intervene.
An excellent example of this Greek alienation was the personal role played by Dio of Prusa in his relationship with Trajan. Dio is described by Philostratus as Trajan's close friend, and Trajan as supposedly engaging publicly in conversations with Dio. Nevertheless, as a Greek local magnate with a taste for costly building projects and pretensions of being an important political agent for Rome, Dio of Prusa was actually a target for one of Trajan's authoritarian innovations: the appointing of imperial "correctores" to audit the civic finances of the technically free Greek cities. The main goal was to curb the overenthusiastic spending on public works that served to channel ancient rivalries between neighboring cities. As Pliny wrote to Trajan, this had as its most visible consequence a trail of unfinished or ill-kept public utilities.
Competition among Greek cities and their ruling oligarchies was mainly for marks of preeminence, especially for titles bestowed by the Roman emperor. Such titles were ordered in a ranking system that determined how the cities were to be outwardly treated by Rome. The usual form that such rivalries took was that of grandiose building plans, giving the cities the opportunity to vie with each other over "extravagant, needless... structures that would make a show". A side effect of such extravagant spending was that junior and thus less wealthy members of the local oligarchies felt disinclined to present themselves to fill posts as local magistrates, positions that involved ever-increasing personal expense.
Roman authorities liked to play the Greek cities against one anothersomething of which Dio of Prusa was fully aware:
These same Roman authorities had also an interest in assuring the cities' solvency and therefore ready collection of Imperial taxes. Last but not least, inordinate spending on civic buildings was not only a means to achieve local superiority, but also a means for the local Greek elites to maintain a separate cultural identitysomething expressed in the contemporary rise of the Second Sophistic; this "cultural patriotism" acted as a kind of substitute for the loss of political independence, and as such was shunned by Roman authorities. As Trajan himself wrote to Pliny: "These poor Greeks all love a gymnasium... they will have to content with one that suits their real needs".
The first known "corrector" was charged with a commission "to deal with the situation of the free cities", as it was felt that the old method of "ad hoc" intervention by the Emperor and/or the proconsuls had not been enough to curb the pretensions of the Greek notables. It is noteworthy that an embassy from Dio's city of Prusa was not favorably received by Trajan, and that this had to do with Dio's chief objective, which was to elevate Prusa to the status of a free city, an "independent" city-state exempt from paying taxes to Rome. Eventually, Dio gained for Prusa the right to become the head of the assize-district, conventus (meaning that Prusans did not have to travel to be judged by the Roman governor), but "eleutheria" (freedom, in the sense of full political autonomy) was denied.
Eventually, it fell to Pliny, as imperial governor of Bithynia in 110AD, to deal with the consequences of the financial mess wrought by Dio and his fellow civic officials. "It's well established that [the cities' finances] are in a state of disorder", Pliny once wrote to Trajan, plans for unnecessary works made in collusion with local contractors being identified as one of the main problems. One of the compensatory measures proposed by Pliny expressed a thoroughly Roman conservative position: as the cities' financial solvency depended on the councilmen's purses, it was necessary to have more councilmen on the local city councils. According to Pliny, the best way to achieve this was to lower the minimum age for holding a seat on the council, making it possible for more sons of the established oligarchical families to join and thus contribute to civic spending; this was seen as preferable to enrolling non-noble wealthy upstarts.
Such an increase in the number of council members was granted to Dio's city of Prusa, to the dismay of existing councilmen who felt their status lowered. A similar situation existed in Claudiopolis, where a public bath was built with the proceeds from the entrance fees paid by "supernumerary" members of the Council, enrolled with Trajan's permission. Also, according to the Digest, it was decreed by Trajan that when a city magistrate promised to achieve a particular public building, it was incumbent on his heirs to complete the building.
Trajan ingratiated himself with the Greek intellectual elite by recalling to Rome many (including Dio) who had been exiled by Domitian, and by returning (in a process begun by Nerva) a great deal of private property that Domitian had confiscated. He also had good dealings with Plutarch, who, as a notable of Delphi, seems to have been favored by the decisions taken on behalf of his home-place by one of Trajan's legates, who had arbitrated a boundary dispute between Delphi and its neighboring cities. However, it was clear to Trajan that Greek intellectuals and notables were to be regarded as tools for local administration, and not be allowed to fancy themselves in a privileged position. As Pliny said in one of his letters at the time, it was official policy that Greek civic elites be treated according to their status as notionally free but not put on an equal footing with their Roman rulers. When the city of Apamea complained of an audit of its accounts by Pliny, alleging its "free" status as a Roman colony, Trajan replied by writing that it was by his own wish that such inspections had been ordered. Concern about independent local political activity is seen in Trajan's decision to forbid Nicomedia from having a corps of firemen ("If people assemble for a common purpose... they soon turn it into a political society", Trajan wrote to Pliny) as well as in his and Pliny's fears about excessive civic generosities by local notables such as distribution of money or gifts. For the same reason, judging from Pliny's letters it can also be assumed that Trajan and his aides were as much bored as they were alarmed by the claims of Dio and other Greek notables to political influence based on what they saw as their "special connection" to their Roman overlords. A revealing case-history, told by Pliny, tells of Dio of Prusa placing a statue of Trajan in a building complex where Dio's wife and son were buried - therefore incurring a charge of treason for placing the Emperor's statue near a grave. Trajan, however, dropped the charge.
Nevertheless, while the office of "corrector" was intended as a tool to curb any hint of independent political activity among local notables in the Greek cities, the "correctores" themselves were all men of the highest social standing entrusted with an exceptional commission. The post seems to have been conceived partly as a reward for senators who had chosen to make a career solely on the Emperor's behalf. Therefore, in reality the post was conceived as a means for "taming" both Greek notables and Roman senators. It must be added that, although Trajan was wary of the civic oligarchies in the Greek cities, he also admitted into the Senate a number of prominent Eastern notables already slated for promotion during Domitian's reign by reserving for them one of the twenty posts open each year for minor magistrates (the "vigintiviri"). Such must be the case of the Galatian notable and "leading member of the Greek community" (according to one inscription) Gaius Julius Severus, who was a descendant of several Hellenistic dynasts and client kings. Severus was the grandfather of the prominent general Gaius Julius Quadratus Bassus, consul in 105. Other prominent Eastern senators included Gaius Julius Alexander Berenicianus, a descendant of Herod the Great, suffect consul in 116. Trajan created at least fourteen new senators from the Greek-speaking half of the Empire, an unprecedented recruitment number that opens to question the issue of the "traditionally Roman" character of his reign, as well as the "Hellenism" of his successor Hadrian. But then Trajan's new Eastern senators were mostly very powerful and very wealthy men with more than local influence and much interconnected by marriage, so that many of them were not altogether "new" to the Senate. On the local level, among the lower section of the Eastern propertied, the alienation of most Greek notables and intellectuals towards Roman rule, and the fact that the Romans were seen by most such Greek notables as aliens, persisted well after Trajan's reign. One of Trajan's senatorial creations from the East, the Athenian Gaius Julius Antiochus Epiphanes Philopappos, a member of the Royal House of Commagene, left behind him a funeral monument on the Mouseion Hill that was later disparagingly described by Pausanias as "a monument built to a Syrian man".
Trajan is known particularly for his conquests in the Near East, but initially for the two wars against Daciathe reduction to client kingdom (101102), followed by actual incorporation into the Empire of the trans-Danube border group of Daciaan area that had troubled Roman thought for over a decade with the unstable peace negotiated by Domitian's ministers with the powerful Dacian king Decebalus. According to the provisions of this treaty, Decebalus was acknowledged as "rex amicus", that is, client king; nevertheless, in exchange for accepting client status, he received a generous stipend from Rome, as well as being supplied with technical experts. The treaty seems to have allowed Roman troops the right of passage through the Dacian kingdom in order to attack the Marcomanni, Quadi and Sarmatians. However, senatorial opinion never forgave Domitian for paying what was seen as "tribute" to a Barbarian king. In addition, unlike the Germanic tribes, the Dacian kingdom was an organized state capable of developing alliances of its own, thus making it a strategic threat and giving Trajan a strong motive to attack it.
In May of 101, Trajan launched his first campaign into the Dacian kingdom, crossing to the northern bank of the Danube and defeating the Dacian army at Tapae (see Second Battle of Tapae), near the Iron Gates of Transylvania. It was not a decisive victory, however. Trajan's troops were mauled in the encounter, and he put off further campaigning for the year in order to regroup and reinforce his army.
The following winter, King Decebalus took the initiative by launching a counter-attack across the Danube further downstream, supported by Sarmatian cavalry, forcing Trajan to come to the aid of the troops in his rearguard. The Dacians and their allies were repulsed after two battles in Moesia, at Nicopolis ad Istrum and Adamclisi. Trajan's army then advanced further into Dacian territory, and, a year later, forced Decebalus to submit. He had to renounce claim to some regions of his kingdom, return all Roman runaways (most of them technical experts), and surrender all his war machines. Trajan returned to Rome in triumph and was granted the title "Dacicus".
The peace of 102 had returned Decebalus to the condition of more or less harmless client king; however, he soon began to rearm, to again harbor Roman runaways, and to pressure his Western neighbors, the Iazyges Sarmatians, into allying themselves with him. By trying to develop an anti-Roman bloc, Decebalus eventually left Trajan without the alternative of treating Dacia as a protectorate, rather than an outright conquest. In 104 Decebalus devised a failed attempt on Trajan's life by means of some Roman deserters, and held prisoner Trajan's legate Longinus, who eventually poisoned himself while in custody. Finally, in 105, Decebalus undertook an invasion of Roman-occupied territory north of the Danube.
Prior to the campaign, Trajan had raised two entirely new legions: II Traianawhich, however, may have been posted in the East, at the Syrian port of Laodiceaand XXX Ulpia Victrix, which was posted to Brigetio, in Pannonia. By 105, the concentration of Roman troops assembled in the middle and lower Danube amounted to fourteen legions (up from nine in 101)about half of the entire Roman army. Even after the Dacian wars, the Danube frontier would permanently replace the Rhine as the main military axis of the Roman Empire. Including auxiliaries, the number of Roman troops engaged on both campaigns was between 150,000 and 175,000, while Decebalus could dispose of up to 200,000.
Following the design of Apollodorus of Damascus, Trajan ordered the building of a massive bridge over the Danube, over which the Roman army was able to cross the river swiftly and in numbers, as well as to send in reinforcements, even in winter when the river was not frozen enough to bear the passage of a party of soldiers. Trajan also reformed the infrastructure of the Iron Gates region of the Danube. He commissioned either the creation or enlargement of the road along the Iron Gates, carved into the side of the gorge. Additionally, Trajan commissioned a canal to be built around the rapids of the Iron Gates. Evidence of this comes from a marble slab discovered near Caput Bovis, the site of a Roman fort. The slab, dated to the year 101, commemorates the building of at least one canal that went from the Kasajna tributary to at least Ducis Pratum, whose embankments were still visible until recently. However, the placement of the slab at Caput Bovis suggests that the canal extended to this point or that there was a second canal downriver of the Kasajna-Ducis Pratum one.
These costly projects completed, in 105 Trajan again took to the field. In a fierce campaign which seems to have consisted mostly of static warfare, the Dacians, devoid of maneuvering room, kept to their network of fortresses, which the Romans sought systematically to storm (see also Second Dacian War). The Romans gradually tightened their grip around Decebalus' stronghold in Sarmizegetusa Regia, which they finally took and destroyed. Decebalus fled, but, when cornered by Roman cavalry, committed suicide. His severed head, brought to Trajan by the cavalryman Tiberius Claudius Maximus, was later exhibited in Rome on the steps leading up to the Capitol and thrown on the Gemonian stairs.
Trajan built a new city, Colonia Ulpia Traiana Augusta Dacica Sarmizegetusa, on another site (north of the hill citadel holding the previous Dacian capital), although bearing the same full name, Sarmizegetusa. This capital city was conceived as a purely civilian administrative center and was provided the usual Romanized administrative apparatus (decurions, aediles, etc.). Urban life in Roman Dacia seems to have been restricted to Roman colonists, mostly military veterans; there is no extant evidence for the existence in the province of peregrine cities. Native Dacians continued to live in scattered rural settlements, according to their own ways. In another arrangement with no parallels in any other Roman province, the existing quasi-urban Dacian settlements disappeared after the Roman conquest. A number of unorganized urban settlements ("vici") developed around military encampments in Dacia proper - the most important being Apulum - but were only acknowledged as cities proper well after Trajan's reign.
The main regional effort of urbanization was concentrated by Trajan at the rearguard, in Moesia, where he created the new cities of Nicopolis ad Istrum and Marcianopolis. A vicus was also created around the Tropaeum Traianum. The garrison city of Oescus received the status of Roman colony after its legionary garrison was redeployed. The fact that these former Danubian outposts had ceased to be frontier bases and were now in the deep rear acted as an inducement to their urbanization and development.
Not all of Dacia was permanently occupied. What was permanently included in the province, after the post-Trajanic evacuation of some land across the lower Danube, were the lands extending from the Danube to the inner arch of the Carpathian Mountains, including Transylvania, the Metaliferi Mountains and Oltenia. The Roman province eventually took the form of an "excrescence" North of the Danube, with ill-defined limits, stretching from the Danube northwards to the Carpathians, and was intended perhaps as a basis for further expansion in Eastern Europewhich the Romans conceived to be much more "flattened", and closer to the ocean, than it actually was. Defense of the province was entrusted to a single legion, the XIII Gemina, stationed at Apulum, which functioned as an advanced guard that could, in case of need, strike either west or east at the Sarmatians living at the borders. Therefore, the indefensible character of the province did not appear to be a problem for Trajan, as the province was conceived more as a sally-base for further attacks. Even in the absence of further Roman expansion, the value of the province depended on Roman overall strength: while Rome was strong, the Dacian salient was an instrument of military and diplomatic control over the Danubian lands; when Rome was weak, as during the Crisis of the Third Century, the province became a liability and was eventually abandoned.
Trajan resettled Dacia with Romans and annexed it as a province of the Roman Empire. Aside from their enormous booty (over half a million slaves, according to John Lydus), Trajan's Dacian campaigns benefited the Empire's finances through the acquisition of Dacia's gold mines, managed by an imperial procurator of equestrian rank ("procurator aurariarum"). On the other hand, commercial agricultural exploitation on the villa model, based on the centralized management of a huge landed estate by a single owner ("fundus") was poorly developed. Therefore, use of slave labor in the province itself seems to have been relatively undeveloped, and epigraphic evidence points to work in the gold mines being conducted by means of labor contracts ("locatio conductio rei") and seasonal wage-earning. The victory was commemorated by the construction both of the 102 cenotaph generally known as the Tropaeum Traiani in Moesia, as well of the much later (113) Trajan's Column in Rome, the latter depicting in stone carved bas-reliefs the Dacian Wars' most important moments.
In 106, Rabbel II Soter, one of Rome's client kings, died. This event might have prompted the annexation of the Nabataean kingdom, but the manner and the formal reasons for the annexation are unclear. Some epigraphic evidence suggests a military operation, with forces from Syria and Egypt. What is known is that by 107, Roman legions were stationed in the area around Petra and Bostra, as is shown by a papyrus found in Egypt. The furthest south the Romans occupied (or, better, garrisoned, adopting a policy of having garrisons at key points in the desert) was Hegra, over south-west of Petra. The empire gained what became the province of Arabia Petraea (modern southern Jordan and north west Saudi Arabia). As Nabataea was the last client kingdom in Asia west of the Euphrates, the annexation meant that the entire Roman East had been provincialized, completing a trend towards direct rule that had begun under the Flavians.
For the next seven years, Trajan ruled as a civilian emperor, to the same acclaim as before. It was during this time that he corresponded with Pliny the Younger on the subject of how to deal with the Christians of Pontus, telling Pliny to continue to persecute Christians but not to accept anonymous denunciations in the interests of justice as well as of "the spirit of the age". Non-citizens who admitted to being Christians and refused to recant, however, were to be executed "for obstinacy". Citizens were sent to Rome for trial.
Trajan built several new buildings, monuments and roads in Italia and his native Hispania. His magnificent complex in Rome raised to commemorate his victories in Dacia (and largely financed from that campaign's loot)consisting of a forum, Trajan's Column, and Trajan's Market, still stands in Rome today. He was also a prolific builder of triumphal arches, many of which survive, and a builder of roads such as the Via Traiana - the extension of the Via Appia from Beneventum to Brundisium - and Via Traiana Nova, a mostly military road between Damascus and Aila, whose building was connected to the founding of the province of Arabia (see annexation of Nabataea) .
One of Trajan's notable acts during this period was the hosting of a three-month gladiatorial festival in the great Colosseum in Rome (the precise date is unknown). Combining chariot racing, beast fights and close-quarters gladiatorial bloodshed, this gory spectacle reputedly left 11,000 dead (mostly slaves and criminals, not to mention the thousands of ferocious beasts killed alongside them) and attracted a total of five million spectators over the course of the festival. The care bestowed by Trajan on the managing of such public spectacles led the orator Fronto to state approvingly that Trajan had paid equal attention to entertainments as well as to serious issues. Fronto concluded that "neglect of serious matters can cause greater damage, but neglect of amusements greater discontent". As Fronto added, amusements were a means to assure the "general" acquiescence of the populace, while the more "serious" issue of the corn dole aimed ultimately only at individuals.
In 107 Trajan devalued the Roman currency. He decreased the silver purity of the denarius from 93.5% to 89%the actual silver weight dropping from 3.04grams to 2.88grams. This devaluation, coupled with the massive amount of gold and silver carried off after Trajan's Dacian Wars, allowed the emperor to mint a larger quantity of denarii than his predecessors. Also, Trajan withdrew from circulation silver denarii minted before the previous devaluation achieved by Nero, something that allows for thinking that Trajan's devaluation had to do with political ends, such as allowing for increased civil and military spending.
Another important act was his formalisation of the "alimenta", a welfare program that helped orphans and poor children throughout Italy. It provided general funds, as well as food and subsidized education. The program was supported initially out of Dacian War booty, and then later by a combination of estate taxes and philanthropy. In general terms, the scheme functioned by means of mortgages on Italian farms ("fundi"), through which registered landowners received a lump sum from the imperial treasure, being in return expected to pay yearly a given proportion of the loan to the maintenance of an alimentary fund.
Although the system is well documented in literary sources and contemporary epigraphy, its precise aims are controversial and have generated considerable dispute among modern scholars, especially about its actual aims and scope as a piece of welfare policy. It is usually assumed that the program was intended to bolster citizen numbers in Italy, following the provisions of Augustus' moral legislation ("Lex Julia") favoring procreation on moral groundssomething openly acknowledged by Pliny. Nevertheless, this reproductive aim was anachronistic, based as it was on a view of the Roman Empire as centered on Rome and Italy, with a purely Italian manpower base, both increasingly no longer the case. This outdated stance was confirmed by Pliny when he wrote that the recipients of the "alimenta" were supposed to people "the barracks and the tribes" as future soldiers and electorstwo roles ill-fitted to the contemporary reality of an empire stretching across the entire Mediterranean and ruled by an autocrat. The fact that the scheme was restricted to Italy suggests that it might have been conceived as a form of political privilege accorded to the original heartland of the empire. According to the French historian Paul Petit, the "alimenta" should be seen as part of a set of measures aimed towards the economic recovery of Italy. Finley thinks that the scheme's chief aim was the artificial bolstering of the "political" weight of Italy, as seen, for example, in the strictureheartily praised by Plinylaid down by Trajan that ordered all senators, even when from the provinces, to have at least a third of their landed estates in Italian territory, as it was "unseemly [...] that [they] should treat Rome and Italy not as their native land, but as a mere inn or lodging house".
"Interesting and unique" as the scheme was, it remained small. The fact that it was subsidized by means of interest payments on loans made by landownersmostly large ones, assumed to be more reliable debtorsactually benefited a very low percentage of potential welfare recipients (Paul Veyne has assumed that, in the city of Veleia, only one child out of ten was an actual beneficiary)thus the idea, put forth by Moses I. Finley, that the grandiose aims amounted to at most a form of random charity, an additional imperial benevolence. Reliance solely on loans to great landowners (in Veleia, only some 17square kilometers were mortgaged) restricted funding sources even further. It seems that the mortgage scheme was simply a way of making local notables participate, albeit in a lesser role, in imperial benevolence. It is possible that the scheme was, to some extent, a forced loan, something that tied unwilling landowners to the imperial treasure in order to make them supply some funds to civic expenses. The same notion of exploiting privateand supposedly more efficientmanagement of a landed estate as a means to obtain public revenue was also employed by other similar and lesser schemes. The senator Pliny had endowed his city of Comum a perpetual right to an annual charge ("vectigal") of thirty thousand sestertii on one of his estates in perpetuity even after his death (Pliny's heirs or any subsequent purchaser of the estate being liable), with the rent thus obtained contributing to the maintenance of Pliny's semi-private charitable foundation. With such a scheme, Pliny probably hoped to engender enthusiasm among fellow landowners for such philanthropic ventures. Trajan did likewise, but since "willingness is a slippery commodity", Finley suspects that, in order to ensure Italian landowners' acceptance of the burden of borrowing from the "alimenta" fund, some "moral" pressure was exerted.
In short, the scheme was so limited in scope that it could not have fulfilled a coherent economic or demographic purposeit was directed, not towards the poor, but to the community (in this case, the Italian cities) as a whole. The fact that the "alimenta" was begun during and after the Dacian Wars and twice came on the heels of a distribution of money to the population of Rome ("congiaria") following Dacian triumphs, points towards a purely charitable motive. The fact that the "alimenta" was restricted to Italy highlights the ideology behind it: to reaffirm the notion of the Roman Empire as an "Italian" overlordship. Given its limited scope, the plan was, nevertheless, very successful in that it lasted for a century and a half: the last known official in charge of it is attested during the reign of Aurelian.
In 113, Trajan embarked on his last campaign, provoked by Parthia's decision to put an unacceptable king on the throne of Armenia, a kingdom over which the two great empires had shared hegemony since the time of Nero some fifty years earlier. It's noteworthy, however, that Trajan, already in Syria early in 113, consistently refused to accept diplomatic approaches from the Parthians in order to settle the Armenian imbroglio peacefully.
As the surviving literary accounts of Trajan's Parthian War are fragmentary and scattered, it is difficult to assign them a proper context, something that has led to a long-running controversy about its precise happenings and ultimate aims.
Many modern historians consider that Trajan's decision to wage war against Parthia might have had economic motives: after Trajan's annexation of Arabia, he built a new road, Via Traiana Nova, that went from Bostra to Aila on the Red Sea. That meant that Charax on the Persian Gulf was the sole remaining western terminus of the Indian trade route outside direct Roman control, and such control was important in order to lower import prices and to limit the supposed drain of precious metals created by the deficit in Roman trade with the Far East.
That Charax traded with the Roman Empire, there can be no doubt, as its actual connections with merchants from Palmyra during the period are well documented in a contemporary Palmyrene epigraph, which tells of various Palmyrene citizens honoured for holding office in Charax. Also, Charax's rulers domains at the time possibly included the Bahrain islands (where a Palmyrene citizen held office, shortly after Trajan's death, as satrapbut then, the appointment was made by a Parthian king of Charax) something which offered the possibility of extending Roman hegemony into the Persian Gulf itself. The rationale behind Trajan's campaign, in this case, was one of breaking down a system of Far Eastern trade through small Semitic ("Arab") cities under Parthia's control and to put it under Roman control instead.
In his Dacian conquests, Trajan had already resorted to Syrian auxiliary units, whose veterans, along with Syrian traders, had an important role in the subsequent colonization of Dacia. He had recruited Palmyrene units into his army, including a camel unit, therefore apparently procuring Palmyrene support to his ultimate goal of annexing Charax. It has even been ventured that, when earlier in his campaign Trajan annexed Armenia, he was bound to annex the whole of Mesopotamia lest the Parthians interrupt the flux of trade from the Persian Gulf and/or foment trouble at the Roman frontier on the Danube.
Other historians reject these motives, as the supposed Parthian "control" over the maritime Far Eastern trade route was, at best, conjectural and based on a selective reading of Chinese sourcestrade by land through Parthia seems to have been unhampered by Parthian authorities and left solely to the devices of private enterprise. Commercial activity in second century Mesopotamia seems to have been a general phenomenon, shared by many peoples within and without the Roman Empire, with no sign of a concerted Imperial policy towards it. As in the case of the "alimenta", scholars like Moses Finley and Paul Veyne have considered the whole idea of a foreign trade "policy" behind Trajan's war anachronistic: according to them, the sole Roman concern with the Far Eastern luxuries tradebesides collecting toll taxes and customswas moral and involved frowning upon the "softness" of luxuries, but no economic policy. In the absence of conclusive evidence, trade between Rome and India might have been far more balanced, in terms of quantities of precious metals exchanged: one of our sources for the notion of the Roman gold drainPliny's the Younger's uncle Pliny the Elderhad earlier described the Gangetic Plains as one of the gold sources for the Roman Empire. Accordingly, in his controversial book on the Ancient economy, Finley considers Trajan's "badly miscalculated and expensive assault on Parthia" to be an example of the many Roman "commercial wars" that had in common the fact of existing only in the books of modern historians.
The alternative view is to see the campaign as triggered by the lure of territorial annexation and prestige, the sole motive ascribed by Cassius Dio. As far as territorial conquest involved tax-collecting, especially of the 25% tax levied on all goods entering the Roman Empire, the "tetarte", one can say that Trajan's Parthian War had an "economic" motive. Also, there was the propaganda value of an Eastern conquest that would emulate, in Roman fashion, those of Alexander the Great. The fact that emissaries from the Kushan Empire might have attended to the commemorative ceremonies for the Dacian War may have kindled in some Greco-Roman intellectuals like Plutarchwho wrote about only 70,000 Roman soldiers being necessary to a conquest of Indiaas well as in Trajan's closer associates, speculative dreams about the booty to be obtained by reproducing Macedonian Eastern conquests. There could also be Trajan's idea to use an ambitious blueprint of conquests as a way to emphasize quasi-divine status, such as with his cultivated association, in coins and monuments, to Hercules. Also, it is possible that the attachment of Trajan to an expansionist policy was supported by a powerful circle of conservative senators from Hispania committed to a policy of imperial expansion, first among them being the all-powerful Licinius Sura. Alternatively, one can explain the campaign by the fact that, for the Romans, their empire was in principle unlimited, and that Trajan only took advantage of an opportunity to make idea and reality coincide.
Finally, there are other modern historians who think that Trajan's original aims were purely military and quite modest: to assure a more defensible Eastern frontier for the Roman Empire, crossing Northern Mesopotamia along the course of the Khabur River in order to offer cover to a Roman Armenia. This interpretation is backed by the fact that all subsequent Roman wars against Parthia would aim at establishing a Roman presence deep into Parthia itself.
The campaign was carefully planned in advance: ten legions were concentrated in the Eastern theater; since 111, the correspondence of Pliny the Younger witnesses to the fact that provincial authorities in Bithynia had to organize supplies for passing troops, and local city councils and their individual members had to shoulder part of the increased expenses by supplying troops themselves. The intended campaign, therefore, was immensely costly from its very beginning.
Trajan marched first on Armenia, deposed the Parthian-appointed king, Parthamasiris (who was afterwards murdered while kept in the custody of Roman troops in an unclear incident, later described by Fronto as a breach of Roman good faith), and annexed it to the Roman Empire as a province, receiving in passing the acknowledgement of Roman hegemony by various tribes in the Caucasus and on the Eastern coast of the Black Seaa process that kept him busy until the end of 114. At the same time, a Roman column under the legate Lusius Quietusan outstanding cavalry general who had signaled himself during the Dacian Wars by commanding a unit from his native Mauretaniacrossed the Araxes river from Armenia into Media Atropatene and the land of the Mardians (present-day Ghilan). It is possible that Quietus' campaign had as its goal the extending of the newer, more defensible Roman border eastwards towards the Caspian Sea and northwards to the foothills of the Caucasus. This newer, more "rational" frontier, depended, however, on an increased, permanent Roman presence east of the Euphrates.
The chronology of subsequent events is uncertain, but it is generally believed that early in 115 Trajan launched a Mesopotamian campaign, marching down towards the Taurus mountains in order to consolidate territory between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. He placed permanent garrisons along the way to secure the territory. While Trajan moved from west to east, Lusius Quietus moved with his army from the Caspian Sea towards the west, both armies performing a successful pincer movement, whose apparent result was to establish a Roman presence into the Parthian Empire proper, with Trajan taking the northern Mesopotamian cities of Nisibis and Batnae and organizing a province of Mesopotamia, including the Kingdom of Osrhoenewhere King AbgarosVII submitted to Trajan publiclyas a Roman protectorate. This process seems to have been completed at the beginning of 116, when coins were issued announcing that Armenia and Mesopotamia had been put under the authority of the Roman people. The area between the Khabur River and the mountains around Singara seems to have been considered as the new frontier, and as such received a road surrounded by fortresses.
After wintering in Antioch during 115/116 and, according to literary sources, barely escaping from a violent earthquake that claimed the life of one of the consuls, M.Pedo VirgilianusTrajan again took to the field in 116, with a view to the conquest of the whole of Mesopotamia, an overambitious goal that eventually backfired on the results of his entire campaign. According to some modern historians, the aim of the campaign of 116 was to achieve a "preemptive demonstration" aiming not toward the conquest of Parthia, but for tighter Roman control over the Eastern trade route. However, the overall scarcity of manpower for the Roman military establishment meant that the campaign was doomed from the start. It is noteworthy that no new legions were raised by Trajan before the Parthian campaign, maybe because the sources of new citizen recruits were already over-exploited.
As far as the sources allow a description of this campaign, it seems that one Roman division crossed the Tigris into Adiabene, sweeping south and capturing Adenystrae; a second followed the river south, capturing Babylon; Trajan himself sailed down the Euphrates from Dura-Europoswhere a triumphal arch was erected in his honourthrough Ozogardana, where he erected a "tribunal" still to be seen at the time of Julian the Apostate's campaigns in the same area. Having come to the narrow strip of land between the Euphrates and the Tigris, he then dragged his fleet overland into the Tigris, capturing Seleucia and finally the Parthian capital of Ctesiphon.
He continued southward to the Persian Gulf, when, after escaping with his fleet a tidal bore on the Tigris, he received the submission of Athambelus, the ruler of Charax. He declared Babylon a new province of the Empire and had his statue erected on the shore of the Persian Gulf, after which he sent the Senate a laurelled letter declaring the war to be at a close and bemoaning that he was too old to go on any further and repeat the conquests of Alexander the Great. Since Charax was a "de facto" independent kingdom whose connections to Palmyra were described above, Trajan's bid for the Persian Gulf may have coincided with Palmyrene interests in the region. Another hypothesis is that the rulers of Charax had expansionist designs on Parthian Babylon, giving them a rationale for alliance with Trajan. The Parthian summer capital of Susa was apparently also occupied by the Romans.
According to late literary sources (not backed by numismatic or inscriptional evidence) a province of Assyria was also proclaimed, apparently covering the territory of Adiabene. Some measures seem to have been considered regarding the fiscal administration of Indian tradeor simply about the payment of customs ("portoria") on goods traded on the Euphrates and Tigris. It is possible that it was this "streamlining" of the administration of the newly conquered lands according to the standard pattern of Roman provincial administration in tax collecting, requisitions and the handling of local potentates' prerogatives, that triggered later resistance against Trajan.
According to some modern historians, Trajan might have busied himself during his stay on the Persian Gulf with ordering raids on the Parthian coasts, as well as probing into extending Roman suzerainty over the mountaineer tribes holding the passes across the Zagros Mountains into the Iranian Plateau eastward, as well as establishing some sort of direct contact between Rome and the Kushan Empire. No attempt was made to expand into the Iranian Plateau itself, where the Roman army, with its relative weakness in cavalry, would have been at a disadvantage.
Trajan left the Persian Gulf for Babylonwhere he intended to offer sacrifice to Alexander in the house where he had died in 323BC But a revolt led by Sanatruces, a nephew of the Parthian king Osroes I who had retained a cavalry force, possibly strengthened by the addition of Saka archers, imperiled Roman positions in Mesopotamia and Armenia. Trajan sought to deal with this by forsaking direct Roman rule in Parthia proper, at least partially.
Trajan sent two armies towards Northern Mesopotamia: the first, under Lusius Quietus, recovered Nisibis and Edessa from the rebels, probably having King Abgarus deposed and killed in the process, with Quietus probably earning the right to receive the honors of a senator of praetorian rank ("adlectus inter praetorios"). The second army, however, under Appius Maximus Santra (probably a governor of Macedonia) was defeated and Santra killed. Later in 116, Trajan, with the assistance of Quietus and two other legates, Marcus Erucius Clarus and Tiberius Julius Alexander Julianus, defeated a Parthian army in a battle where Sanatruces was killed (possibly with the assistance of Osroes' son and Sanatruces' cousin, Parthamaspates, whom Trajan wooed successfully). After re-taking and burning Seleucia, Trajan then formally deposed Osroes, putting Parthamaspates on the throne as client ruler. This event was commemorated in a coin as the reduction of Parthia to client kingdom status: REX PARTHIS DATUS, "a king is given to the Parthians". That done, Trajan retreated north in order to retain what he could of the new provinces of Armeniawhere he had already accepted an armistice in exchange for surrendering part of the territory to Sanatruces' son Vologesesand Mesopotamia. It was at this point that Trajan's health started to fail him. The fortress city of Hatra, on the Tigris in his rear, continued to hold out against repeated Roman assaults. He was personally present at the siege, and it is possible that he suffered a heat stroke while in the blazing heat.
Shortly afterwards, the Jews inside the Eastern Roman Empire, in Egypt, Cyprus and Cyrenethis last province being probably the original trouble hotspotrose up in what probably was an outburst of religious rebellion against the local pagans, this widespread rebellion being afterwards named the Kitos War. Another rebellion flared up among the Jewish communities of Northern Mesopotamia, probably part of a general reaction against Roman occupation. Trajan was forced to withdraw his army in order to put down the revolts. He saw this withdrawal as simply a temporary setback, but he was destined never to command an army in the field again, turning his Eastern armies over to Lusius Quietus, who meanwhile (early 117) had been made governor of Judaea and might have had to deal earlier with some kind of Jewish unrest in the province. Quietus discharged his commissions successfully, so much that the war was afterward named after him"Kitus" being a corruption of "Quietus". Whether or not the Kitos War theater included Judea proper, or only the Jewish Eastern diaspora, remains doubtful in the absence of clear epigraphic and archaeological evidence. What is certain is that there was an increased Roman military presence in Judea at the time.
Quietus was promised a consulate in the following year (118) for his victories, but he was killed before this could occur, during the bloody purge that opened Hadrian's reign, in which Quietus and three other former consuls were sentenced to death after being tried on a vague charge of conspiracy by the (secret) court of the Praetorian Prefect Attianus. It has been theorized that Quietus and his colleagues were executed on Hadrian's direct orders, for fear of their popular standing with the army and their close connections to Trajan.
In contrast, the next prominent Roman figure in charge of the repression of the Jewish revolt, the equestrian Quintus Marcius Turbo, who had dealt with the rebel leader from Cyrene, Loukuas, retained Hadrian's trust, eventually becoming his Praetorian Prefect. As all four consulars were senators of the highest standing and as such generally regarded as able to take imperial power ("capaces imperii"), Hadrian seems to have decided on a preemptive strike against these prospective rivals.
Early in 117, Trajan grew ill and set out to sail back to Italy. His health declined throughout the spring and summer of 117, something publicly acknowledged by the fact that a bronze bust displayed at the time in the public baths of Ancyra showed him clearly aged and emaciated. After reaching Selinus (modern Gazipaşa) in Cilicia, which was afterwards called "Trajanopolis", he suddenly died from edema on August 8. Some say that Trajan had adopted Hadrian as his successor, but others that it was his wife Pompeia Plotina who assured the succession to Hadrian by keeping his death secret and afterwards hiring someone to impersonate Trajan by speaking with a tired voice behind a curtain, well after Trajan had died. Dio, who tells this narrative, offers his fatherthe then governor of Cilicia Apronianusas a source, and therefore his narrative is possibly grounded on contemporary rumor. It may also originate in Roman displeasure at an empress meddling in political affairs.
Hadrian held an ambiguous position during Trajan's reign. After commanding Legio I Minervia during the Dacian Wars, he had been relieved from front-line duties at the decisive stage of the Second Dacian War, being sent to govern the newly created province of Pannonia Inferior. He had pursued a senatorial career without particular distinction and had not been officially adopted by Trajan (although he received from him decorations and other marks of distinction that made him hope for the succession). He received no post after his 108 consulate, and no further honours other than being made Archon eponymos for Athens in 111/112. He probably did not take part in the Parthian War. Literary sources relate that Trajan had considered others, such as the jurist Lucius Neratius Priscus, as heir. However, Hadrian, who was eventually entrusted with the governorship of Syria at the time of Trajan's death, was Trajan's cousin and was married to Trajan's grandniece, which all made him as good as heir designate. In addition Hadrian was born in Hispania and seems to have been well connected with the powerful group of Spanish senators influential at Trajan's court through his ties to Plotina and the Prefect Attianus. The fact that during Hadrian's reign he did not pursue Trajan's senatorial policy may account for the "crass hostility" shown him by literary sources.
Aware that the Parthian campaign was an enormous setback, and that it revealed that the Roman Empire had no means for an ambitious program of conquests, Hadrian's first act as emperor was to abandonoutwardly out of his own free willthe distant and indefensible Mesopotamia and to restore Armenia, as well as Osrhoene, to the Parthian hegemony under Roman suzerainty. However, all the other territories conquered by Trajan were retained. Roman friendship ties with Charax (also known by the name of Mesene) were also retained (although it is debated whether this had to do more with trade concessions than with common Roman policy of exploiting dissensions amid the Empire's neighbors). Trajan's ashes were laid to rest underneath Trajan's column, the monument commemorating his success.
Trajan was a prolific builder in Rome and the provinces, and many of his buildings were erected by the gifted architect Apollodorus of Damascus. Notable structures include the Baths of Trajan, Trajan's Forum, Trajan's Column, Trajan's Bridge, Alcántara Bridge, Porto di Traiano of Portus, the road and canal around the Iron Gates (see conquest of Dacia), and possibly the Alconétar Bridge. Some historians also attribute the construction of the Babylon fortress in Egypt to Trajan; the remains of the fort is what is now known as the Church of Mar Girgis and its surrounding buildings. In order to build his forum and the adjacent brick market that also held his name Trajan had vast areas of the surrounding Capitoline and Quirinal hills leveled.
In Egypt, Trajan was quite active in constructing buildings and decorating them. He appears, together with Domitian, in offering scenes on the propylon of the Temple of Hathor at Dendera. His cartouche also appears in the column shafts of the Temple of Khnum at Esna.
Ancient sources on Trajan's personality and accomplishments are unanimously positive. Pliny the Younger, for example, celebrates Trajan in his panegyric as a wise and just emperor and a moral man. Cassius Dio added that he always remained dignified and fair. A Third Century Emperor, Decius, even received from the Senate the name Trajan as a decoration. After the setbacks of the third century, Trajan, together with Augustus, became in the Later Roman Empire the paragon of the most positive traits of the Imperial order.
Some theologians such as Thomas Aquinas discussed Trajan as an example of a virtuous pagan. In the "Divine Comedy", Dante, following this legend, sees the spirit of Trajan in the Heaven of Jupiter with other historical and mythological persons noted for their justice. Also, a mural of Trajan stopping to provide justice for a poor widow is present in the first terrace of Purgatory as a lesson to those who are purged for being proud.
I noticed that the inner bank of the curve...
Was of white marble, and so decorated
With carvings that not only Polycletus
But nature herself would there be put to shame...
There was recorded the high glory
Of that ruler of Rome whose worth
Moved Gregory to his great victory;
I mean by this the Emperor Trajan;
And at his bridle a poor widow
Whose attitude bespoke tears and grief...
The wretched woman, in the midst of all this,
Seemed to be saying: 'Lord, avenge my son,
Who is dead, so that my heart is broken..'
So he said: 'Now be comforted, for I must
Carry out my duty before I go on:
Justice requires it and pity holds me back.'
"Dante, The Divine Comedy, Purgatorio X, ll. 32 f. and 73 f."
In the 18th-century King Charles III of Spain commissioned Anton Raphael Mengs to paint "The Triumph of Trajan" on the ceiling of the banquet hall of the Royal Palace of Madridconsidered among the best works of this artist.
It was only during the Enlightenment that this legacy began to be contested, when Edward Gibbon expressed doubts about the militarized character of Trajan's reign in contrast to the "moderate" practices of his immediate successors. Mommsen adopted a divided stance towards Trajan, at some point of his posthumously published lectures even speaking about his "vainglory" ("Scheinglorie"). Mommsen also speaks of Trajan's "insatiable, unlimited lust for conquest". Although Mommsen had no liking for Trajan's successor Hadrian"a repellent manner, and a venomous, envious and malicious nature"he admitted that Hadrian, in renouncing Trajan's conquests, was "doing what the situation clearly required".
It was exactly this military character of Trajan's reign that attracted his early twentieth-century biographer, the Italian Fascist historian Roberto Paribeni, who in his 1927 two-volume biography "Optimus Princeps" described Trajan's reign as the acme of the Roman principate, which he saw as Italy's patrimony. Following in Paribeni's footsteps, the German historian Alfred Heuss saw in Trajan "the accomplished human embodiment of the imperial title" ("die ideale Verkörperung des humanen Kaiserbegriffs"). Trajan's first English-language biography by Julian Bennett is also a positive one in that it assumes that Trajan was an active policy-maker concerned with the management of the empire as a wholesomething his reviewer Lendon considers an anachronistic outlook that sees in the Roman emperor a kind of modern administrator.
During the 1980s, the Romanian historian Eugen Cizek took a more nuanced view as he described the changes in the "personal" ideology of Trajan's reign, stressing the fact that it became ever more autocratic and militarized, especially after 112 and towards the Parthian War (as "only an universal monarch, a "kosmocrator", could dictate his law to the East"). The biography by the German historian Karl Strobel stresses the continuity between Domitian's and Trajan's reigns, saying that Trajan's rule followed the same autocratic and sacred character as Domitian's, culminating in a failed Parthian adventure intended as the crown of his personal achievement. It is in modern French historiography that Trajan's reputation becomes most markedly deflated: Paul Petit writes about Trajan's portraits as a "lowbrow boor with a taste for booze and boys". For Paul Veyne, what is to be retained from Trajan's "stylish" qualities was that he was the last Roman emperor to think of the empire as a purely Italian and Rome-centered hegemony of conquest. In contrast, his successor Hadrian would stress the notion of the empire as ecumenical and of the Emperor as universal benefactor and not "kosmocrator". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30570 |
12 Monkeys
12 Monkeys, also known as Twelve Monkeys, is a 1995 American science fiction film directed by Terry Gilliam, inspired by Chris Marker's 1962 short film "La Jetée", starring Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, and Brad Pitt, with Christopher Plummer and David Morse in supporting roles. After Universal Studios acquired the rights to remake "La Jetée" as a full-length film, David and Janet Peoples were hired to write the script.
Under Gilliam's direction, Universal granted the filmmakers a $29.5 million budget, and filming lasted from February to May 1995. The film was shot mostly in Philadelphia and Baltimore, where the story was set.
The film was released to critical praise and grossed $168 million worldwide. Pitt was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and he won a Golden Globe Award for his performance. The film also won and was nominated for various categories at the Saturn Awards.
A deadly virus, released in 1996, wipes out almost all of humanity; survivors are forced to live underground. A group known as the Army of the Twelve Monkeys is believed to have released the virus.
In 2035, James Cole is a prisoner living in a subterranean compound beneath the ruins of Philadelphia. Cole is selected to be trained and sent back in time to find the original virus to help scientists develop a cure. Meanwhile, Cole is troubled by recurring dreams involving a foot chase and shooting at an airport.
Cole arrives in Baltimore, 1990, not 1996 as planned; he is arrested and incarcerated at a mental hospital on the diagnosis of Dr. Kathryn Railly. There he encounters Jeffrey Goines, a mental patient with fanatical environmentalist and anti-corporatist views. Cole is interviewed by a panel of doctors where he tries to explain that the virus outbreak has already happened and that nobody can change it.
After an escape attempt, Cole is sedated and locked in a cell, but he disappears moments later, waking up back in 2035. Cole is interrogated by the scientists who play a distorted voicemail message that asserts the association of the Army of the Twelve Monkeys with the virus. He is also shown photos of numerous people suspected of being involved, including Goines. The scientists offer Cole a second chance to complete his mission and send him back in time. Cole accidentally arrives at a battlefield during World War I, is shot in the leg and then suddenly transported to 1996.
In 1996, Railly gives a lecture about the Cassandra complex to a group of scientists. At the post-lecture book signing, Railly meets Dr. Peters who tells her that apocalypse alarmists represent the sane vision while humanity's gradual destruction of the environment is the real lunacy.
Cole arrives at the venue after seeing flyers publicizing it and, when Railly departs, he kidnaps her and forces her to take him to Philadelphia. They learn that Goines is the founder of the Army of the Twelve Monkeys before they set out in search of him. When they confront Goines, he denies any involvement with the group and says that, in 1990, Cole originated the idea of wiping out humanity with a virus stolen from Goines' virologist father.
About to be apprehended by police, Cole is transported back to 2035 where he reaffirms to the scientists his commitment to his mission. But when he finds Railly again in 1996, he tells her he now believes himself crazy as she had suggested all along. Meanwhile Railly has discovered evidence of his time travel which she shows him, believing he is sane. They decide to depart for the Florida Keys before the onset of the plague.
On their way to the airport, they learn that the Army of the Twelve Monkeys was not the source of the epidemic; the group's major act of protest is releasing animals from a zoo and placing Goines' father in an animal cage. At the airport, Cole leaves a last message telling the scientists that in following the Army of the Twelve Monkeys they are on the wrong track and that he will not return. Cole is soon confronted by Jose, an acquaintance from his own time, who gives Cole a handgun and ambiguously instructs him to follow orders.
At the same time, Railly spots Dr. Peters and recognizes him from a newspaper photograph as an assistant at Goines' father's virology lab. Peters is about to embark on a tour of several cities that match the locations and sequence of the viral outbreaks.
Cole forces his way through a security checkpoint in pursuit of Peters. After drawing the gun he was given, Cole is fatally shot by police. As Cole lies dying in Railly's arms, Railly suddenly begins to scan the crowd around her; seemingly looking for something she knows must be there. Railly finally makes eye contact with a small boy—the young James Cole witnessing the scene of his own death, which will replay in his dreams for years to come. Peters, safely aboard the plane with the virus, sits down next to Jones, one of the scientists from the future, who comments that her job is “insurance.”
The genesis of "12 Monkeys" came from executive producer Robert Kosberg, who had been a fan of the French short film "La Jetée" (1962). Kosberg persuaded the film's director, Chris Marker, to let him pitch the project to Universal Pictures, seeing it as a perfect basis for a full-length science fiction film. Universal reluctantly agreed to purchase the remake rights and hired David and Janet Peoples to write the screenplay. Producer Charles Roven chose Terry Gilliam to direct, because he believed the filmmaker's style was perfect for "12 Monkeys" nonlinear storyline and time travel subplot. Gilliam had just abandoned a film adaptation of "A Tale of Two Cities" when he signed to direct "12 Monkeys". The film also represents the second film for which Gilliam did not write or co-write the screenplay. Although he prefers to direct his own scripts, he was captivated by Peoples' "intriguing and intelligent script. The story is disconcerting. It deals with time, madness and a perception of what the world is or isn't. It is a study of madness and dreams, of death and re-birth, set in a world coming apart."
Universal took longer than expected to approve "12 Monkeys", although Gilliam had two stars (Willis and Pitt) and a firm budget of $29.5 million (low for a Hollywood science fiction film). Universal's production of "Waterworld" (1995) had resulted in various cost overruns. To get "12 Monkeys" approved for production, Gilliam persuaded Willis to lower his normal asking price. Because of Universal's strict production incentives and his history with the studio on "Brazil", Gilliam received final cut privilege. The Writers Guild of America was skeptical of the "inspired by" credit for "La Jetée" and Chris Marker.
Gilliam's initial casting choices were Nick Nolte as James Cole and Jeff Bridges as Jeffrey Goines, but Universal objected. Gilliam, who first met Bruce Willis while casting Jeff Bridges' role in "The Fisher King" (1991), believed Willis evoked Cole's characterization as being "somebody who is strong and dangerous but also vulnerable".
Gilliam cast Madeleine Stowe as Dr. Kathryn Railly because he was impressed by her performance in "Blink" (1994). The director first met Stowe when he was casting his abandoned film adaptation of "A Tale of Two Cities". "She has this incredible ethereal beauty and she's incredibly intelligent", Gilliam said of Stowe. "Those two things rest very easily with her, and the film needed those elements because it has to be romantic."
Gilliam originally believed that Pitt was not right for the role of Jeffrey Goines, but the casting director convinced him otherwise. Pitt was cast for a comparatively small salary, as he was still relatively unknown at the time. By the time of "12 Monkeys" release, "Interview with the Vampire" (1994), "Legends of the Fall" (1994), and "Se7en" (1995) had been released, making Pitt an A-list actor, which drew greater attention to the film and boosted its box-office standing. In Philadelphia, months before filming, Pitt spent weeks at Temple University's hospital, visiting and studying the psychiatric ward to prepare for his role.
Principal photography lasted from February 8 to May 6, 1995. Shooting on location in Philadelphia and Baltimore (including the Senator Theatre) in winter was fraught with weather problems. There were also technical glitches with the futuristic mechanical props. Because the film has a nonlinear storyline, continuity errors occurred, and some scenes had to be reshot. Gilliam also injured himself when he went horseback riding. Despite setbacks, the director managed to stay within the budget and was only a week behind his shooting schedule. "It was a tough shoot", acknowledged Jeffrey Beecroft ("Mr. Brooks", "Dances with Wolves"), the production designer. "There wasn't a lot of money or enough time. Terry is a perfectionist, but he was really adamant about not going over budget. He got crucified for "Munchausen", and that still haunts him."
The filmmakers were not allowed the luxury of sound stages; thus, they had to find abandoned buildings or landmarks to use. The exteriors of the climactic airport scene were shot at the Baltimore–Washington International Airport, while the interior scenes were shot at the Pennsylvania Convention Center (formerly Reading Terminal). Filming at the psychiatric hospital was done at the Eastern State Penitentiary and Girard College . Some shots took place in abandoned motels in Camden, New Jersey.
Gilliam used the same filmmaking style as he had in "Brazil" (1985), including the art direction and cinematography (specifically using fresnel lenses). The appearance of the interrogation room where Cole is being interviewed by the scientists was based on the work of Lebbeus Woods; these scenes were shot at three different power stations (two in Philadelphia and one in Baltimore). Gilliam intended to show Cole being interviewed through a multi-screen interrogation TV set because he felt the machinery evoked a "nightmarish intervention of technology. You try to see the faces on the screens in front of you, but the real faces and voices are down there and you have these tiny voices in your ear. To me that's the world we live in, the way we communicate these days, through technical devices that pretend to be about communication but may not be."
The art department made sure that the 2035 underground world only used pre-1996 technology as a means to depict the bleakness of the future. Gilliam, Beecroft, and Crispian Sallis (set decorator) went to several flea markets and salvage warehouses looking for materials to decorate the sets. The majority of visual effects sequences were created by Peerless Camera, the London-based effects studio that Gilliam founded in the late 1970s with visual effects supervisor Kent Houston ("The Golden Compass", "Casino Royale"). Additional digital compositing was done by The Mill, while Cinesite provided film scanning services.
Janet Maslin wrote in "The New York Times", "Since "12 Monkeys" has the junk heap aesthetic that Mr. Gilliam favors, nothing in the film is sleek or foolproof, certainly not its time-travel apparatus."
The film's score was composed, arranged, and conducted by English musician Paul Buckmaster. The main theme is based on Argentine tango musician/composer Astor Piazzolla's "Suite Punta del Este".
"12 Monkeys" studies the subjective nature of memories and their effect on perceptions of reality. Examples of false memories include Cole's recollection of the airport shooting, altered each time he has the dream, and a "mentally divergent" man at the asylum who has false memories.
References to time, time travel, and monkeys are scattered throughout the film, including the Woody Woodpecker cartoon "Time Tunnel" playing on the TV in a hotel room, the Marx Brothers film "Monkey Business" (1931) on TV in the asylum, and the subplots involving monkeys (drug testing, news stories and animal rights). The film is also intended to be a study of people's declining ability to communicate in modern civilization due to the interference of technology.
"12 Monkeys" is inspired by the French short film "La Jetée" (1962); as in "La Jetée", characters are haunted by the images of their own deaths. Like "La Jetée", "12 Monkeys" contains references to Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo" (1958). Toward the end of the film, Cole and Railly hide in a theater showing a 24-hour Hitchcock marathon and watch a scene from "Vertigo". Railly then transforms herself with a blonde wig, as Judy (Kim Novak) transforms herself into blonde Madeleine in "Vertigo"; Cole sees her emerge within a red light, as Scottie (James Stewart) saw Judy emerge within a green light. Brief notes of Bernard Herrmann's film score can also be heard. Railly also wears the same coat Novak wore in the first part of "Vertigo". The scene at Muir Woods National Monument, where Judy (as Madeleine) looks at the growth rings of a felled redwood and traces back events in her past life, resonates with larger themes in "12 Monkeys". Cole and Railly later have a similar conversation while the same music from "Vertigo" is repeated. The Muir Woods scene in "Vertigo" is also reenacted in "La Jetée". In a previous scene in the film, Cole wakes up in a hospital bed with the scientists talking to him in chorus. This is a direct homage to the "Dry Bones" scene in Dennis Potter's "The Singing Detective".
James Cole is a notable Christ figure in film. The film is significant in the genre of science-fiction film noir, and it alludes to various "canonical noir" films.
"12 Monkeys" was given a limited release in the United States on December 29, 1995. When the 1,629-theater wide release came on January 5, 1996, the film earned $13.84 million in its opening weekend. "12 Monkeys" eventually grossed $57,141,459 in the US and $111,698,000 in other countries, for a worldwide total of $168,839,459. The film held the No. 1 spot on box office charts for two weeks in January, before dropping due to competition from "From Dusk till Dawn", "Mr. Holland's Opus" and "Black Sheep".
Of 68 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, 90% are positive, with an average rating of 7.62/10. The consensus reads: "The plot's a bit of a jumble, but excellent performances and mind-blowing plot twists make "12 Monkeys" a kooky, effective experience." By comparison, Metacritic calculated a 74 out of 100 rating, based on 20 reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of B on an A+ to F scale.
Roger Ebert found "12 Monkeys" depiction of the future similar to "Blade Runner" (1982; also scripted by David Peoples) and "Brazil" (1985; also directed by Terry Gilliam). "The film is a celebration of madness and doom, with a hero who tries to prevail against the chaos of his condition, and is inadequate", Ebert wrote. "This vision is a cold, dark, damp one, and even the romance between Willis and Stowe feels desperate rather than joyous. All of this is done very well, and the more you know about movies (especially the technical side), the more you're likely to admire it. And as entertainment, it appeals more to the mind than to the senses."
Desson Thomson of "The Washington Post" praised the art direction and set design. "Willis and Pitt's performances, Gilliam's atmospherics and an exhilarating momentum easily outweigh such trifling flaws in the script", Thomson wrote. Peter Travers from "Rolling Stone" magazine attributes the film's success to Gilliam's direction and Willis' performance. Internet reviewer James Berardinelli believed the filmmakers had an intelligent and creative motive for the time-travel subplot. Rather than being sent to change the past, James Cole is instead observing it to make a better future. Richard Corliss of "Time" magazine felt the film's time-travel aspect and apocalyptic depiction of a bleak future were clichés. "In its frantic mix of chaos, carnage and zoo animals, "12 Monkeys" is "Jumanji" for adults", Corliss wrote.
Brad Pitt was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, but lost out to Kevin Spacey for his performance in "The Usual Suspects". Costume designer Julie Weiss was also nominated for her work, but lost out to James Acheson of "Restoration". However, Pitt won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture. Terry Gilliam was honored for his direction at the 46th Berlin International Film Festival.
The film also received positive notices from the science fiction community. It was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films awarded it the Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film at the 22nd Saturn Awards. Pitt and Weiss won awards at the ceremony as well; Gilliam, Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, and writers David and Janet Peoples also received nominations.
Universal Pictures released "12 Monkeys" on VHS on January 28, 1997. They also released a "Signature Collection" laserdisc of the film on February 18, 1997, containing an audio commentary by director Terry Gilliam and producer Charles Roven, "The Hamster Factor and Other Tales of Twelve Monkeys" (a making-of documentary), an archive of production art, and production notes.
They released a Collector's Edition DVD on March 31, 1998, containing the same extras as the laserdisc. They released a Special Edition DVD on May 10, 2005, with a new transfer of the film and identical extras. They released an HD DVD on March 4, 2008, with the same extras. They released a Blu-ray Disc on July 28, 2009, with the same extras. Arrow Films released a new Blu-ray of the film on October 15, 2018, containing a new transfer of the film, remastered in 4K from the original negative, all of the previous extras, as well as a vintage 1996 interview with Terry Gilliam, and an interview with Gilliam scholar Ian Christie.
In the beginning of the film, Cole is brought into the interrogation room and told to sit in a chair attached to a vertical rail on the wall. A sphere supported by a metal armature is suspended directly in front of him, probing for weaknesses as the inquisitors interrogate him. Architect Lebbeus Woods filed a lawsuit against Universal in February 1996, claiming that his work "Neomechanical Tower (Upper) Chamber" was used without permission. Woods won his lawsuit, requiring Universal to remove the scenes, but he ultimately allowed their inclusion in exchange for a "high six-figure cash settlement" from Universal.
After the release of "The Zero Theorem" in 2013, claims were made that Gilliam had meant it as part of a trilogy. A 2013 review for "The Guardian" newspaper said, "Calling it ["The Zero Theorem"] the third part of a trilogy formed by earlier dystopian satires "Brazil" and "Twelve Monkeys" [sic]"; but in an interview with Alex Suskind for "Indiewire" in late 2014, Gilliam said, "Well, it's funny, this trilogy was never something I ever said, but it's been repeated so often it's clearly true [laughs]. I don't know who started it but once it started it never stopped".
On August 26, 2013, "Entertainment Weekly" announced that Syfy was developing a "12 Monkeys" television series based on the film. Production began in November 2013. The pilot was written by Terry Matalas and Travis Fickett, who had written for the series "Terra Nova". Due to the series being labeled as "cast contingent", the series did not move forward until the roles of Cole and Goines were cast. In April 2014, Syfy green-lighted the first season, which consisted of 13 episodes, including the pilot filmed in 2013. The series premiered on January 16, 2015. On March 12, 2015, the series was renewed for a second season that began airing in April 2016. On June 29, 2016, the series was renewed for a 10-episode third season, set to premiere in 2017. In a surprising move, the entire third season aired over three consecutive nights. A fourth and final season was announced on March 16, 2017. The eleven-episode fourth season ran from June 15 to July 6, 2018 for four straight weeks. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30575 |
The Sixth Sense
The Sixth Sense is a 1999 American supernatural psychological thriller film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. The film tells the story of Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), a boy who is able to see and talk to the dead, and Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis), a child psychologist who tries to help him. The film established Shyamalan as a writer and director, and introduced the cinema public to his traits, most notably his affinity for surprise endings.
Released by Hollywood Pictures on August 6, 1999, the film was well-received by critics; praise was given to its acting performances (particularly Willis, Osment, and Toni Collette), atmosphere, and twist conclusion. "The Sixth Sense" was the second-highest-grossing film of 1999 (behind ""), taking about $293 million in the US and $379 million in other markets.
The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Shyamalan, Best Supporting Actor for Osment, and Best Supporting Actress for Collette.
Malcolm Crowe, a child psychologist in Philadelphia, returns home one night with his wife Anna after having been honored for his work. A young man appears in their bathroom and accuses Malcolm of failing him. Malcolm recognizes him as Vincent Grey, a former patient he treated as a child for hallucinations, but before he can talk Vincent down, Vincent shoots him and then himself.
The next fall, Malcolm begins working with Cole Sear, a young boy. Malcolm feels he must help him in order to rectify his failure and reconcile with his wife, who has become distant and cold. Cole's mother Lynn worries about his social skills, especially after seeing signs of physical harm. Cole eventually confides his secret to Malcolm: he sees ghosts walking around like the living, unaware that they are dead.
Initially, Malcolm thinks Cole is delusional and considers dropping his case. After listening to an audiotape from a session with Vincent, Malcolm hears a weeping man begging for help in Spanish and believes that Cole is telling the truth. He suggests that Cole try to find a purpose for his gift by communicating with the ghosts and helping them finish their business. Cole is unwilling at first, then finally agrees to try to help.
Cole awakens one night to discover a ghost girl vomiting. After finding out who she is, Cole goes with Malcolm to the funeral reception at her home. Cole is directed to a box holding a videotape, which he gives to the ghost girl's father. The tape shows the girl's mother poisoning her daughter's food. By doing this, Cole has saved the girl's younger sister from the same fate.
Learning to live with the ghosts he sees, Cole begins to fit in at school and is cast as the lead in the school play. Before departing, Cole suggests that Malcolm should try speaking to Anna while she is asleep. Stuck in traffic, Cole tells his mother his secret, and says that someone died in an accident down the road. When Lynn does not believe him, Cole tells her his grandmother visits him and describes how she saw Lynn in a dance performance when she was a child, giving details he could not have known.
Malcolm returns home to find his wife asleep and their wedding video playing. While still asleep, Anna asks why he left her and drops Malcolm's wedding ring. Recalling what Cole told him about how dead people only see what they want to see, Malcolm starts to see things he did not see earlier. Malcolm suddenly remembers being shot and locates his gunshot wound that reveals he was actually killed by Vincent and he has been dead the whole time. Malcolm tells his wife she was never second to anything and that he loves her. Because of Cole's efforts, Malcolm's business is finally complete, and his spirit departs in a flash of light.
David Vogel, then-president of production of Walt Disney Studios, read Shyamalan's spec script and instantly loved it. Without obtaining corporate approval, Vogel bought the rights to the script, despite the high price of $3 million and the stipulation that Shyamalan could direct the film. Disney later dismissed Vogel from his position at the studio, with Vogel leaving the company shortly thereafter. Disney—apparently in a show of little confidence in the film—sold the production rights to Spyglass Entertainment, while retaining the distribution rights and 12.5% of the film's box office receipt.
During the casting process for the role of Cole Sear, Shyamalan had been apprehensive about Osment's video audition, saying later he was "this really sweet cherub, kind of beautiful, blond boy." Shyamalan saw the role as darker and more brooding but admitted that "He nailed it with the vulnerability and the need ... He was able to convey a need as a human being in a way that was amazing to see."
The color red is intentionally absent from most of the film, but it is used prominently in a few isolated shots for "anything in the real world that has been tainted by the other world" and "to connote really explosively emotional moments and situations". Examples include the door of the church where Cole seeks sanctuary; the balloon, carpet, and Cole's sweater at the birthday party; the tent in which he first encounters Kyra; the volume numbers on Crowe's tape recorder; the doorknob on the locked basement door where Malcolm's office is located; the shirt that Anna wears at the restaurant; Kyra's mother's dress at the wake; and the shawl wrapped around the sleeping Anna.
All of the clothes Malcolm wears during the film are items he wore or touched the evening before his death, which included his overcoat, his blue rowing sweatshirt and the different layers of his suit. Though the filmmakers were careful about clues of Malcolm's true state, the camera zooms slowly towards his face when Cole says, "I see dead people." In a special feature, the filmmakers mention they initially feared this would be too much of a giveaway, but decided to leave it in.
Location filming took place mostly in streets and buildings of Philadelphia, notable at St. Augustine's Church on 4th and New Streets and on Saint Albans Street in Southwest Center City.
Marisa Tomei was considered for the role of Lynn Sear.
The film had a production budget of approximately $40 million (plus $25 million for prints and advertising). It grossed $26.6 million in its opening weekend and spent five weeks as the number 1 film at the U.S. box office becoming only the second film after "Titanic" (1997) to have grossed more than $20 million a weekend for five weekends. It earned $293,506,292 in the United States and a worldwide gross of $672,806,292, ranking it 35th on the list of box-office money earners in the U.S. as of April 2010. Box Office Mojo estimates that the film sold over 57.5 million tickets in the US. In the United Kingdom, it was given at first a limited release on nine screens, and entered at No. 8 before climbing up to No. 1 the next week with 430 theatres playing the film.
After a six-month online promotion campaign, "The Sixth Sense" was released on VHS and DVD by Hollywood Pictures Home Video on March 28, 2000. It would go on to become the top-selling DVD of 2000, with more than 2.5 million units shipped, as well as the top video rental title of all-time.
"The Sixth Sense" received positive reviews; Osment in particular was widely praised for his performance. Rotten Tomatoes, a review aggregator, reports that 86% of 157 surveyed critics gave the film a positive review, along with an average rating of 7.65/10. The site's consensus reads: "M. Night Shayamalan's "The Sixth Sense" is a twisty ghost story with all the style of a classical Hollywood picture, but all the chills of a modern horror flick." Metacritic rated it 64 out of 100 based on 35 reviews, meaning “generally favorable reviews”. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A-" on an A+ to F scale.
By vote of the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, "The Sixth Sense" was awarded the Nebula Award for Best Script during 1999. The film was No. 71 on Bravo's "100 Scariest Movie Moments", for the scene where Cole encounters a female ghost in his tent. It was named the 89th best American film of all time in a 2007 poll by the American Film Institute.
The line "I see dead people" from the film became a popular catchphrase after its release, scoring No. 44 on AFI's "100 Years...100 Movie Quotes".
"The Sixth Sense" also scored 60th place on AFI's "100 Years...100 Thrills", honoring America's most "heart pounding movies".
"The Sixth Sense" has received numerous awards and nominations, with Academy Award nomination categories ranging from those honoring the film itself (Best Picture), to its writing, editing, and direction (Best Director, Best Editing, and Best Original Screenplay), to its cast's performance (Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress). Especially lauded was the supporting role of actor Haley Joel Osment, whose nominations include an Academy Award, a Broadcast Film Critics Association Award, and a Golden Globe Award. Overall, "The Sixth Sense" was nominated for six Academy Awards and four British Academy Film Awards, but won none. The film received three nominations from the People's Choice Awards and won all of them, with lead actor Bruce Willis being honored for his role. The Satellite Awards nominated the film in four categories, with awards being received for writing (M. Night Shyamalan) and editing (Andrew Mondshein). Supporting actress Toni Collette was nominated for both an Academy Award and a Satellite award for her role in the film. James Newton Howard was honored by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers for his composition of the music for the film.
In 2013, the Writers Guild of America ranked the screenplay #50 on its list of 101 Greatest Screenplays ever written. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30582 |
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was a war fought primarily in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648. It resulted in the deaths of over 8 million people, including 20 percent of the German population, making it one of the most destructive conflicts in human history. Initially a war between the Protestant and Catholic states in the Holy Roman Empire, it gradually developed into a general European war involving most of the great powers. The war became less about religion and more of a continuation of the France–Habsburg rivalry for European political pre-eminence and a Habsburg attempt to rebuild the imperial authority in Germany.
The war was instigated by the election of Ferdinand II as Holy Roman Emperor, a staunch Catholic who tried to impose religious uniformity on his domains. In response, the Protestant states of northern Germany formed the Protestant Union to defend their interests. Tensions grew until the Defenestration of Prague (1618), when Bohemian Protestants threw the Emperor's representatives out of a window. The Bohemians then elected the Protestant Frederick V, Elector Palatine, as the new king of the Kingdom of Bohemia. The Catholic states of southern Germany, led by Bavaria, formed the Catholic League to help the Emperor restore his authority in Bohemia. The Bohemian Revolt was crushed in the Battle of White Mountain (1620), and the Protestant Union dissolved in 1621. Protestant resistance was crushed at the Battle of Stadtlohn (1623), ending the Palatine phase of the Thirty Years' War.
The decisive Catholic victory would not last, as other Protestant countries entered the war to defend their brethren in Germany. Protestant Denmark intervened unsuccessfully in 1625–1630. The Protestant cause was then taken up by Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, with the financial support of France. Although the Bourbon Kings of France were Catholic, their main rivals for European leadership were the Habsburg rulers of the Holy Roman Empire and Spain. Initial Swedish successes brought them deep into Catholic territory in southern Germany, but Swedish fortunes ebbed after Gustavus Adolphus was killed at the Battle of Lützen (1632). France then entered the war directly on the Protestant side in 1635. What had begun as a rebellion against Habsburg authority in Bohemia had expanded into a general European war.
The Thirty Years' War devastated entire regions, resulting in high mortality from hunger and disease. Campaigning armies and mercenaries funded themselves by looting or by exacting contributions from the inhabitants of occupied territories, imposing severe hardships on the populace. The war also bankrupted most of the combatant powers. Finally, the exhausted combatants negotiated the Peace of Westphalia (1648), putting an end to the overlapping conflicts. The rise of Bourbon France, the curtailing of Habsburg ambition, and the ascendancy of Sweden as a Great Power created a new balance of power on the continent. The Dutch Republic also secured Spanish recognition of its independence after an 80-year revolt, leading to the Dutch Golden Age.
The Peace of Augsburg (1555), signed by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, confirmed the result of the Diet of Speyer (1526), ending the war between German Lutherans and Catholics, and establishing that:
Although the Peace of Augsburg created a temporary end to hostilities, it did not resolve the underlying religious conflict, which was made yet more complex by the spread of Calvinism throughout Germany in the years that followed. This added a third major faith to the region, but its position was not recognized in any way by the Augsburg terms, to which only Catholicism and Lutheranism were parties.
The rulers of the nations neighboring the Holy Roman Empire also contributed to the outbreak of the Thirty Years' War:
The Holy Roman Empire was a fragmented collection of largely independent states (a fragmentation that the Peace of Westphalia would solidify). The position of the Holy Roman Emperor was mainly titular, but the emperors, from the House of Habsburg, also directly ruled a large portion of imperial territory (lands of the Archduchy of Austria and the Kingdom of Bohemia), as well as the Kingdom of Hungary. The Austrian domain was thus a major European power in its own right, ruling over some eight million subjects. Another branch of the House of Habsburg ruled over Spain and its empire, which included the Spanish Netherlands, southern Italy, the Philippines, and most of the Americas. In addition to Habsburg lands, the Holy Roman Empire contained several regional powers, such as the Duchy of Bavaria, the Electorate of Saxony, the Margraviate of Brandenburg, the Electorate of the Palatinate and the Landgraviate of Hesse. A vast number of minor independent duchies, free cities, abbeys, prince-bishoprics, and petty lordships (whose authority sometimes extended to no more than a single village) rounded out the empire. Apart from Austria and perhaps Bavaria, none of those entities was capable of national-level politics; alliances between family-related states were common, due partly to the frequent practice of partible inheritance, i.e. splitting a lord's inheritance among his various sons.
Religious tensions remained strong throughout the second half of the 16th century. The Peace of Augsburg began to unravel: some converted bishops refused to give up their bishoprics, and certain Habsburg and other Catholic rulers of the Holy Roman Empire and Spain sought to restore the power of Catholicism in the region. This was evident from the Cologne War (1583–88), a conflict initiated when the prince-archbishop of the city, Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg, converted to Calvinism. As he was an imperial elector, this could have produced a Protestant majority in the College that elected the Holy Roman Emperor, a position that was always held by a Roman Catholic.
In the Cologne War, Spanish troops expelled the former prince-archbishop and replaced him with Ernst of Bavaria, a Roman Catholic. After this success, the Catholics regained peace, and the principle of began to be exerted more strictly in Bavaria, Würzburg, and other states. This forced Lutheran residents to choose between conversion or exile. Lutherans also witnessed the defection of the lords of the Palatinate (1560), Nassau (1578), Hesse-Kassel (1603), and Brandenburg (1613) to the new Calvinist faith. Thus, at the beginning of the 17th century, the Rhine lands and those south to the Danube were largely Catholic, while Lutherans predominated in the north, and Calvinists dominated in certain other areas, such as west-central Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. Minorities of each creed existed almost everywhere, however. In some lordships and cities, the numbers of Calvinists, Catholics, and Lutherans were approximately equal.
Much to the consternation of their Spanish ruling cousins, the Habsburg emperors who followed Charles V (especially Ferdinand I and Maximilian II, but also Rudolf II, and his successor Matthias) were content to allow the princes of the empire to choose their own religious policies. These rulers avoided religious wars within the empire by allowing the different Christian faiths to spread without coercion. This angered those who sought religious uniformity. Meanwhile, Sweden and Denmark-Norway, both Lutheran kingdoms, sought to assist the Protestant cause in the Empire, and wanted to gain political and economic influence there, as well.
Religious tensions broke into violence in the German free city of Donauwörth in 1606. There, the Lutheran majority barred the Catholic residents of the Swabian town from holding an annual Markus procession, which provoked a riot called the 'battle of the flags'. This prompted foreign intervention by Duke Maximilian of Bavaria on behalf of the Catholics. After the violence ceased, Calvinists in Germany (who remained a minority) felt the most threatened. They banded together and formed the Protestant Union in 1608, under the leadership of the Elector Palatine Frederick IV, whose son, Frederick V, married Elizabeth Stuart, the Scottish-born daughter of King James VI of Scotland and I of England and Ireland. The establishment of the league prompted the Catholics into banding together to form the Catholic League in 1609, under the leadership of Duke Maximilian.
Tensions escalated further in 1609, with the War of the Jülich Succession, which began when John William, Duke of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, the ruler of the strategically important United Duchies of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, died childless. Two rival claimants vied for the duchy. The first was Duchess Anna of Prussia, daughter of Duke John William's eldest sister, Marie Eleonore of Cleves. Anna was married to John Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburg. The second was Wolfgang William, Count Palatine of Neuburg, who was the son of Duke John William's second-eldest sister, Anna of Cleves. Duchess Anna of Prussia claimed Jülich-Cleves-Berg as the heir to the senior line, while Wolfgang William, Count Palatine of Neuburg, claimed Jülich-Cleves-Berg as Duke John William's eldest male heir. Both claimants were Protestants. In 1610, to prevent war between the rival claimants, the forces of Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor occupied Jülich-Cleves-Berg until the Aulic Council ("Reichshofrat") resolved the dispute. However, several Protestant princes feared that the emperor Rudolf II, a Catholic, intended to keep Jülich-Cleves-Berg for himself to prevent the United Duchies falling into Protestant hands. Representatives of Henry IV of France and the Dutch Republic gathered forces to invade Jülich-Cleves-Berg, but these plans were cut short by the assassination of Henry IV by the Catholic fanatic François Ravaillac. Hoping to gain an advantage in the dispute, Wolfgang William converted to Catholicism; John Sigismund, though, converted to Calvinism (although Anna of Prussia stayed Lutheran). The dispute was settled in 1614 with the Treaty of Xanten, by which the United Duchies were dismantled: Jülich and Berg were awarded to Wolfgang William, while John Sigismund gained Cleves, Mark, and Ravensberg.
The background of the Dutch Revolt also has close relations to the events leading to the Thirty Years' War. It was widely known that the Twelve Years' Truce was set to expire in 1621, and throughout Europe it was recognized that at that time, Spain would attempt to reconquer the Dutch Republic. Forces under Ambrogio Spinola, 1st Marquis of the Balbases, the Genoese commander of the Spanish army, would be able to pass through friendly territories to reach the Dutch Republic. The only hostile state that stood in his way was the Electorate of the Palatinate. Spinola's preferred route would take him through the Republic of Genoa, the Duchy of Milan, the Val Telline, around hostile Switzerland bypassing it along the north shore of Lake Constance, then through Alsace, the Archbishopric of Strasbourg, the Electorate of the Palatinate, and then finally through the Archbishopric of Trier, Jülich and Berg, and on to the Dutch Republic. The Palatinate thus assumed a strategic importance in European affairs out of all proportion to its size. This explains why the Protestant James VI and I arranged for the marriage of his daughter Elizabeth Stuart to Frederick V, Elector Palatine in 1612, in spite of the social convention that a princess would only marry another royal.
By 1617, it was apparent that Matthias, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia, would die without an heir, with his lands going to his nearest male relative, his cousin Archduke Ferdinand II of Austria, heir-apparent and Crown Prince of Bohemia. With the Oñate treaty, Philip III of Spain agreed to this succession.
Ferdinand, educated by the Jesuits, was a staunch Catholic who wanted to impose religious uniformity on his lands. This made him highly unpopular in Protestant (primarily Hussite) Bohemia. The Bohemian nobility rejected Ferdinand, who had been elected Bohemian Crown Prince in 1617. Ferdinand's representatives were thrown out of a window in Prague and seriously injured, triggering the Thirty Years' War in 1618. This so-called Defenestration of Prague provoked open revolt in Bohemia, which had powerful foreign allies. Ferdinand was upset by the calculated insult, but his intolerant policies in his own lands had left him in a weak position. The Habsburg cause in the next few years would seem to suffer unrecoverable reverses. The Protestant cause seemed to wax toward a quick overall victory.
The war can be divided into four major phases: The Bohemian Revolt, the Danish intervention, the Swedish intervention, and the French intervention.
Without heirs, Emperor Matthias sought to assure an orderly transition during his lifetime by having his dynastic heir (the fiercely Catholic Ferdinand of Styria, later Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor) elected to the separate royal thrones of Bohemia and Hungary. Some of the Protestant leaders of Bohemia feared they would be losing the religious rights granted to them by Emperor Rudolf II in his Letter of Majesty (1609). They preferred the Protestant Frederick V, elector of the Palatinate (successor of Frederick IV, the creator of the Protestant Union). However, other Protestants supported the stance taken by the Catholics, and in 1617, Ferdinand was duly elected by the Bohemian Estates to become the crown prince, and automatically upon the death of Matthias, the next king of Bohemia.
The king-elect then sent two Catholic councillors (Vilem Slavata of Chlum and Jaroslav Borzita of Martinice) as his representatives to Prague Castle in Prague in May 1618. Ferdinand had wanted them to administer the government in his absence. On 23 May 1618, an assembly of Protestants seized them and threw them (and also secretary Philip Fabricius) out of the palace window, which was some off the ground. Although injured, they survived. This event, known as the Third Defenestration of Prague, started the Bohemian Revolt. Soon afterward, the Bohemian conflict spread through all of the Bohemian Crown, including Bohemia, Silesia, Upper and Lower Lusatia, and Moravia. Moravia was already embroiled in a conflict between Catholics and Protestants. The religious conflict eventually spread across the whole continent of Europe and also increased the concerns of a Habsburg hegemony, involving France, Sweden, and a number of other countries.
The death of Emperor Matthias emboldened the rebellious Protestant leaders, who had been on the verge of a settlement. The weaknesses of both Ferdinand (now officially on the throne after the death of Emperor Matthias) and of the Bohemians themselves led to the spread of the war to western Germany. Ferdinand was compelled to call on his nephew, King Philip IV of Spain, for assistance.
The Bohemians, desperate for allies against the emperor, applied to be admitted into the Protestant Union, which was led by their original candidate for the Bohemian throne, the Calvinist Frederick V, Elector Palatine. The Bohemians hinted Frederick would become King of Bohemia if he allowed them to join the Union and come under its protection. However, similar offers were made by other members of the Bohemian Estates to the Duke of Savoy, the Elector of Saxony, and the Prince of Transylvania. The Austrians, who seemed to have intercepted every letter leaving Prague, made these duplicities public.
This unraveled much of the support for the Bohemians, particularly in the court of Saxony.
In spite of these issues surrounding their support, the rebellion initially favoured the Bohemians. They were joined in the revolt by much of Upper Austria, whose nobility was then chiefly Lutheran and Calvinist. Lower Austria revolted soon after, and in 1619, Count Thurn led an army to the walls of Vienna itself. Moreover, within the British Isles, Frederick V's cause became seen as that of Elizabeth Stuart, described by her supporters as "The Jewell of Europe", leading to a stream of tens of thousands of volunteers to her cause throughout the course of the Thirty Years' War. In the opening phase, an Anglo-Dutch regiment under Horace Vere headed to the Palatinate, a Scots-Dutch regiment under Colonel John Seton moved into Bohemia, and that was joined by a mixed "Regiment of Brittanes" (Scots and English) led by the Scottish Catholic Sir Andrew Gray. Seton's regiment was the last of the Protestant allies to leave the Bohemian theatre after tenaciously holding the town of Třeboň until 1622, and only departing once the rights of the citizens had been secured.
In the east, the Protestant Hungarian Prince of Transylvania, Gabriel Bethlen, led a spirited campaign into Hungary with the support of the Ottoman Sultan, Osman II. Fearful of the Catholic policies of Ferdinand II, Gabriel Bethlen requested a protectorate by Osman II, so "the Ottoman Empire became the one and only ally of great-power status which the rebellious Bohemian states could muster after they had shaken off Habsburg rule and had elected Frederick V as a Protestant king". Ambassadors were exchanged, with Heinrich Bitter visiting Constantinople in January 1620, and Mehmed Aga visiting Prague in July 1620. The Ottomans offered a force of 60,000 cavalry to Frederick and plans were made for an invasion of Poland with 400,000 troops, in exchange for the payment of an annual tribute to the sultan. These negotiations triggered the Polish–Ottoman War of 1620–21. The Ottomans defeated the Poles, who were supporting the Habsburgs in the Thirty Years' War, at the Battle of Cecora in September–October 1620, but were not able to further intervene efficiently before the Bohemian defeat at the Battle of the White Mountain in November 1620. Later, Poles defeated the Ottomans at the Battle of Chocim and the war ended with a "status quo".
The emperor, who had been preoccupied with the Uskok War, hurried to muster an army to stop the Bohemians and their allies from overwhelming his country. Count Bucquoy, the commander of the Imperial army, defeated the forces of the Protestant Union led by Count Mansfeld at the Battle of Sablat, on 10 June 1619. This cut off Count Thurn's communications with Prague, and he was forced to abandon his siege of Vienna. The Battle of Sablat also cost the Protestants an important ally – Savoy, long an opponent of Habsburg expansion. Savoy had already sent considerable sums of money to the Protestants and even troops to garrison fortresses in the Rhineland. The capture of Mansfeld's field chancery revealed the Savoyards' involvement, and they were forced to bow out of the war.
The Spanish sent an army from Brussels under Ambrogio Spinola to support the Emperor. In addition, the Spanish ambassador to Vienna, Don Íñigo Vélez de Oñate, persuaded Protestant Saxony to intervene against Bohemia in exchange for control over Lusatia. The Saxons invaded, and the Spanish army in the west prevented the Protestant Union's forces from assisting. Oñate conspired to transfer the electoral title from the Palatinate to the Duke of Bavaria in exchange for his support and that of the Catholic League.
The Catholic League's army pacified Upper Austria, while Imperial forces under Johan Tzerclaes, Count of Tilly, pacified Lower Austria. The two armies united and moved north into Bohemia. Ferdinand II decisively defeated Frederick V at the Battle of White Mountain, near Prague, on 8 November 1620. In addition to becoming Catholic, Bohemia remained in Habsburg hands for nearly 300 years.
This defeat led to the dissolution of the Protestant Union and the loss of Frederick V's holdings despite the tenacious defence of Trebon, Bohemia (under Colonel Seton) until 1622 and Frankenthal (under Colonel Vere) the following year. Frederick was outlawed from the Holy Roman Empire, and his territories, the Rhenish Palatinate, were given to Catholic nobles. His title of elector of the Palatinate was given to his distant cousin, Duke Maximilian of Bavaria. Frederick, now landless, made himself a prominent exile abroad and tried to curry support for his cause in Sweden, the Netherlands, and Denmark-Norway.
This was a serious blow to Protestant ambitions in the region. As the rebellion collapsed, the widespread confiscation of property and suppression of the Bohemian nobility ensured the country would return to the Catholic side after more than two centuries of Hussite and other religious dissent. The Spanish, seeking to outflank the Dutch in preparation for renewal of the Eighty Years' War, took Frederick's lands, the Electorate of the Palatinate. The first phase of the war in eastern Germany ended 31 December 1621, when the prince of Transylvania and the emperor signed the Peace of Nikolsburg, which gave Transylvania a number of territories in Royal Hungary.
Some historians regard the period from 1621 to 1625 as a distinct portion of the Thirty Years' War, calling it the "Palatinate phase". With the catastrophic defeat of the Protestant army at White Mountain and the departure of the prince of Transylvania, greater Bohemia was pacified. However, the war in the Palatinate continued: Famous mercenary leaders – such as, particularly, Count Ernst von Mansfeld – helped Frederick V to defend his countries, the Upper and the Rhine Palatinate. This phase of the war consisted of much smaller battles, mostly sieges conducted by the Imperial and the Spanish armies. Mannheim and Heidelberg fell in 1622, and Frankenthal was finally transferred two years later, thus leaving the Palatinate in the hands of the Spaniards.
The remnants of the Protestant armies, led by Mansfeld and Duke Christian of Brunswick, withdrew into Dutch service. Although their arrival in the Netherlands did help to lift the siege of Bergen-op-Zoom (October 1622), the Dutch could not provide permanent shelter for them. They were paid off and sent to occupy neighboring East Frisia. Mansfeld remained in the Dutch Republic, but Christian wandered off to "assist" his kin in the Lower Saxon Circle, attracting the attentions of Count Tilly. With the news that Mansfeld would not be supporting him, Christian's army began a steady retreat toward the safety of the Dutch border. On 6 August 1623, short of the border, Tilly's more disciplined army caught up with them. In the ensuing Battle of Stadtlohn, Christian was decisively defeated, losing over four-fifths of his army, which had been some 15,000 strong. After this catastrophe, Frederick V, already in exile in The Hague and under growing pressure from his father-in-law, James I, to end his involvement in the war, was forced to abandon any hope of launching further campaigns. The Protestant rebellion had been crushed.
Following the Wars of Religion of 1562–1598, the Protestant Huguenots of France (mainly located in the southwestern provinces) had enjoyed two decades of internal peace under Henry IV, who was originally a Huguenot before converting to Catholicism, and had protected Protestants through the Edict of Nantes. His successor, Louis XIII, under the regency of his Italian Catholic mother, Marie de' Medici, was much less tolerant. The Huguenots responded to increasing persecution by arming themselves, forming independent political and military structures, establishing diplomatic contacts with foreign powers, and finally, openly revolting against the central power. The revolt became an international conflict with the involvement of England in the Anglo-French War (1627–29). The House of Stuart in England had been involved in attempts to secure peace in Europe (through the Spanish Match), and had intervened in the war against both Spain and France. However, defeat by the French (which indirectly led to the assassination of the English leader the Duke of Buckingham), lack of funds for war, and internal conflict between Charles I and his Parliament led to a redirection of English involvement in European affairs – much to the dismay of Protestant forces on the continent. This involved a continued reliance on the Anglo-Dutch brigade as the main agency of English military participation against the Habsburgs, although regiments also fought for Sweden thereafter. France remained the largest Catholic kingdom unaligned with the Habsburg powers, and would later actively wage war against Spain. The French Crown's response to the Huguenot rebellion was not so much a representation of the typical religious polarization of the Thirty Years' War, but rather an attempt at achieving national hegemony by an absolutist monarchy.
Peace following the Imperial victory at Stadtlohn (1623) proved short-lived, with conflict resuming at the initiation of Denmark–Norway. Danish involvement, referred to as the Low Saxon War or Kejserkrigen ("the Emperor's War"), began when Christian IV of Denmark, a Lutheran who also ruled as Duke of Holstein, a duchy within the Holy Roman Empire, helped the Lutheran rulers of the neighbouring principalities in what is now Lower Saxony by leading an army against the Imperial forces in 1625. Denmark-Norway had feared that the recent Catholic successes threatened its sovereignty as a Protestant nation. Christian IV had also profited greatly from his policies in northern Germany. For instance, in 1621, Hamburg had been forced to accept Danish sovereignty.
Denmark-Norway's King Christian IV had obtained for his kingdom a level of stability and wealth that was virtually unmatched elsewhere in Europe. Denmark-Norway was funded by tolls on the Øresund and also by extensive war reparations from Sweden. Denmark-Norway's cause was aided by France, which together with Charles I, had agreed to help subsidize the war, not the least because Christian was a blood uncle to both the Stuart king and his sister Elizabeth of Bohemia through their mother, Anne of Denmark. Some 13,700 Scottish soldiers were sent as allies to help Christian IV under the command of General Robert Maxwell, 1st Earl of Nithsdale. Moreover, some 6,000 English troops under Charles Morgan also eventually arrived to bolster the defence of Denmark-Norway, though it took longer for these to arrive than Christian hoped, not the least due to the ongoing British campaigns against France and Spain. Thus, Christian, as war-leader of the Lower Saxon Circle, entered the war with an army of only 20,000 mercenaries, some of his allies from England and Scotland and a national army 15,000 strong, leading them as Duke of Holstein rather than as King of Denmark-Norway.
To fight Christian, Ferdinand II employed the military help of Albrecht von Wallenstein, a Bohemian nobleman who had made himself rich from the confiscated estates of his Protestant countrymen. Wallenstein pledged his army, which numbered between 30,000 and 100,000 soldiers, to Ferdinand II in return for the right to plunder the captured territories. Christian, who knew nothing of Wallenstein's forces when he invaded, was forced to retire before the combined forces of Wallenstein and Tilly. Christian's mishaps continued when all of the allies he thought he had were forced aside: France was in the midst of a civil war, Sweden was at war with the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and neither Brandenburg nor Saxony was interested in changes to the tenuous peace in eastern Germany. Moreover, neither of the substantial British contingents arrived in time to prevent Wallenstein defeating Mansfeld's army at the Battle of Dessau Bridge (1626) or Tilly's victory at the Battle of Lutter (1626). Mansfeld died some months later of illness, apparently tuberculosis, in Dalmatia.
Wallenstein's army marched north, occupying Mecklenburg, Pomerania, and Jutland itself, but proved unable to take the Dano-Norwegian capital Copenhagen on the island of Zealand. Wallenstein lacked a fleet, and neither the Hanseatic ports nor the Poles would allow the building of an imperial fleet on the Baltic coast. He then laid siege to Stralsund, the only belligerent Baltic port with sufficient facilities to build a large fleet; it soon became clear, however, that the cost of continuing the war would far outweigh any gains from conquering the rest of Denmark. Wallenstein feared losing his northern German gains to a Danish-Swedish alliance, while Christian IV had suffered another defeat in the Battle of Wolgast (1628); both were ready to negotiate.
Negotiations concluded with the Treaty of Lübeck in 1629, which stated that Christian IV could retain control over Denmark-Norway (including the duchies of Sleswick and Holstein) if he would abandon his support for the Protestant German states. Thus, in the following two years, the Catholic powers subjugated more land. At this point, the Catholic League persuaded Ferdinand II to take back the Lutheran holdings that were, according to the Peace of Augsburg, rightfully the possession of the Catholic Church. Enumerated in the Edict of Restitution (1629), these possessions included two archbishoprics, 16 bishoprics, and hundreds of monasteries. In the same year, Gabriel Bethlen, the Calvinist prince of Transylvania, died. Only the port of Stralsund continued to hold out against Wallenstein and the emperor, having been bolstered by Scottish 'volunteers' who arrived from the Swedish army to support their countrymen already there in the service of Denmark-Norway. These men were led by Colonel Alexander Leslie, who became governor of the city. As Colonel Robert Monro recorded:
Leslie held Stralsund until 1630, using the port as a base to capture the surrounding towns and ports to provide a secure beach-head for a full-scale Swedish landing under Gustavus Adolphus.
The War of the Mantuan Succession (1628–31) was a peripheral part of the Thirty Years' War. Its "casus belli" was the extinction of the direct male line of the House of Gonzaga in December 1627. Brothers Francesco IV (1612), Ferdinando (1612–26) and Vincenzo II (1626–27), the last three dukes of Mantua from the direct line, had all died leaving no legitimate heirs.
Northern Italy was a strategic battlefield for France and the Habsburgs for centuries. Control of this area allowed the Habsburgs to threaten France's restive southern provinces of Languedoc and the Dauphiné, as well as protecting the supply route known as the Spanish Road; this meant a succession dispute in Mantua inevitably involved outside parties.[3]
The Duke of Nevers was a son of Louis, younger brother of Vincenzo II's grandfather (see family tree). Louis had been naturalized French about 1550, and married the heiress of the duchies of Nevers and Rethel in 1566. For the French Crown Nevers, a French peer, would naturally be preferable as ruler in Mantua. Nevers arrived there in January 1628 and was proclaimed its sovereign.
There were two rival claimants. One was Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy, whose daughter Margaret was the widow of Francis IV. Although their son had died an infant in 1612, it was their elder daughter Maria (1612–1660) who had married Charles de Nevers in 1627. Charles Emmanuel based his right to Mantua on his daughter's claim to a substantial portion of the Gonzaga realm, the duchy of Montferrat, which was demonstrably heritable by females since the Gonzagas had acquired it through marriage to Margherita Paleologa in 1540.
The other claimant was Ferrante II, Duke of Guastalla, a distant Gonzaga cousin who voiced his claim but did not immediately place troops in the field. He was, however, supported by Emperor Ferdinand II, whose wife at the time, Eleanor of Mantua the elder (1598–1655), had been the sister of the last three Dukes of Mantua. He sought to re-attach the Duchy of Mantua to the Holy Roman Empire; Ferrante being in the Imperial-Spanish camp, was a useful tool to that purpose.
But as the Thirty Years' War wore on, it affected dynastic alliances. Charles Emmanuel obtained support from the Habsburgs, who controlled Milan.
The initial attempt of Don Gonzalo Fernandez de Córdoba, Spanish governor of Milan, and Charles-Emmanuel was to partition the Mantuan-Montferrat patrimony, which lay to east and to west of Milan. The Spanish minister supported the Guastalla claimant in Mantua, as the weaker of two neighbors, and the Savoy claimant in Montferrat, the lesser of the territories. Friction between the confederates ensued, when Charles-Emmanuel moved his troops into more territory than had been agreed upon, laying siege to the town of Casale, capital of Montferrat.
While Louis XIII of France and Cardinal Richelieu were concerned by new Huguenot uprisings in Languedoc, the capture of La Rochelle in 1628 allowed them to send forces to the relief of Casale, then besieged by a Habsburg army from Milan. In March 1629, the French stormed barricades blocking the Pas de Suse and by the end of the month they had lifted the siege of Casale and taken the strategic fortress of Pinerolo.
In April, France and Savoy agreed the Treaty of Susa and the French army returned to France, leaving a garrison at Pinerolo. The papal envoy in negotiations at Casale was Jules Mazarin. Emperor Ferdinand II's forces under Ramboldo, Count of Collalto invaded the Grisons and Valtelline. The governor was recalled from Milan,[6] followed by the insults of the citizens, for bread had been scarce for months. The following winter, Milan was devastated by the bubonic plague introduced by the armies, which has been vividly described by Manzoni.
Later in 1629, Emperor Ferdinand II sent a Landsknecht army to besiege Mantua. Charles left without the promised support from Louis XIII of France. The siege lasted until July 1630, when the city, already struck by a plague, was brutally put to the sack for three days and three nights by troops led by Count Aldringen and Gallas. But the Emperor did not succeed in Mantua. Due to developments in Germany, where the Swedes were warring, he was forced to return his attention to the principal theatre of the big war.
The French first agreed to the Peace of Regensburg (or the Treaty of Ratisbonne), which was negotiated by French representatives Father Joseph and Nicolas Brûlart de Sillery. The accord was signed on 13 October 1630, which provided favorable terms to French interests in Italy despite their military setbacks. Specifically, the French were allowed to maintain their garrison in Grisons. The accord also confirmed Charles Gonzaga-Nevers as Duke of Mantua and Marquess of Montferrat in exchange for minor concessions to Charles Emmanuel of Savoy and Ferrante of Guastalla. The Habsburgs would on their side reduce their number of troops in the region. The treaty was seen as so unfavorable to the Spanish that the Spanish prime minister, Olivares, considered it no different than a surrender.
The treaty, moreover, contained a troublesome clause. It included an agreement whereby the French were not permitted to establish alliances in Germany against a reigning Holy Roman Emperor. This should have sidelined France in the ongoing conflict. Louis XIII of France refused to accept this, and the Austrians found themselves still at war, yet with diminished forces in the area. The new forces sent south of the Alps were to be sorely missed when Swedish forces under Gustavus Adolphus invaded from the north.
The Italian peace was eventually made with the Treaty of Cherasco, signed in a city in Piedmont on 19 June 1631. France, which in 1629 had taken Savoy, then captured Pinerolo in Piedmont the following year, renounced its conquests in Italy. Charles Gonzaga-Nevers was confirmed as ruler in Mantua and Montferrat, with concessions to the other claimants: Vittorio Amedeo I, who succeeded in Savoy after the sudden death of his father, Duke Charles Emmanuel, gained Trino and Alba in Montferrat; while Cesare II of Guastalla, Ferrante's son, was given Luzzara and Reggiolo. Later it was discovered that by a secret treaty with Vittorio Amedeo, Pinerolo was surrendered to France.
Some in the court of Ferdinand II did not trust Wallenstein, believing he sought to join forces with the German princes and thus gain influence over the Emperor. Ferdinand II dismissed Wallenstein in 1630. He later recalled him, after the Swedes, led by King Gustavus Adolphus, had successfully invaded the Holy Roman Empire and turned the tables on the Catholics.
Like Christian IV before him, Gustavus Adolphus came to aid the German Lutherans, to forestall Catholic suzerainty in his back yard, and to obtain economic influence in the German states around the Baltic Sea. He was also concerned about the growing power of the Habsburg monarchy, and like Christian IV before him, was heavily subsidized by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister of Louis XIII of France, and by the Dutch. From 1630 to 1634, Swedish-led armies drove the Catholic forces back, regaining much of the lost Protestant territory. During his campaign, he managed to conquer half of the imperial kingdoms, making Sweden the leader of Protestantism in continental Europe until the Swedish Empire ended in 1721.
Swedish forces entered the Holy Roman Empire via the Duchy of Pomerania, which served as the Swedish bridgehead since the Treaty of Stettin (1630). After dismissing Wallenstein in 1630, Ferdinand II became dependent on the Catholic League. Gustavus Adolphus allied with France in the Treaty of Bärwalde (January 1631). France and Bavaria signed the secret Treaty of Fontainebleau (1631), but this was rendered irrelevant by Swedish attacks against Bavaria. At the Battle of Breitenfeld (1631), Gustavus Adolphus's forces defeated the Catholic League led by Tilly. A year later, they met again in another Protestant victory, this time accompanied by the death of Tilly. The upper hand had now switched from the Catholic side to the Protestant side, led by Sweden. In 1630, Sweden had paid at least 2,368,022 daler for its army of 42,000 men. In 1632, it contributed only one-fifth of that (476,439 daler) towards the cost of an army more than three times as large (149,000 men). This was possible due to subsidies from France, and the recruitment of prisoners (most of them taken at the Battle of Breitenfeld) into the Swedish army.
Before that time, Sweden waged war with the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and could not support the Protestant states properly. For that reason, the King Gustavus Adolphus enlisted support of the Russian Tsar Michael I, who also fought the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in hopes of regaining Smolensk. While a separate conflict, the Smolensk War became an integral part of Thirty Years' confrontation.
The majority of mercenaries recruited by Gustavus Adolphus were German, but Scottish soldiers were also very numerous. These were composed of some 12,000 Scots already in service before the Swedes entered the war under the command of General Sir James Spens and colonels such as Sir Alexander Leslie, Sir Patrick Ruthven, and Sir John Hepburn. These were joined by a further 8,000 men under the command of James Marquis Hamilton. The total number of Scots in Swedish service by the end of the war is estimated at some 30,000 men, no less than 15 of whom served with the rank of major-general or above.
With Tilly dead, Ferdinand II returned to the aid of Wallenstein and his large army. Wallenstein marched up to the south, threatening Gustavus Adolphus's supply chain. Gustavus Adolphus knew that Wallenstein was waiting for the attack and was prepared but found no other option. He forced the Battle of Fürth with Wallenstein in late August 1632, arguably the greatest blunder in his German campaign. The two clashed once again two months later, in the Battle of Lützen (1632), where the Swedes prevailed, but Gustavus Adolphus was killed.
Ferdinand II's suspicion of Wallenstein resumed in 1633, when Wallenstein attempted to arbitrate the differences between the Catholic and Protestant sides. Ferdinand II may have feared that Wallenstein would switch sides, and arranged for his arrest after removing him from command. One of Wallenstein's soldiers, Captain Devereux, killed him when he attempted to contact the Swedes in the town hall of Eger (Cheb) on 25 February 1634. The same year, the Protestant forces, lacking Gustavus Adolphus's leadership, were smashed at the First Battle of Nördlingen by the Spanish-Imperial forces commanded by Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand.
By the spring of 1635, all Swedish resistance in the south of Germany had ended. After that, the Imperial and Protestant German sides met for negotiations, producing the Peace of Prague (1635), which entailed a delay in the enforcement of the Edict of Restitution for 40 years and allowed Protestant rulers to retain secularized bishoprics held by them in 1627. This protected the Lutheran rulers of northeastern Germany, but not those of the south and west (whose lands had been occupied by the imperial or league armies prior to 1627).
The treaty also provided for the union of the army of the emperor and the armies of the German states into a single army of the Holy Roman Empire (although John George I of Saxony and Maximilian I of Bavaria kept, as a practical matter, independent command of their own forces, now nominally components of the "imperial" army). Finally, German princes were forbidden from establishing alliances amongst themselves or with foreign powers, and amnesty was granted to any ruler who had taken up arms against the emperor after the arrival of the Swedes in 1630.
This treaty failed to satisfy France, however, because of the renewed strength it granted the Habsburgs. France then entered the conflict, beginning the final period of the Thirty Years' War. Sweden did not take part in the Peace of Prague and it continued the war together with France. Initially after the Peace of Prague, the Swedish armies were pushed back by the reinforced Imperial army north into Germany.
France, although mostly Roman Catholic, was a rival of the Holy Roman Empire and Spain. Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister of King Louis XIII of France, considered the Habsburgs too powerful, since they held a number of territories on France's eastern border, including portions of the Low Countries. Richelieu had already begun intervening indirectly in the war in January 1631, when the French diplomat Hercule de Charnacé signed the Treaty of Bärwalde with Gustavus Adolphus, by which France agreed to support the Swedes with 1,000,000 livres each year in return for a Swedish promise to maintain an army in Germany against the Habsburgs. The treaty also stipulated that Sweden would not conclude a peace with the Holy Roman Emperor without first receiving France's approval.
After the Swedish rout at Nördlingen in September 1634 and the Peace of Prague in 1635, in which the Protestant German princes sued for peace with the Emperor, Sweden's ability to continue the war alone appeared doubtful, and Richelieu made the decision to enter into direct war against the Habsburgs. France declared war on Spain in May 1635 and the Holy Roman Empire in August 1636, opening offensives against the Habsburgs in Germany and the Low Countries. France aligned her strategy with the allied Swedes in Wismar (1636) and Hamburg (1638).
After the Peace of Prague, the Swedes reorganised the Royal Army under Johan Banér and created a new one, the Army of the Weser under the command of Alexander Leslie. The two army groups moved south from spring 1636, re-establishing alliances on the way including a revitalised one with Wilhelm of Hesse-Kassel. The two Swedish armies combined and confronted the Imperials at the Battle of Wittstock. Despite the odds being stacked against them, the Swedish army won. This success largely reversed many of the effects of their defeat at Nördlingen, albeit not without creating some tensions between Banér and Leslie.
Emperor Ferdinand II died in 1637 and was succeeded by his son Ferdinand III, who was strongly inclined toward ending the war through negotiations. His army did, however, win an important success at the Battle of Vlotho in 1638 against a combined Swedish-English-Palatine force. This victory effectively ended the involvement of the Palatinate in the war.
French military efforts met with disaster, and the Spanish counter-attacked, invading French territory. The Imperial general Johann von Werth and Spanish commander Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand of Spain ravaged the French provinces of Champagne, Burgundy, and Picardy, and even threatened Paris in 1636. Then, the tide began to turn for the French. The Spanish army was repulsed by Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar. Bernhard's victory in the Battle of Breisach pushed the Habsburg armies back from the borders of France. Then, for a time, widespread fighting ensued until 1640, with neither side gaining an advantage.
In 1640 the war reached a climax and the tide turned clearly in favor of the French and against Spain, starting with the siege and capture of the fort at Arras. The French conquered Arras from the Spanish following a siege that lasted from 16 June to 9 August 1640. When Arras fell, the way was opened to the French to take all of Flanders. The ensuing French campaign against the Spanish forces in Flanders culminated with a decisive French victory at the battle of Rocroi in May 1643.
Meanwhile, an important act in the war was played out by the Swedes. After the battle of Wittstock, the Swedish army regained the initiative in the German campaign. In the Second Battle of Breitenfeld in 1642, outside Leipzig, the Swedish Field Marshal Lennart Torstenson defeated an army of the Holy Roman Empire led by Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria and his deputy, Prince-General Ottavio Piccolomini, Duke of Amalfi. The imperial army suffered 20,000 casualties. In addition, the Swedish army took 5,000 prisoners and seized 46 guns, at a cost to themselves of 4,000 killed or wounded. The battle enabled Sweden to occupy Saxony and impressed on Ferdinand III the need to include Sweden, and not only France, in any peace negotiations.
Louis XIII died in 1643, leaving his five-year-old son Louis XIV on the throne. Mere days later, French General Louis II de Bourbon, 4th Prince de Condé, Duc d'Enghien, The Great Condé, defeated the Spanish army at the Battle of Rocroi in 1643. The same year, however, the French were defeated by the Imperial and Catholic League forces at the battle of Tuttlingen. The chief minister of Louis XIII, Cardinal Mazarin, facing the domestic crisis of the Fronde in 1645, began working to end the war.
In 1643, Denmark-Norway made preparations to again intervene in the war, but on the imperial side (against Sweden). The Swedish marshal Lennart Torstenson expelled Danish prince Frederick from Bremen-Verden, gaining a stronghold south of Denmark-Norway and hindering Danish participation as mediators in the peace talks in Westphalia. Torstensson went on to occupy Jutland, and after the Royal Swedish Navy under Carl Gustaf Wrangel inflicted a decisive defeat on the Danish Navy in the battle of Fehmern Belt in an action of 13 October 1644, forcing them to sue for peace. With Denmark-Norway out of the war, Torstenson then pursued the Imperial army under Gallas from Jutland in Denmark south to Bohemia. At the Battle of Jankau near Prague, the Swedish army defeated the Imperial army under Gallas and could occupy Bohemian lands and threaten Prague, as well as Vienna.
In 1645, a French army under Turenne was almost destroyed by the Bavarians at the Battle of Herbsthausen. However, reinforced by Louis II de Bourbon, Prince de Condé, it defeated its opponent in the Second Battle of Nördlingen. The last Catholic commander of note, Baron Franz von Mercy, died in the battle. However, the French army's effort on the Rhine had little result, in contrast to its string of victories in Flanders and Artois. The same year, the Swedes entered Austria and besieged Vienna, but they could not take the city and had to retreat. The siege of Brünn in Bohemia proved fruitless, as the Swedish army met with fierce resistance from the Habsburg forces. After five months, the Swedish army, severely worn out, had to withdraw.
On 14 March 1647, Bavaria, Cologne, France, and Sweden signed the Truce of Ulm. In 1648, the Swedes (commanded by Marshal Carl Gustaf Wrangel) and the French (led by Turenne) defeated the Imperial army at the Battle of Zusmarshausen, and Condé defeated the Spanish at Lens. However, an Imperial army led by Octavio Piccolomini managed to check the Franco-Swedish army in Bavaria, though their position remained fragile. The Battle of Prague in 1648 became the last action of the Thirty Years' War. The general Hans Christoff von Königsmarck, commanding Sweden's flying column, entered the city and captured Prague Castle (where the event that triggered the war – the Defenestration of Prague – took place, 30 years before). There, they captured many valuable treasures, including the "Codex Gigas", which is still today preserved in Stockholm. However, they failed to conquer the right-bank part of Prague and the old city, which resisted until the end of the war. These results left only the Imperial territories of Austria safely in Habsburg hands.
News of the French victories in Flanders in 1640 provided strong encouragement to separatist movements against Habsburg Spain in the territories of Catalonia and Portugal. It had been the conscious goal of Cardinal Richelieu to promote a "war by diversion" against the Spanish enhancing difficulties at home that might encourage them to withdraw from the war. To fight this war by diversion, Cardinal Richelieu had been supplying aid to the Catalans and Portuguese.
The "Reapers' War" Catalan revolt had sprung up spontaneously in May 1640. The threat of having an anti-Habsburg territory establishing a powerful base south of the Pyrenees caused an immediate reaction from the monarchy. The Habsburg government sent a large army of 26,000 men to crush the Catalan revolt. On its way to Barcelona, the Spanish army retook several cities, executing hundreds of prisoners, and a rebel army of the recently proclaimed Catalan Republic was defeated in Martorell, near Barcelona, on January, 23. In response, the rebels reinforced their efforts and the Catalan Generalitat obtained an important military victory over the Spanish army in the Battle of Montjuïc (January 26, 1641) which dominated the city of Barcelona. Perpignan was taken from the Spanish after a siege of 10 months, and the whole of Roussillon fell under direct French control. The Catalan ruling powers half-heartedly accepted the proclamation of Louis XIII of France as sovereign count of Barcelona, as Lluís I of Catalonia For the next decade the Catalans fought under French vassalage, taking the initiative after Montjuïc. Meanwhile, increasing French control of political and administrative affairs, in particular in Northern Catalonia, and a firm military focus on the neighbouring Spanish kingdoms of Valencia and Aragon, in line with Richelieu's war against Spain, gradually undermined Catalan enthusiasm for the French.
In parallel, in December 1640, the Portuguese rose up against Spanish rule and once again Richelieu supplied aid to the insurgents.. The ensuing conflict with Spain brought Portugal into the Thirty Years' War as, at least, a peripheral player. From 1641 to 1668, the period during which the two nations were at war, Spain sought to isolate Portugal militarily and diplomatically, and Portugal tried to find the resources to maintain its independence through political alliances and maintenance of its colonial income.
The war by diversion in the Iberian Peninsula had its intended effect. Philip IV of Spain was reluctantly forced to divert his attention from the war in northern Europe to deal with his problems at home. Indeed, even at this time, some of Philip's advisers, including the Count of Oñate, were recommending that Philip withdraw from overseas commitments. With Trier, Alsace, and Lorraine all in French hands and the Dutch in charge of Limburg, the Channel and the North Sea, the "Spanish Road" connecting Habsburg Spain with the Habsburg possessions in the Netherlands and Austria was severed. Philip IV could no longer physically send reinforcements to the Low Countries. On 4 December 1642, Cardinal Richelieu died. However, his policy of war by diversion continued to pay dividends to France. Spain was unable to resist the continuing drumbeat of French victories—Gravelines was lost to the French in 1644, followed by Hulst in 1645 and Dunkirk in 1646. The Thirty Years' War would continue until 1648 when the Peace of Westphalia was signed.
The conflict between France and Spain continued in Catalonia until 1659, with the confrontation between two sovereigns and two Catalan governments, one based in Barcelona, under the control of Spain and the other in Perpingnan, under the occupation of France. In 1652 the French authorities renounced to Catalonia's territories south of the Pyrenees, but held control of Roussillon, thereby leading to the signing of the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659, which finally ended the war between France and Spain, with the partition of restive Catalonia between both countries. The Portuguese Restoration War ended with the Treaty of Lisbon in 1668, that terminated the 60-year Iberian Union.
Over a four-year period, the warring parties (the Holy Roman Empire, France, and Sweden) were actively negotiating at Osnabrück and Münster in Westphalia. The end of the war was not brought about by one treaty, but instead by a group of treaties such as the Treaty of Hamburg. On 15 May 1648, the Peace of Münster was signed, ending the Thirty Years' War. Over five months later, on 24 October, the Treaties of Münster and Osnabrück were signed.
The war ranks with the worst famines and plagues as the greatest medical catastrophe in modern European history. Lacking good census information, historians have extrapolated the experience of well-studied regions. John Theibault agrees with the conclusions in Günther Franz's "Der Dreissigjährige Krieg und das Deutsche Volk" (1940), that population losses were great but varied regionally (ranging as high as 50%) and says his estimates are the best available. The war killed soldiers and civilians directly, caused famines, destroyed livelihoods, disrupted commerce, postponed marriages and childbirth, and forced large numbers of people to relocate. The overall reduction of population in the German states was typically 25% to 40%. Some regions were affected much more than others. For example, Württemberg lost
three-quarters of its population during the war. In the region of Brandenburg, the losses had amounted to half, while in some areas, an estimated two-thirds of the population died. Overall, the male population of the German states was reduced by almost half. The population of the Czech lands declined by a third due to war, disease, famine, and the expulsion of Protestant population. Much of the destruction of civilian lives and property was caused by the cruelty and greed of mercenary soldiers. Villages were especially easy prey to the marauding armies. Those that survived, like the small village of Drais near Mainz, would take almost a hundred years to recover. The Swedish armies alone may have destroyed up to 2,000 castles, 18,000 villages, and 1,500 towns in Germany, one-third of all German towns.
The war caused serious dislocations to both the economies and populations of central Europe, but may have done no more than seriously exacerbate changes that had begun earlier. Also, some historians contend that the human cost of the war may actually have improved the living standards of the survivors. According to Ulrich Pfister, Germany was one of the richest countries in Europe per capita in 1500, but ranked far lower in 1600. Then, it recovered during the 1600–1660 period, in part thanks to the demographic shock of the Thirty Years' War.
Pestilence of several kinds raged among combatants and civilians in Germany and surrounding lands from 1618 to 1648. Many features of the war spread disease. These included troop movements, the influx of soldiers from foreign countries, and the shifting locations of battle fronts. In addition, the displacement of civilian populations and the overcrowding of refugees into cities led to both disease and famine. Information about numerous epidemics is generally found in local chronicles, such as parish registers and tax records, that are often incomplete and may be exaggerated. The chronicles do show that epidemic disease was not a condition exclusive to war time, but was present in many parts of Germany for several decades prior to 1618.
When the Imperial and Danish armies clashed in Saxony and Thuringia during 1625 and 1626, disease and infection in local communities increased. Local chronicles repeatedly referred to "head disease", "Hungarian disease", and a "spotted" disease identified as typhus. After the Mantuan War, between France and the Habsburgs in Italy, the northern half of the Italian peninsula was in the throes of a bubonic plague epidemic (Italian Plague of 1629–1631). During the unsuccessful siege of Nuremberg, in 1632, civilians and soldiers in both the Imperial and Swedish armies succumbed to typhus and scurvy. Two years later, as the Imperial army pursued the defeated Swedes into southwest Germany, deaths from epidemics were high along the Rhine River. Bubonic plague continued to be a factor in the war. Beginning in 1634, Dresden, Munich, and smaller German communities such as Oberammergau recorded large numbers of plague casualties. In the last decades of the war, both typhus and dysentery had become endemic in Germany.
Contemporary records recall, in harrowing detail, what life was like — people were starving in huge numbers and the Church even received reports of cannibalism.
Among the other great social traumas abetted by the war was a major outbreak of witch hunting. This violent wave of inquisitions first erupted in the territories of Franconia during the time of the Danish intervention and the hardship and turmoil the conflict had produced among the general population enabled the hysteria to spread quickly to other parts of Germany. Residents of areas that had been devastated not only by the conflict but also by the numerous crop failures, famines, and epidemics that accompanied it were quick to attribute these calamities to supernatural causes. In this tumultuous and highly volatile environment allegations of witchcraft against neighbors and fellow citizens flourished. The sheer volume of trials and executions during this time would mark the period as the peak of the European witch-hunting phenomenon.
The persecutions began in the Bishopric of Würzburg, then under the leadership of Prince-Bishop Philipp Adolf von Ehrenberg. An ardent devotee of the Counter-Reformation, Ehrenberg was eager to consolidate Catholic political authority in the territories he administered. Beginning in 1626 Ehrenberg staged numerous mass trials for witchcraft in which all levels of society (including the nobility and the clergy) found themselves targeted in a relentless series of purges. By 1630, 219 men, women, and children had been burned at the stake in the city of Würzburg itself, while an estimated 900 people are believed to have been put to death in the rural areas of the province.
Concurrent with the events in Würzburg, Prince-Bishop Johann von Dornheim would embark upon a similar series of large-scale witch trials in the nearby territory of Bamberg. A specially designed "Malefizhaus" (‘crime house’) was erected containing a torture chamber, whose walls were adorned with Bible verses, in which to interrogate the accused. The Bamberg witch trials would drag on for five years and claimed upwards of 1000 lives, among them Dorothea Flock and the city's long-time "Bürgermeister" (mayor) Johannes Junius. Meanwhile, 274 suspected witches were put to the torch in the Bishopric of Eichstätt in 1629, while another 50 perished in the adjacent Duchy of Palatinate-Neuburg that same year.
Elsewhere, the persecutions arrived in the wake of the early Imperial military successes. The witch hunts expanded into Baden following its reconquest by Tilly while the Imperial victory in the Palatinate opened the way for their eventual spread to the Rhineland. The Rhenish electorates of Mainz and Trier both witnessed mass burnings of suspected witches during this time. In Cologne the territory's Prince-Elector, Ferdinand of Bavaria, presided over a particularly infamous series of witchcraft trials that included the controversial prosecution of Katharina Henot, who was burned at the stake in 1627. During this time the witch hunts also continued their unchecked growth, as new and increased incidents of alleged witchcraft began surfacing in the territories of Westphalia.
The witch hunts reached their peak around the time of the Edict of Restitution in 1629 and much of the remaining institutional and popular enthusiasm for them faded in the aftermath of Sweden's entry into the war the following year. However, in Würzburg, the persecutions continued until the death of Ehrenberg in July, 1631. The excesses of this period inspired the Jesuit scholar and poet Friedrich Spee (himself a former "witch confessor") to author his scathing legal and moral condemnation of the witch trials, the "Cautio Criminalis". This influential work was later credited with bringing an end to the practice of witch-burning in some areas of Germany and its gradual abolition throughout Europe.
The Thirty Years' War rearranged the European power structure. During the last decade of the conflict Spain showed clear signs of weakening. While Spain was fighting in France, Portugal – which had been under personal union with Spain for 60 years – acclaimed John IV of Braganza as king in 1640, and the House of Braganza became the new dynasty of Portugal. Spain was forced to accept the independence of the Dutch Republic in 1648, ending the Eighty Years' War. Bourbon France challenged Habsburg Spain's supremacy in the Franco-Spanish War (1635–59), gaining definitive ascendancy in the War of Devolution (1667–68) and the Franco-Dutch War (1672–78), under the leadership of Louis XIV. The war resulted in the partition of Catalonia between the Spanish and French empires in the Treaty of the Pyrenees.
The war resulted in increased autonomy for the constituent states of the Holy Roman Empire, limiting the power of the emperor and decentralizing authority in German-speaking central Europe. For Austria and Bavaria, the result of the war was ambiguous. Bavaria was defeated, devastated, and occupied, but it gained some territory as a result of the treaty in 1648. Austria had utterly failed in reasserting its authority in the empire, but it had successfully suppressed Protestantism in its own dominions. Compared to large parts of Germany, much of its territory was not significantly devastated, and its army was stronger after the war than it was before, unlike that of most other states of the empire. This, along with the shrewd diplomacy of Ferdinand III, allowed it to play an important role in the following decades and to regain some authority among the other German states to face the growing threats of the Ottoman Empire and France. In the longer-term, however, due to the increased autonomy of other states within the Empire, Brandenburg-Prussia was gradually able to obtain status comparable to Austria within the Empire, particularly after defeating Austria in the First Silesian War of 1740-42 enabling it to seize Silesia from Austria, and in the 19th Century Prussia would be the facilitator of the unification of the vast majority of the German peoples (aside from those in Austria and Switzerland).
From 1643 to 1645, during the last years of the war, Sweden and Denmark-Norway fought the Torstenson War. The result of that conflict and the conclusion of the Thirty Years' War helped establish postwar Sweden as a major force in Europe.
The arrangements agreed upon in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 were instrumental in laying the legal foundations of the modern sovereign nation-state. Aside from establishing fixed territorial boundaries for many of the countries involved in the ordeal (as well as for the newer ones created afterwards), the Peace of Westphalia changed the relationship of subjects to their rulers. Previously, many people had borne overlapping, sometimes conflicting political and religious allegiances. Henceforth, the inhabitants of a given state were understood to be subject first and foremost to the laws and edicts of their respective state authority, not to the claims of any other entity, be it religious or secular. This in turn made it easier to levy national armies of significant size, loyal to their state and its leader, so as to reduce the need to employ mercenaries, whose drawbacks had been exposed a century earlier in The Prince. Among the drawbacks were the depravations (such as the "Schwedentrunk") and destruction caused by mercenary soldiers, which defied description and resulted in revulsion and hatred of the sponsor of the mercenaries; there would be no other figure such as Albrecht von Wallenstein, and the age of "Landsknecht" mercenaries would end.
The war also had more subtle consequences. It was the last major religious war in mainland Europe, ending the large-scale religious bloodshed accompanying the Reformation, which had begun over a century before. Other religious conflicts occurred until 1712, but only on a minor scale and no great wars.
The war also had consequences abroad, as the European powers extended their rivalry via naval power to overseas colonies. In 1630, a Dutch fleet of 70 ships took the rich sugar-exporting areas of Pernambuco (Brazil) from the Portuguese, though the Dutch would lose them by 1654. Fighting also took place in Africa and Asia.
Phillip II and Philip III of Portugal used forts built from the destroyed temples, including Fort Fredrick in Trincomalee, and others in southern Ceylon such as Colombo and Galle Fort, to fight sea battles with the Dutch, Danish, French, and English. This was the beginning of the loss of Ceylonese sovereignty. Later the Dutch and English succeeded the Portuguese as colonial rulers of the island.
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Table tennis
Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball back and forth across a table using small rackets. The game takes place on a hard table divided by a net. Except for the initial serve, the rules are generally as follows: players must allow a ball played toward them to bounce one time on their side of the table, and must return it so that it bounces on the opposite side at least once. A point is scored when a player fails to return the ball within the rules. Play is fast and demands quick reactions. Spinning the ball alters its trajectory and limits an opponent's options, giving the hitter a great advantage.
Table tennis is governed by the worldwide organization International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF), founded in 1926. ITTF currently includes 226 member associations. The table tennis official rules are specified in the ITTF handbook. Table tennis has been an Olympic sport since 1988, with several event categories. From 1988 until 2004, these were men's singles, women's singles, men's doubles and women's doubles. Since 2008, a team event has been played instead of the doubles.
The sport originated in Victorian England, where it was played among the upper-class as an after-dinner parlour game. It has been suggested that makeshift versions of the game were developed by British military officers in India around the 1860s or 1870s, who brought it back with them. A row of books stood up along the center of the table as a net, two more books served as rackets and were used to continuously hit a golf-ball.
The name "ping-pong" was in wide use before British manufacturer J. Jaques & Son Ltd trademarked it in 1901. The name "ping-pong" then came to describe the game played using the rather expensive Jaques's equipment, with other manufacturers calling it table tennis. A similar situation arose in the United States, where Jaques sold the rights to the "ping-pong" name to Parker Brothers. Parker Brothers then enforced its trademark for the term in the 1920s making the various associations change their names to "table tennis" instead of the more common, but trademarked, term.
The next major innovation was by James W. Gibb, a British enthusiast of table tennis, who discovered novelty celluloid balls on a trip to the US in 1901 and found them to be ideal for the game. This was followed by E.C. Goode who, in 1901, invented the modern version of the racket by fixing a sheet of pimpled, or stippled, rubber to the wooden blade. Table tennis was growing in popularity by 1901 to the extent that tournaments were being organized, books being written on the subject, and an unofficial world championship was held in 1902.
In 1921, the Table Tennis Association was founded, and in 1926 renamed the English Table Tennis Association. The International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) followed in 1926. London hosted the first official World Championships in 1926. In 1933, the United States Table Tennis Association, now called USA Table Tennis, was formed.
In the 1930s, Edgar Snow commented in "Red Star Over China" that the Communist forces in the Chinese Civil War had a "passion for the English game of table tennis" which he found "bizarre". On the other hand, the popularity of the sport waned in 1930s Soviet Union, partly because of the promotion of team and military sports, and partly because of a theory that the game had adverse health effects.
In the 1950s, paddles that used a rubber sheet combined with an underlying sponge layer changed the game dramatically, introducing greater spin and speed. These were introduced to Britain by sports goods manufacturer S.W. Hancock Ltd. The use of speed glue beginning in the mid 1980s increased the spin and speed even further, resulting in changes to the equipment to "slow the game down". Table tennis was introduced as an Olympic sport at the Olympics in 1988.
After the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, the ITTF instituted several rule changes that were aimed at making table tennis more viable as a televised spectator sport. First, the older balls were officially replaced by balls in October 2000. This increased the ball's air resistance and effectively slowed down the game. By that time, players had begun increasing the thickness of the fast sponge layer on their paddles, which made the game excessively fast and difficult to watch on television. A few months later, the ITTF changed from a 21-point to an 11-point scoring system (and the serve rotation was reduced from five points to two), effective in September 2001. This was intended to make games more fast-paced and exciting. The ITTF also changed the rules on service to prevent a player from hiding the ball during service, in order to increase the average length of rallies and to reduce the server's advantage, effective in 2002.
For the opponent to have time to realize a serve is taking place, the ball must be tossed a minimum of in the air. The ITTF states that all events after July 2014 are played with a new poly material ball.
The international rules specify that the game is played with a sphere having a mass of and a diameter of . The rules say that the ball shall bounce up when dropped from a height of onto a standard steel block thereby having a coefficient of restitution of 0.89 to 0.92. Balls are now made of a polymer instead of celluloid as of 2015, colored white or orange, with a matte finish. The choice of ball color is made according to the table color and its surroundings. For example, a white ball is easier to see on a green or blue table than it is on a grey table. Manufacturers often indicate the quality of the ball with a star rating system, usually from one to three, three being the highest grade. As this system is not standard across manufacturers, the only way a ball may be used in official competition is upon ITTF approval (the ITTF approval can be seen printed on the ball).
The 40 mm ball was introduced after the end of the 2000 Summer Olympics; previously a 38 mm ball was standard. This created some controversies. Then World No 1 table tennis professional Vladimir Samsonov threatened to pull out of the World Cup, which was scheduled to debut the new regulation ball on October 12, 2000.
The table is long, wide, and high with any continuous material so long as the table yields a uniform bounce of about when a standard ball is dropped onto it from a height of , or about . The table or playing surface is uniformly dark coloured and matte, divided into two halves by a net at in height. The ITTF approves only wooden tables or their derivates. Concrete tables with a steel net or a solid concrete partition are sometimes available in outside public spaces, such as parks.
Players are equipped with a laminated wooden racket covered with rubber on one or two sides depending on the grip of the player. The ITTF uses the term "racket", though "bat" is common in Britain, and "paddle" in the U.S. and Canada.
The wooden portion of the racket, often referred to as the "blade", commonly features anywhere between one and seven plies of wood, though cork, glass fiber, carbon fiber, aluminum fiber, and Kevlar are sometimes used. According to the ITTF regulations, at least 85% of the blade by thickness shall be of natural wood. Common wood types include balsa, limba, and cypress or "hinoki", which is popular in Japan. The average size of the blade is about long and wide, although the official restrictions only focus on the flatness and rigidity of the blade itself, these dimensions are optimal for most play styles.
Table tennis regulations allow different surfaces on each side of the racket. Various types of surfaces provide various levels of spin or speed, and in some cases they nullify spin. For example, a player may have a rubber that provides much spin on one side of their racket, and one that provides no spin on the other. By flipping the racket in play, different types of returns are possible. To help a player distinguish between the rubber used by his opposing player, international rules specify that one side must be red while the other side must be black. The player has the right to inspect their opponent's racket before a match to see the type of rubber used and what colour it is. Despite high speed play and rapid exchanges, a player can see clearly what side of the racket was used to hit the ball. Current rules state that, unless damaged in play, the racket cannot be exchanged for another racket at any time during a match.
According to ITTF rule 2.13.1, the first service is decided by lot, normally a coin toss. It is also common for one player (or the umpire/scorer) to hide the ball in one or the other hand, usually hidden under the table, allowing the other player to guess which hand the ball is in. The correct or incorrect guess gives the "winner" the option to choose to serve, receive, or to choose which side of the table to use. (A common but non-sanctioned method is for the players to play the ball back and forth three times and then play out the point. This is commonly referred to as "serve to play", "rally to serve", "play for serve", or "volley for serve".)
In game play, the player serving the ball commences a play. The server first stands with the ball held on the open palm of the hand not carrying the paddle, called the freehand, and tosses the ball directly upward without spin, at least high. The server strikes the ball with the racket on the ball's descent so that it touches first his court and then touches directly the receiver's court without touching the net assembly. In casual games, many players do not toss the ball upward; however, this is technically illegal and can give the serving player an unfair advantage.
The ball must remain behind the endline and above the upper surface of the table, known as the playing surface, at all times during the service. The server cannot use his/her body or clothing to obstruct sight of the ball; the opponent and the umpire must have a clear view of the ball at all times. If the umpire is doubtful of the legality of a service they may first interrupt play and give a warning to the server. If the serve is a clear failure or is doubted again by the umpire after the warning, the receiver scores a point.
If the service is "good", then the receiver must make a "good" return by hitting the ball back before it bounces a second time on receiver's side of the table so that the ball passes the net and touches the opponent's court, either directly or after touching the net assembly. Thereafter, the server and receiver must alternately make a return until the rally is over. Returning the serve is one of the most difficult parts of the game, as the server's first move is often the least predictable and thus most advantageous shot due to the numerous spin and speed choices at his or her disposal.
A Let is a rally of which the result is not scored, and is called in the following circumstances:
A let is also called foul service, if the ball hits the server's side of the table, if the ball does not pass further than the edge and if the ball hits the table edge and hits the net.
A point is scored by the player for any of several results of the rally:
A game shall be won by the player first scoring 11 points unless both players score 10 points, when the game shall be won by the first player subsequently gaining a lead of 2 points. A match shall consist of the best of any odd number of games. In competition play, matches are typically best of five or seven games.
Service alternates between opponents every two points (regardless of winner of the rally) until the end of the game, unless both players score ten points or the expedite system is operated, when the sequences of serving and receiving stay the same but each player serves for only one point in turn (Deuce). The player serving first in a game receives first in the next game of the match.
After each game, players switch sides of the table. In the last possible game of a match, for example the seventh game in a best of seven matches, players change ends when the first player scores five points, regardless of whose turn it is to serve. If the sequence of serving and receiving is out of turn or the ends are not changed, points scored in the wrong situation are still calculated and the game shall be resumed with the order at the score that has been reached.
In addition to games between individual players, pairs may also play table tennis. Singles and doubles are both played in international competition, including the Olympic Games since 1988 and the Commonwealth Games since 2002. In 2005, the ITTF announced that doubles table tennis only was featured as a part of team events in the 2008 Olympics.
In doubles, all the rules of single play are applied except for the following.
Service
Order of play, serving and receiving
If a game is unfinished after 10 minutes' play and fewer than 18 points have been scored, the expedite system is initiated. The umpire interrupts the game, and the game resumes with players serving for one point in turn. If the expedite system is introduced while the ball is not in play, the previous receiver shall serve first. Under the expedite system, the server must win the point before the opponent makes 13 consecutive returns or the point goes to the opponent. The system can also be initiated at any time at the request of both players or pairs. Once introduced, the expedite system remains in force until the end of the match. A rule to shorten the time of a match, it is mainly seen in defensive players' games.
Though table tennis players grip their rackets in various ways, their grips can be classified into two major families of styles, "penhold" and "shakehand". The rules of table tennis do not prescribe the manner in which one must grip the racket, and numerous grips are employed.
The penhold grip is so-named because one grips the racket similarly to the way one holds a writing instrument. The style of play among penhold players can vary greatly from player to player. The most popular style, usually referred to as the Chinese penhold style, involves curling the middle, ring, and fourth finger on the back of the blade with the three fingers always touching one another. Chinese penholders favour a round racket head, for a more over-the-table style of play. In contrast, another style, sometimes referred to as the Japanese/Korean penhold grip, involves splaying those three fingers out across the back of the racket, usually with all three fingers touching the back of the racket, rather than stacked upon one another. Sometimes a combination of the two styles occurs, wherein the middle, ring and fourth fingers are straight, but still stacked, or where all fingers may be touching the back of the racket, but are also in contact with one another. Japanese and Korean penholders will often use a square-headed racket for an away-from-the-table style of play. Traditionally these square-headed rackets feature a block of cork on top of the handle, as well as a thin layer of cork on the back of the racket, for increased grip and comfort. Penhold styles are popular among players originating from East Asian countries such as China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.
Traditionally, penhold players use only one side of the racket to hit the ball during normal play, and the side which is in contact with the last three fingers is generally not used. This configuration is sometimes referred to as "traditional penhold" and is more commonly found in square-headed racket styles. However, the Chinese developed a technique in the 1990s in which a penholder uses both sides of the racket to hit the ball, where the player produces a backhand stroke (most often topspin) known as a reverse penhold backhand by turning the traditional side of the racket to face one's self, and striking the ball with the opposite side of the racket. This stroke has greatly improved and strengthened the penhold style both physically and psychologically, as it eliminates the strategic weakness of the traditional penhold backhand.
The shakehand grip is so-named because the racket is grasped as if one is performing a handshake. Though it is sometimes referred to as the "tennis" or "Western" grip, it bears no relation to the Western tennis grip, which was popularized on the West Coast of the United States in which the racket is rotated 90°, and played with the wrist turned so that on impact the knuckles face the target. In table tennis, "Western" refers to Western nations, for this is the grip that players native to Europe and the Americas have almost exclusively employed.
The shakehand grip's simplicity and versatility, coupled with the acceptance among top-level Chinese trainers that the European style of play should be emulated and trained against, has established it as a common grip even in China. Many world class European and East Asian players currently use the shakehand grip, and it is generally accepted that shakehands is easier to learn than penholder, allowing a broader range of playing styles both offensive and defensive.
The Seemiller grip is named after the American table tennis champion Danny Seemiller, who used it. It is achieved by placing the thumb and index finger on either side of the bottom of the racquet head and holding the handle with the rest of the fingers. Since only one side of the racquet is used to hit the ball, two contrasting rubber types can be applied to the blade, offering the advantage of "twiddling" the racket to fool the opponent. Seemiller paired inverted rubber with anti-spin rubber. Many players today combine inverted and long-pipped rubber. The grip is considered exceptional for blocking, especially on the backhand side, and for forehand loops of backspin balls.
The Seemiller grip's popularity reached its apex in 1985 when four (Danny Seemiller, Ricky Seemiller, Eric Boggan and Brian Masters) of the United States' five participants in the World Championships used it.
The stance in table tennis is also known as the 'ready position'. It is the position every player initially adopts when receiving and returns to after playing a shot in order to be prepared to make the next shot. It involves the feet being spaced wider than shoulder width and a partial crouch being adopted; the crouch is an efficient posture for moving quickly from and also preloads the muscles enabling a more dynamic movement. The upper torso is positioned slightly forward and the player is looking forwards. The racket is held at the ready with a bent arm. The position should feel balanced and provide a solid base for striking and quick lateral movement. Players may tailor their stance based upon their personal preferences, and alter it during the game based upon the specific circumstances.
Table tennis strokes generally break down into offensive and defensive categories.
Also known as speed drive, a direct hit on the ball propelling it forward back to the opponent. This stroke differs from speed drives in other racket sports like tennis because the racket is primarily "perpendicular" to the direction of the stroke and most of the energy applied to the ball results in "speed" rather than "spin", creating a shot that does not arc much, but is fast enough that it can be difficult to return. A speed drive is used mostly for keeping the ball in play, applying pressure on the opponent, and potentially opening up an opportunity for a more powerful attack.
Perfected during the 1960s, the loop is essentially the reverse of the chop. The racket is "parallel" to the direction of the stroke ("closed") and the racket thus "grazes" the ball, resulting in a large amount of topspin. A good loop drive will arc quite a bit, and once striking the opponent's side of the table will jump forward, much like a kick serve in tennis. Most professional players nowadays, such as Ding Ning, Timo Boll and Zhang Jike, primarily use loop for offense.
The counter-hit is usually a counterattack against drives, normally high loop drives. The racket is held closed and near to the ball, which is hit with a short movement "off the bounce" (immediately after hitting the table) so that the ball travels faster to the other side. Kenta Matsudaira is known for primarily using counter-hit for offense.
When a player tries to attack a ball that has not bounced beyond the edge of the table, the player does not have the room to wind up in a "backswing". The ball "may still be attacked", however, and the resulting shot is called a flip because the backswing is compressed into a quick wrist action. A flip is not a single stroke and can resemble either a loop drive or a loop in its characteristics. What identifies the stroke is that the backswing is compressed into a short wrist flick.
A player will typically execute a smash when the opponent has returned a ball that bounces too high or too close to the net. It is nearly always done with a forehand stroke. "Smashing" use rapid acceleration to impart as much speed on the ball as possible so that the opponent cannot react in time. The racket is generally perpendicular to the direction of the stroke. Because the speed is the main aim of this shot, the spin on the ball is often minimal, although it can be applied as well. An offensive table tennis player will think of a rally as a build-up to a winning smash. Smash is used more often with penhold grip.
The push (or "slice" in Asia) is usually used for keeping the point alive and creating offensive opportunities. A push resembles a tennis slice: the racket cuts underneath the ball, imparting backspin and causing the ball to float slowly to the other side of the table. A push can be difficult to attack because the backspin on the ball causes it to drop toward the table upon striking the opponent's racket. In order to attack a push, a player must usually loop (if the push is long) or flip (if the push is short) the ball back over the net. Often, the best option for beginners is to simply push the ball back again, resulting in pushing rallies. Against good players, it may be the worst option because the opponent will counter with a loop, putting the first player in a defensive position. Pushing can have advantages in some circumstances, such as when the opponent makes easy mistakes.
A chop is the defensive, backspin counterpart to the offensive loop drive. A chop is essentially a bigger, heavier push, taken well back from the table. The racket face points primarily horizontally, perhaps a little bit upward, and the direction of the stroke is straight down. The object of a defensive chop is to match the topspin of the opponent's shot with backspin. A good chop will float nearly horizontally back to the table, in some cases having so much backspin that the ball actually "rises". Such a chop can be "extremely" difficult to return due to its enormous amount of backspin. Some defensive players can also impart no-spin or sidespin variations of the chop. Some famous choppers include Joo Sae-hyuk and Wu Yang.
A block is executed by simply placing the racket in front of the ball right after the ball bounces; thus, the ball rebounds back toward the opponent with nearly as much energy as it came in with. This requires precision, since the ball's spin, speed, and location all influence the correct angle of a block. It is very possible for an opponent to execute a perfect loop, drive, or smash, only to have the blocked shot come back just as fast. Due to the power involved in offensive strokes, often an opponent simply cannot recover quickly enough to return the blocked shot, especially if the block is aimed at an unexpected side of the table. Blocks almost always produce the same spin as was received, many times topspin.
The defensive lob propels the ball about five metres in height, only to land on the opponent's side of the table with great amounts of spin. The stroke itself consists of lifting the ball to an enormous height before it falls back to the opponent's side of the table. A lob can have nearly any kind of spin. Though the opponent may "smash" the ball hard and fast, a good defensive lob could be more difficult to return due to the unpredictability and heavy amounts of the spin on the ball. Thus, though backed off the table by tens of feet and running to reach the ball, a good defensive player can still win the point using good lobs. Lob is used less frequently by professional players. A notable exception is Michael Maze.
Adding spin onto the ball causes major changes in table tennis gameplay. Although nearly every stroke or serve creates some kind of spin, understanding the individual types of spin allows players to defend against and use different spins effectively.
Backspin is where the bottom half of the ball is rotating away from the player, and is imparted by striking the base of the ball with a downward movement. At the professional level, backspin is usually used defensively in order to keep the ball low. Backspin is commonly employed in service because it is harder to produce an offensive return, though at the professional level most people serve sidespin with either backspin or topspin. Due to the initial lift of the ball, there is a limit on how much speed with which one can hit the ball without missing the opponent's side of the table. However, backspin also makes it harder for the opponent to return the ball with great speed because of the required angular precision of the return. Alterations are frequently made to regulations regarding equipment in an effort to maintain a balance between defensive and offensive spin choices. It is actually possible to smash with backspin offensively, but only on high balls that are close to the net.
The topspin stroke has a smaller influence on the first part of the ball-curve. Like the backspin stroke, however, the axis of spin remains roughly perpendicular to the trajectory of the ball thus allowing for the Magnus effect to dictate the subsequent curvature. After the apex of the curve, the ball dips downwards as it approaches the opposing side, before bouncing. On the bounce, the topspin will accelerate the ball, much in the same way that a wheel which is already spinning would accelerate upon making contact with the ground. When the opponent attempts to return the ball, the topspin causes the ball to jump upwards and the opponent is forced to compensate for the topspin by adjusting the angle of his or her racket. This is known as "closing the racket".
The speed limitation of the topspin stroke is minor compared to the backspin stroke. This stroke is the predominant technique used in professional competition because it gives the opponent less time to respond. In table tennis topspin is regarded as an offensive technique due to increased ball speed, lower bio-mechanical efficiency and the pressure that it puts on the opponent by reducing reaction time. (It is possible to play defensive topspin-lobs from far behind the table, but only highly skilled players use this stroke with any tactical efficiency.) Topspin is the least common type of spin to be found in service at the professional level, simply because it is much easier to attack a top-spin ball that is not moving at high speed.
This type of spin is predominantly employed during service, wherein the contact angle of the racket can be more easily varied. Unlike the two aforementioned techniques, sidespin causes the ball to spin on an axis which is vertical, rather than horizontal. The axis of rotation is still roughly perpendicular to the trajectory of the ball. In this circumstance, the Magnus effect will still dictate the curvature of the ball to some degree. Another difference is that unlike backspin and topspin, sidespin will have relatively very little effect on the bounce of the ball, much in the same way that a spinning top would not travel left or right if its axis of rotation were exactly vertical. This makes sidespin a useful weapon in service, because it is less easily recognized when bouncing, and the ball "loses" less spin on the bounce. Sidespin can also be employed in offensive rally strokes, often from a greater distance, as an adjunct to topspin or backspin. This stroke is sometimes referred to as a "hook". The hook can even be used in some extreme cases to circumvent the net when away from the table.
Players employ this type of spin almost exclusively when serving, but at the professional level, it is also used from time to time in the lob. Unlike any of the techniques mentioned above, corkspin (or "drill-spin") has the axis of spin relatively parallel to the ball's trajectory, so that the Magnus effect has little or no effect on the trajectory of a cork-spun ball: upon bouncing, the ball will dart right or left (according to the direction of the spin), severely complicating the return. In theory this type of spin produces the most obnoxious effects, but it is less strategically practical than sidespin or backspin, because of the limitations that it imposes upon the opponent during their return. Aside from the initial direction change when bouncing, unless it goes out of reach, the opponent can counter with "either" topspin or backspin. A backspin stroke is similar in the fact that the corkspin stroke has a lower maximum velocity, simply due to the contact angle of the racket when producing the stroke. To impart a spin on the ball which is parallel to its trajectory, the racket must be swung more or less perpendicular to the trajectory of the ball, greatly limiting the forward momentum that the racket transfers to the ball. Corkspin is almost always mixed with another variety of spin, since alone, it is not only less effective but also harder to produce.
Competitive table tennis is popular in East Asia and Europe, and has been gaining attention in the United States. The most important international competitions are the World Table Tennis Championships, the Table Tennis World Cup, the Olympics and the ITTF World Tour. Continental competitions include the following:
Chinese players have won 60% of the men's World Championships since 1959; in the women's competition for the Corbillin Cup, Chinese players have won all but three of the World Championships since 1971. Other strong teams come from East Asia and Europe, including countries such as Austria, Belarus, Germany, Hong Kong, Portugal, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Sweden, and Taiwan.
There are professional competitions at the clubs level; the respective leagues of Austria, Belgium, China (China Table Tennis Super League), Japan (T.League), France, Germany (Bundesliga), and Russia are examples of the highest level. There are also some important international club teams competitions such as the European Champions League and its former competitor, the European Club Cup, where the top club teams from European countries compete.
According to the "New York Times", 31% of the table tennis players at the 2016 Summer Olympics were naturalized. The rate was twice as high as the next sport, basketball, which featured 15% of naturalized players.
In particular, Chinese-born players representing Singapore have won three Olympic medals, more than native Singaporeans have ever won in all sports. However, these successes have been very controversial in Singapore. In 2014, Singapore Table Tennis Association's president Lee Bee Wah quit over this issue; however, her successor Ellen Lee has basically continued on this path.
The rate of naturalization accelerated after the ITTF's 2009 decision (one year after China won every possible Olympic medal in the sport) to reduce the number of entries per association in both the Olympics and the World Table Tennis Championships.
In 2019, the ITTF adopted new regulations which state that players who acquired a new nationality may not represent their new association before:
An official hall of fame exists at the ITTF Museum. A "Grand Slam" is earned by a player who wins singles crowns at the Olympic Games, World Championships, and World Cup. Jan-Ove Waldner of Sweden first completed the grand slam at 1992 Olympic Games. Deng Yaping of China is the first female recorded at the inaugural Women's World Cup in 1996. The following table presents an exhaustive list of all players to have completed a grand slam.
Jean-Philippe Gatien (France) and Wang Hao (China) won both the World Championships and the World Cup, but lost in the gold medal matches at the Olympics. Jörgen Persson (Sweden) also won the titles except the Olympic Games. Persson is one of the three table tennis players to have competed at seven Olympic Games. Ma Lin (China) won both the Olympic gold and the World Cup, but lost (three times, in 1999, 2005, and 2007) in the finals of the World Championships.
Founded in 1926, the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) is the worldwide governing body for table tennis, which maintains an international ranking system in addition to organizing events like the World Table Tennis Championships. In 2007, the governance for table tennis for persons with a disability was transferred from the International Paralympic Committee to the ITTF.
On many continents, there is a governing body responsible for table tennis on that continent. For example, the European Table Tennis Union (ETTU) is the governing body responsible for table tennis in Europe. There are also national bodies and other local authorities responsible for the sport, such as USA Table Tennis (USATT), which is the national governing body for table tennis in the United States.
Hardbat table tennis uses rackets with short outward "pips" and no sponge, resulting in decreased speeds and reduced spin. World Championship of Ping Pong uses old-fashioned wooden paddles covered with sandpaper. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30589 |
Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
The Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) is the abbreviated name of the 1963 Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water, which prohibited all test detonations of nuclear weapons except for those conducted underground. It is also abbreviated as the Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT) and Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (NTBT), though the latter may also refer to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which succeeded the PTBT for ratifying parties.
Negotiations initially focused on a comprehensive ban, but that was abandoned because of technical questions surrounding the detection of underground tests and Soviet concerns over the intrusiveness of proposed verification methods. The impetus for the test ban was provided by rising public anxiety over the magnitude of nuclear tests, particularly tests of new thermonuclear weapons (hydrogen bombs), and the resulting nuclear fallout. A test ban was also seen as a means of slowing nuclear proliferation and the nuclear arms race. Though the PTBT did not halt proliferation or the arms race, its enactment did coincide with a substantial decline in the concentration of radioactive particles in the atmosphere.
The PTBT was signed by the governments of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States in Moscow on 5 August 1963 before it was opened for signature by other countries. The treaty formally went into effect on 10 October 1963. Since then, 123 other states have become party to the treaty. Ten states have signed but not ratified the treaty.
Much of the stimulus for the treaty was increasing public unease about radioactive fallout as a result of above-ground or underwater nuclear testing, particularly given the increasing power of nuclear devices, as well as concern about the general environmental damage caused by testing. In 1952–53, the US and Soviet Union detonated their first thermonuclear weapons (hydrogen bombs), far more powerful than the atomic bombs tested and deployed since 1945. In 1954, the US Castle Bravo test at Bikini Atoll (part of Operation Castle) had a yield of 15 megatons of TNT, more than doubling the expected yield. The Castle Bravo test resulted in the worst radiological event in US history as radioactive particles spread over more than , affected inhabited areas (including Rongelap Atoll and Utirik Atoll), and sickened Japanese fishermen aboard the "Lucky Dragon" upon whom "ashes of death" had rained. In the same year, a Soviet test sent radioactive particles over Japan. Around the same time, victims of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima visited the US for medical care, which attracted significant public attention. In 1961, the Soviet Union tested the Tsar Bomba, which had a yield of 50 megatons and remains the most powerful man-made explosion in history, though due to a highly efficient detonation fallout was relatively limited. Between 1951 and 1958, the US conducted 166 atmospheric tests, the Soviet Union conducted 82, and Britain conducted 21; only 22 underground tests were conducted in this period (all by the US).
In 1945, Britain and Canada made an early call for an international discussion on controlling atomic power. At the time, the US had yet to formulate a cohesive policy or strategy on nuclear weapons. Taking advantage of this was Vannevar Bush, who had initiated and administered the Manhattan Project, but nevertheless had a long-term policy goal of banning on nuclear weapons production. As a first step in this direction, Bush proposed an international agency dedicated to nuclear control. Bush unsuccessfully argued in 1952 that the US pursue a test ban agreement with the Soviet Union before testing its first thermonuclear weapon, but his interest in international controls was echoed in the 1946 Acheson–Lilienthal Report, which had been commissioned by President Harry S. Truman to help construct US nuclear weapons policy. J. Robert Oppenheimer, who had led Los Alamos National Laboratory during the Manhattan Project, exerted significant influence over the report, particularly in its recommendation of an international body that would control production of and research on the world's supply of uranium and thorium. A version of the Acheson-Lilienthal plan was presented to the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission as the Baruch Plan in June 1946. The Baruch Plan proposed that an International Atomic Development Authority would control all research on and material and equipment involved in the production of atomic energy. Though Dwight D. Eisenhower, then the Chief of Staff of the United States Army, was not a significant figure in the Truman administration on nuclear questions, he did support Truman's nuclear control policy, including the Baruch Plan's provision for an international control agency, provided that the control system was accompanied by "a system of free and complete inspection."
In 1954, just weeks after the Castle Bravo test, Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru made the first call for a "standstill agreement" on nuclear testing, who saw a testing moratorium as a stepping stone to more comprehensive arms control agreements. In the same year, the British Labour Party, then led by Clement Attlee, called on the UN to ban testing of thermonuclear weapons. 1955 marks the beginning of test-ban negotiations, as Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev first proposed talks on the subject in February 1955. On 10 May 1955, the Soviet Union proposed a test ban before the UN Disarmament Commission's "Committee of Five" (Britain, Canada, France, the Soviet Union, and the US). This proposal, which closely reflected a prior Anglo-French proposal, was initially part of a comprehensive disarmament proposal meant to reduce conventional arms levels and eliminate nuclear weapons. Despite the closeness of the Soviet proposal to earlier Western proposals, the US reversed its position on the provisions and rejected the Soviet offer "in the absence of more general control agreements," including limits on the production of fissionable material and protections against a surprise nuclear strike. The May 1955 proposal is now seen as evidence of Khrushchev's "new approach" to foreign policy, as Khrushchev sought to mend relations with the West. The proposal would serve as the basis of the Soviet negotiating position through 1957.
Eisenhower had supported nuclear testing after World War II. In 1947, he rejected arguments by Stafford L. Warren, the Manhattan Project's chief physician, concerning the detrimental health effects of atmospheric testing, agreeing instead with James Bryant Conant, a chemist and participant in the Manhattan Project, who was skeptical of Warren's then-theoretical claims. Warren's arguments were lent credence in the scientific community and public by the Castle Bravo test of 1954. Eisenhower, as president, first explicitly expressed interest in a comprehensive test ban that year, arguing before the National Security Council, "We could put [the Russians] on the spot if we accepted a moratorium ... Everybody seems to think that we're skunks, saber-rattlers and warmongers. We ought not miss any chance to make clear our peaceful objectives." Then-Secretary of State John Foster Dulles had responded skeptically to the limited arms-control suggestion of Nehru, whose proposal for a test ban was discarded by the National Security Council for being "not practical." Harold Stassen, Eisenhower's special assistant for disarmament, argued that the US should prioritize a test ban as a first step towards comprehensive arms control, conditional on the Soviet Union accepting on-site inspections, over full disarmament. Stassen's suggestion was dismissed by others in the administration over fears that the Soviet Union would be able to conduct secret tests. On the advice of Dulles, Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) chairman Lewis Strauss, and Secretary of Defense Charles Erwin Wilson, Eisenhower rejected the idea of considering a test ban outside general disarmament efforts. During the 1952 and 1956 presidential elections, Eisenhower fended off challenger Adlai Stevenson, who ran in large part on support for a test ban.
The British governments of 1954–58 (under Conservatives Winston Churchill, Anthony Eden, and Harold Macmillan) also quietly resisted a test ban, despite the British public favoring a deal, until the US Congress approved expanded nuclear collaboration in 1958 and until after Britain had tested its first hydrogen bombs. In their view, testing was necessary if the UK nuclear program were to continue to develop. This opposition was tempered by concern that resistance to a test ban might lead the US and Soviet Union to pursue an agreement without Britain having any say in the matter.
Members of the Soviet military–industrial complex also opposed a test ban, though some scientists, including Igor Kurchatov, were supportive of antinuclear efforts. France, which was in the midst of developing its own nuclear weapon, also firmly opposed a test ban in the late 1950s.
The proliferation of thermonuclear weapons coincided with a rise in public concern about nuclear fallout debris contaminating food sources, particularly the threat of high levels of strontium-90 in milk (see the Baby Tooth Survey). This survey was a scientist and citizen led campaign which used "modern media advocacy techniques to communicate complex issues" to inform public discourse. Its research findings confirmed a significant build-up of strontium-90 in bones of babies and helped galvanise public support for a ban on atmospheric nuclear testing in the US. Lewis Strauss and Edward Teller, dubbed the "father of the hydrogen bomb," both sought to tamp down on these fears, arguing that fallout [at the dose levels of US exposure] were fairly harmless and that a test ban would enable the Soviet Union to surpass the US in nuclear capabilities. Teller also suggested that testing was necessary to develop nuclear weapons that produced less fallout. Support in the US public for a test ban to continue to grow from 20% in 1954 to 63% by 1957. Moreover, widespread antinuclear protests were organized and led by theologian and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Albert Schweitzer, whose appeals were endorsed by Pope Pius XII, and Linus Pauling, the latter of whom organized an anti-test petition signed by more than 9,000 scientists across 43 countries (including the infirm and elderly Albert Einstein).
The AEC would eventually concede, as well, that even low levels of radiation were harmful. It was a combination of rising public support for a test ban and the shock of the 1957 Soviet "Sputnik" launch that encouraged Eisenhower to take steps towards a test ban in 1958.
There was also increased environmental concern in the Soviet Union. In the mid-1950s, Soviet scientists began taking regular radiation readings near Leningrad, Moscow, and Odessa and collected data on the prevalence of strontium-90, which indicated that strontium-90 levels in western Russia approximately matched those in the eastern US. Rising Soviet concern was punctuated in September 1957 by the Kyshtym disaster, which forced the evacuation of 10,000 people after an explosion at a nuclear plant. Around the same time, 219 Soviet scientists signed Pauling's antinuclear petition. Soviet political elites did not share the concerns of others in the Soviet Union. However; Kurchatov unsuccessfully called on Khrushchev to halt testing in 1958.
On 14 June 1957, following Eisenhower's suggestion that existing detection measures were inadequate to ensure compliance, the Soviet Union put forth a plan for a two-to-three-year testing moratorium. The moratorium would be overseen by an international commission reliant on national monitoring stations, but, importantly, would involve no on-the-ground inspections. Eisenhower initially saw the deal as favorable, but eventually came to see otherwise. In particular, Strauss and Teller, as well as Ernest Lawrence and Mark Muir Mills, protested the offer. At a meeting with Eisenhower in the White House, the group argued that testing was necessary for the US to eventually develop bombs that produced no fallout ("clean bombs"). The group repeated the oft-cited fact, which was supported by Freeman Dyson, that the Soviet Union could conduct secret nuclear tests. In 1958, at the request of Igor Kurchatov, Soviet nuclear physicist and weapons designer Andrei Sakharov published a pair of widely circulated academic papers challenging the claim of Teller and others that a clean, fallout-free nuclear bomb could be developed, due to the formation of carbon-14 when nuclear devices are detonated in the air. A one-megaton clean bomb, Sakharov estimated, would cause 6,600 deaths over 8,000 years, figures derived largely from estimates on the quantity of carbon-14 generated from atmospheric nitrogen and the contemporary risk models at the time, along with the assumption that the world population is "thirty billion persons" in a few thousand years. In 1961, Sakharov was part of the design team for a 50 megaton "clean bomb", which has become known as the Tsar Bomba, detonated over the island of Novaya Zemlya.
In the spring of 1957, the US National Security Council had explored including a one-year test moratorium and a "cut-off" of fissionable-material production in a "partial" disarmament plan. The British government, then led by Macmillan, had yet to fully endorse a test ban. Accordingly, it pushed the US to demand that the production cut-off be closely timed with the testing moratorium, betting that the Soviet Union would reject this. London also encouraged the US to delay its disarmament plan, in part by moving the start of the moratorium back to November 1958. At the same time, Macmillan linked British support for a test ban to a revision of the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 (McMahon Act), which prohibited sharing of nuclear information with foreign governments. Eisenhower, eager to mend ties with Britain following the Suez Crisis of 1956, was receptive to Macmillan's conditions, but the AEC and the congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy were firmly opposed. It was not until after "Sputnik" in late 1957 that Eisenhower quickly moved to expand nuclear collaboration with the UK via presidential directives and the establishment of bilateral committees on nuclear matters. In early 1958, Eisenhower publicly stated that amendments to the McMahon Act were a necessary condition of a test ban, framing the policy shift in the context of US commitment to its NATO allies.
In August 1957, the US assented to a two-year testing moratorium proposed by the Soviet Union, but required that it be linked to restrictions on the production of fissionable material with military uses, a condition that the Soviet Union rejected. While Eisenhower insisted on linking a test ban to a broader disarmament effort (e.g., the production cut-off), Moscow insisted on independent consideration of a test ban.
On 19 September 1957, the US conducted the first contained underground test at the Nevada Test Site, codenamed "Rainier". The "Rainier" shot complicated the push for a comprehensive test ban, as underground tests could not be as easily identified as atmospheric tests.
Despite Eisenhower's interest in a deal, his administration was hamstrung by discord among US scientists, technicians, and politicians. At one point, Eisenhower complained that "statecraft was becoming a prisoner of scientists." Until 1957, Strauss's AEC (including its Los Alamos and Livermore laboratories) was the dominant voice in the administration on nuclear affairs, with Teller's concerns over detection mechanisms also influencing Eisenhower. Unlike some others within the US scientific community, Strauss fervently advocated against a test ban, arguing that the US must maintain a clear nuclear advantage via regular testing and that the negative environmental impacts of such tests were overstated. Furthermore, Strauss repeatedly emphasized the risk of the Soviet Union violating a ban, a fear Eisenhower shared.
On 7 November 1957, after "Sputnik" and under pressure to bring on a dedicated science advisor, Eisenhower created the President's Science Advisory Committee (PSAC), which had the effect of eroding the AEC's monopoly over scientific advice. In stark contrast to the AEC, PSAC promoted a test ban and argued against Strauss's claims concerning its strategic implications and technical feasibility. In late 1957, the Soviet Union made a second offer of a three-year moratorium without inspections, but lacking any consensus within his administration, Eisenhower rejected it. In early 1958, the discord within American circles, particularly among scientists, was made clear in hearings before the Senate Subcommittee on Nuclear Disarmament, chaired by Senator Hubert Humphrey. The hearings featured conflicting testimony from the likes of Teller and Linus Pauling, as well as from Harold Stassen, who argued that a test ban could safely be separated from broader disarmament, and AEC members, who argued that a cutoff in nuclear production should precede a test ban.
In the summer of 1957, Khrushchev was at acute risk of losing power, as the Anti-Party Group composed of former Stalin allies Lazar Kaganovich, Georgy Malenkov, and Vyacheslav Molotov launched an attempt to replace Khrushchev as General Secretary of the Communist Party (effectively the leader of the Soviet Union) with Nikolai Bulganin, then the Premier of the Soviet Union. The attempted ouster, which was foiled in June, was followed by a series of actions by Khrushchev to consolidate power. In October 1957, still feeling vulnerable from Anti-Party Group's ploy, Khrushchev forced out defense minister Georgy Zhukov, cited as "the nation's most powerful military man." On 27 March 1958, Khrushchev forced Bulganin to resign and succeeded him as Premier. Between 1957 and 1960, Khrushchev had his firmest grip on power, with little real opposition.
Khrushchev was personally troubled by the power of nuclear weapons and would later recount that he believed the weapons could never be used. In the mid-1950s, Khrushchev took a keen interest in defense policy and sought to inaugurate an era of détente with the West. Initial efforts to reach accords, such as on disarmament at the 1955 Geneva Summit, proved fruitless, and Khrushchev saw test-ban negotiations as an opportunity to present the Soviet Union as "both powerful and responsible." At the 20th Communist Party Congress in 1956, Khrushchev declared that nuclear war should no longer be seen as "fatalistically inevitable." Simultaneously, however, Khrushchev expanded and advanced the Soviet nuclear arsenal at a cost to conventional Soviet forces (e.g., in early 1960, Khrushchev announced demobilization of 1.2 million troops).
On 31 March 1958, the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union approved a decision to halt nuclear testing, conditional on other nuclear powers doing the same. Khrushchev then called on Eisenhower and Macmillan to join the moratorium. Despite the action being met with widespread praise and an argument from Dulles that the US should reciprocate, Eisenhower dismissed the plan as a "gimmick"; the Soviet Union had just completed a testing series and the US was about to begin Operation Hardtack I, a series of atmospheric, surface-level, and underwater nuclear tests. Eisenhower instead insisted that any moratorium be linked to reduced production of nuclear weapons. In April 1958, the US began Operation Hardtack I as planned. The Soviet declaration concerned the British government, which feared that the moratorium might lead to a test ban before its own testing program was completed. Following the Soviet declaration, Eisenhower called for an international meeting of experts to determine proper control and verification measures—an idea first proposed by British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd.
The advocacy of PSAC, including that of its chairmen James Rhyne Killian and George Kistiakowsky, was a key factor in Eisenhower's eventual decision to initiate test-ban negotiations in 1958. In the spring of 1958, chairman Killian and the PSAC staff (namely Hans Bethe and Isidor Isaac Rabi) undertook a review of US test-ban policy, determining that a successful system for detecting underground tests could be created. At the recommendation of Dulles (who had recently come to support a test ban), the review prompted Eisenhower to propose technical negotiations with the Soviet Union, effectively detaching test-ban negotiations from negotiations over a halt to nuclear weapons production (the one-time US demand). In explaining the policy shift, Eisenhower privately said that continued resistance to a test ban would leave the US in a state of "moral isolation."
On 8 April 1958, still resisting Khrushchev's call for a moratorium, Eisenhower invited the Soviet Union to join these technical negotiations in the form of a conference on the technical aspects of a test-ban, specifically the technical details of ensuring compliance with a ban. The proposal was, to a degree, a concession to the Soviet Union, as a test ban would be explored independent of the previously demanded cutoff in fissionable-material production. Khrushchev initially declined the invitation, but eventually agreed "in spite of the serious doubts" he had after Eisenhower suggested a technical agreement on verification would be a precursor to a test ban.
On 1 July 1958, responding to Eisenhower's call, the nuclear powers convened the Conference of Experts in Geneva, aimed at studying means of detecting nuclear tests. The conference included scientists from the US, Britain, the Soviet Union, Canada, Czechoslovakia, France, Poland, and Romania. The US delegation was led by James Fisk, a member of PSAC, the Soviets by Evgenii Fedorov, and the British delegation by William Penney, who had led the British delegation to the Manhattan Project. Whereas the US approached the conference solely from a technical perspective, Penney was specifically instructed by Macmillan to attempt to achieve a political agreement. This difference in approach was reflected in the broader composition of the US and UK teams. US experts were primarily drawn from academia and industry. Fisk was a vice president at Bell Telephone Laboratories and was joined by Robert Bacher and Ernest Lawrence, both physicists who had worked on the Manhattan Project. Conversely, British delegates largely held government positions. The Soviet delegation was composed primarily of academics, though virtually all of them had some link to the Soviet government. The Soviets shared the British goal of achieving an agreement at the conference.
At particular issue was the ability of sensors to differentiate an underground test from an earthquake. There were four techniques examined: measurement of acoustic waves, seismic signals, radio waves, and inspection of radioactive debris. The Soviet delegation expressed confidence in each method, while Western experts argued that a more comprehensive compliance system would be necessary.
The Conference of Experts was characterized as "highly professional" and productive. By the end of August 1958, the experts devised an extensive control program, known as the "Geneva System," involving 160–170 land-based monitoring posts, plus 10 additional sea-based monitors and occasional flights over land following a suspicious event (with the inspection plane being provided and controlled by the state under inspection). The experts determined that such a scheme would be able to detect 90% of underground detonations, accurate to 5 kilotons, and atmospheric tests with a minimum yield of 1 kiloton. The US had initially advocated for 650 posts, versus a Soviet proposal of 100–110. The final recommendation was a compromise forged by the British delegation. In a widely publicized and well-received communiqué dated 21 August 1958, the conference declared that it "reached the conclusion that it is technically feasible to set up ... a workable and effective control system for the detection of violations of a possible agreement on the worldwide cessation of nuclear weapons tests."
The technical findings, released on 30 August 1958 in a report drafted by the Soviet delegation, were endorsed by the US and UK, which proposed that they serve as the basis for test-ban and international-control negotiations. However, the experts' report failed to address precisely who would do the monitoring and when on-site inspections—a US demand and Soviet concern—would be permitted. The experts also deemed detection of outer-space tests (tests more than above the earth's surface) to be impractical. Additionally, the size of the Geneva System may have rendered it too expensive to be put into effect. The 30 August report, which contained details on these limitations, received significantly less public attention than the 21 August communiqué.
Nevertheless, pleased by the findings, the Eisenhower administration proposed negotiations on a permanent test ban and announced it would self-impose a year-long testing moratorium if Britain and the Soviet Union did the same. This decision amounted to a victory for John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles (then the Director of Central Intelligence), and PSAC, who had argued within the Eisenhower administration for separating a test ban from larger disarmament efforts, and a defeat for the Department of Defense and AEC, which had argued to the contrary.
In May 1958, Britain had informed the US that it would be willing to join a testing moratorium on 31 October 1958, by which point it would have finished its hydrogen-bomb testing, conditional on the US providing Britain with nuclear information following amendment of the McMahon Act. The US Congress approved amendments permitting greater collaboration in late June. Following Soviet assent on 30 August 1958 to the one-year moratorium, the three countries conducted a series of tests in September and October. At least 54 tests were conducted by the US and 14 by the Soviet Union in this period. On 31 October 1958 the three countries initiated test-ban negotiations (the Conference on the Discontinuance of Nuclear Tests) and agreed to a temporary moratorium (the Soviet Union joined the moratorium shortly after this date). The moratorium would last for close to three years.
The Conference on the Discontinuance of Nuclear Tests convened in Geneva at Moscow's request (the Western participants had proposed New York City). The US delegation was led by James Jeremiah Wadsworth, an envoy to the UN, the British by David Ormsby-Gore, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, and the Soviets by Semyon K. Tsarapkin, a disarmament expert with experience dating back to the 1946 Baruch Plan. The Geneva Conference began with a Soviet draft treaty grounded in the Geneva System. The three nuclear weapons states (the "original parties") would abide by a test ban, verified by the Geneva System, and work to prevent testing by potential nuclear states (such as France). This was rejected by Anglo-American negotiators due to fears that the verification provisions were too vague and the Geneva System too weak.
Shortly after the Geneva Conference began in the fall of 1958, Eisenhower faced renewed domestic opposition to a comprehensive test ban as Senator Albert Gore Sr. argued in a widely circulated letter that a partial ban would be preferable due to Soviet opposition to strong verification measures.
The Gore letter did spur some progress in negotiations, as the Soviet Union allowed in late November 1958 for explicit control measures to be included in the text of the drafted treaty. By March 1959, the negotiators had agreed upon seven treaty articles, but they primarily concerned uncontroversial issues and a number of disputes over verification persisted. First, the Soviet verification proposal was deemed by the West to be too reliant on self-inspection, with control posts primarily staffed by citizens of the country housing the posts and a minimal role for officials from the international supervisory body. The West insisted that half of a control post staff be drawn from another nuclear state and half from neutral parties. Second, the Soviet Union required that the international supervisory body, the Control Commission, require unanimity before acting; the West rejected the idea of giving Moscow a veto over the Commission's proceedings. Finally, the Soviet Union preferred temporary inspection teams drawn from citizens of the country under inspection, while the West insisted on permanent teams composed of inspectors from the Control Commission.
Additionally, despite the initial positive response to the Geneva experts' report, data gathered from Hardtack operations of 1958 (namely the underground "Rainier" shot) would further complication verification provisions as US scientists, including Hans Bethe (who backed a ban), became convinced that the Geneva findings were too optimistic regarding detection of underground tests, though Macmillan warned that using the data to block progress on a test ban might be perceived in the public as a political ploy. In early 1959, Wadsworth told Tsarapkin of new US skepticism towards the Geneva System. While the Geneva experts believed the system could detect underground tests down to five kilotons, the US now believed that it could only detect tests down to 20 kilotons (in comparison, the Little Boy bomb dropped on Hiroshima had an official yield of 13 kilotons). As a result, the Geneva detection regime and the number of control posts would have to be significantly expanded, including new posts within the Soviet Union. The Soviets dismissed the US argument as a ruse, suggesting that the Hardtack data had been falsified.
In early 1959, a roadblock to an agreement was removed as Macmillan and Eisenhower, over opposition from the Department of Defense, agreed to consider a test ban separately from broader disarmament endeavors.
On 13 April 1959, facing Soviet opposition to on-site detection systems for underground tests, Eisenhower proposed moving from a single, comprehensive test ban to a graduated agreement where atmospheric tests—those up to 50 km (31 mi) high, a limit Eisenhower would revise upward in May 1959—would be banned first, with negotiations on underground and outer-space tests continuing. This proposal was turned down on 23 April 1959 by Khrushchev, calling it a "dishonest deal." On 26 August 1959, the US announced it would extend its year-long testing moratorium to the end of 1959, and would not conduct tests after that point without prior warning. The Soviet Union reaffirmed that it would not conduct tests if the US and UK continued to observe a moratorium.
To break the deadlock over verification, Macmillan proposed a compromise in February 1959 whereby each of the original parties would be subject to a set number of on-site inspections each year. In May 1959, Khrushchev and Eisenhower agreed to explore Macmillan's quota proposal, though Eisenhower made further test-ban negotiations conditional on the Soviet Union dropping its Control Commission veto demand and participating in technical discussions on identification of high-altitude nuclear explosions. Khrushchev agreed to the latter and was noncommittal on the former. A working group in Geneva would eventually devise a costly system of 5–6 satellites orbiting at least above the earth, though it could not say with certainty that such a system would be able to determine the origin of a high-altitude test. US negotiators also questioned whether high-altitude tests could evade detection via radiation shielding. Concerning Macmillan's compromise, the Soviet Union privately suggested it would accept a quota of three inspections per year. The US argued that the quota should be set according to scientific necessity (i.e., be set according to the frequency of seismic events).
In June 1959, a report of a panel headed by Lloyd Berkner, a physicist, was introduced into discussions by Wadsworth. The report specifically concerned whether the Geneva System could be improved without increasing the number of control posts. Berkner's proposed measures were seen as highly costly and the technical findings themselves were accompanied by a caveat about the panel's high degree of uncertainty given limited data. Around the same time, analysis conducted by the Livermore National Laboratory and RAND Corporation at Teller's instruction found that the seismic effect of an underground test could be artificially dampened (referred to as "decoupling") to the point that a 300-kiloton detonation would appear in seismic readings as a one-kiloton detonation. These findings were largely affirmed by pro-ban scientists, including Bethe. The third blow to the verification negotiations was provided by a panel chaired by Robert Bacher, which found that even on-site inspections would have serious difficulty determining whether an underground test had been conducted.
In September 1959, Khrushchev visited the US While the test ban was not a focus on conversations, a positive meeting with Eisenhower at Camp David eventually led Tsarapkin to propose a technical working group in November 1959 that would consider the issues of on-site inspections and seismic decoupling in the "spirit of Camp David." Within the working group, Soviet delegates allowed for the timing of on-site inspections to be grounded in seismic data, but insisted on conditions that were seen as excessively strict. The Soviets also recognized the theory behind decoupling, but dismissed its practical applications. The working group closed in December with no progress and significant hostility. Eisenhower issued a statement blaming "the recent unwillingness of the politically guided Soviet experts to give serious scientific consideration to the effectiveness of seismic techniques for the detection of underground nuclear explosions." Eisenhower simultaneously declared that the US would not be held to its testing moratorium when it expired on 31 December 1959, though pledged to not test if Geneva talks progressed. The Soviet Union followed by reiterating its decision to not test as long as Western states did not test.
In early 1960, Eisenhower indicated his support for a comprehensive test ban conditional on proper monitoring of underground tests. On 11 February 1960, Wadsworth announced a new US proposal by which only tests deemed verifiable by the Geneva System would be banned, including all atmospheric, underwater, and outer-space tests within detection range. Underground tests measuring more than 4.75 on the Richter scale would also be barred, subject to revision as research on detection continued. Adopting Macmillan's quota compromise, the US proposed each nuclear state be subject to roughly 20 on-site inspections per year (the precise figure based on the frequency of seismic events).
Tsarapkin responded positively to the US proposal, though was wary of the prospect of allowing underground tests registering below magnitude 4.75. In its own proposal offered 19 March 1960 the Soviet Union accepted most US provisions, with certain amendments. First, the Soviet Union asked that underground tests under magnitude 4.75 be banned for a period of four-to-five years, subject to extension. Second, it sought to prohibit all outer-space tests, whether within detection range or not. Finally, the Soviet Union insisted that the inspection quota be determined on a political basis, not a scientific one. The Soviet offer faced a mixed reception. In the US, Senator Hubert Humphrey and the Federation of American Scientists (which was typically seen as supportive of a test ban) saw it as a clear step towards an agreement. Conversely, AEC chairman John A. McCone and Senator Clinton Presba Anderson, chair of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, argued that the Soviet system would be unable to prevent secret tests. That year, the AEC published a report arguing that the continuing testing moratorium risked "free world supremacy in nuclear weapons," and that renewed testing was critical for further weapons development. The joint committee also held hearings in April which cast doubt on the technical feasibility and cost of the proposed verification measures. Additionally, Teller continued to warn of the dangerous consequences of a test ban and the Department of Defense (including Neil H. McElroy and Donald A. Quarles, until recently its top two officials) pushed to continue testing and expand missile stockpiles.
Shortly after the Soviet proposal, Macmillan met with Eisenhower at Camp David to devise a response. The Anglo-American counterproposal agreed to ban small underground tests (those under magnitude 4.75) on a temporary basis (a duration of roughly 1 year, versus the Soviet proposal of 4–5 years), but this could only happen after verifiable tests had been banned and a seismic research group (the Seismic Research Program Advisory Group) convened. The Soviet Union responded positively to the counterproposal and the research group convened on 11 May 1960. The Soviet Union also offered to keep an underground ban out of the treaty under negotiation. In May 1960, there were high hopes that an agreement would be reached at an upcoming summit of Eisenhower, Khrushchev, Macmillan, and Charles de Gaulle of France in Paris.
A test ban seemed particularly close in 1960, with Britain and France in accord with the US (though France conducted its first nuclear test in February) and the Soviet Union having largely accepted the Macmillan-Eisenhower proposal. But US-Soviet relations soured after an American U-2 spy plane was shot down in Soviet airspace in May 1960. The Paris summit was abruptly cancelled and the Soviet Union withdrew from the seismic research group, which subsequently dissolved. Meetings of the Geneva Conference continued until December, but little progress was made as Western-Soviet relations continued to grow more antagonistic through the summer, punctuated by the Congo Crisis in July and angry exchanges at the UN in September. Macmillan would later claim to President John F. Kennedy that the failure to achieve a test ban in 1960 "was all the fault of the American 'big hole' obsession and the consequent insistence on a wantonly large number of on-site inspections."
Eisenhower would leave office with an agreement out of reach, as Eisenhower's technical advisors, upon whom he relied heavily, became mired in the complex technical questions of a test ban, driven in part by a strong interest among American experts to lower the error rate of seismic test detection technology. Some, including Kistiakowsky, would eventually raise concerns about the ability of inspections and monitors to successfully detect tests. The primary product of negotiations under Eisenhower was the testing moratorium without any enforcement mechanism. Ultimately, the goal of a comprehensive test ban would be abandoned in favor of a partial ban due to questions over seismic detection of underground tests.
Political scientist Robert Gilpin later argued that Eisenhower faced three camps in the push for a test ban. The first was the "control" camp, led by figures like Linus Pauling and astronomer Harlow Shapley, which believed that both testing and possession of nuclear weapons was dangerous. Second, there was the "finite containment" camp, populated by scientists like Hans Bethe, which was concerned by perceived Soviet aggression but still believed that a test ban would be workable with adequate verification measures. Third, the "infinite containment" camp, of which Strauss, Teller, and members of the defense establishment were members, believed that any test ban would grant the Soviet Union the ability to conduct secret tests and move ahead in the arms race.
The degree of Eisenhower's interest in a test ban is a matter of some historical dispute. Stephen E. Ambrose writes that by early 1960, a test ban had become "the major goal of his President, indeed of his entire career," and would be "his final and most lasting gift to his country." Conversely, John Lewis Gaddis characterizes negotiations of the 1950s as "an embarrassing series of American reversals," suggesting a lack of real US commitment to arms control efforts. The historian Robert Divine also attributed the failure to achieve a deal to Eisenhower's "lack of leadership," evidenced by his inability to overcome paralyzing differences among US diplomats, military leaders, national security experts, and scientists on the subject. Paul Nitze would similarly suggest that Eisenhower never formulated a cohesive test ban policy, noting his ability to "believe in two mutually contradictory and inconsistent propositions at the same time."
Upon assuming the presidency in January 1961, John F. Kennedy was committed to pursuing a comprehensive test ban and ordered a review of the American negotiating position in an effort to accelerate languishing talks, believing Eisenhower's approach to have been "insufficient." In making his case for a test ban, Kennedy drew a direct link between continued testing and nuclear proliferation, calling it the "'Nth-country' problem." While a candidate, Kennedy had argued, "For once China, or France, or Sweden, or half a dozen other nations successfully test an atomic bomb, the security of both Russians and Americans is dangerously weakened." He had also claimed that renewed testing would be "damaging to the American image" and might threaten the "existence of human life." On the campaign trail, Kennedy's test-ban proposal consisted of a continued US testing moratorium, expanded efforts to reach a comprehensive agreement, limit any future tests to those minimizing fallout, and expand research on fallout. Notably, early in his term, Kennedy also presided over a significant increase in defense spending, which was reciprocated by the Soviet Union shortly thereafter, thus placing the test-ban negotiations in the context of an accelerating arms race.
On 21 March 1961, test-ban negotiations resumed in Geneva and Arthur Dean, a lead US envoy, offered a new proposal in an attempt to bridge the gap between the two sides. The early Kennedy proposal largely grew out of later Eisenhower efforts, with a ban on all tests but low-yield underground ones (below magnitude 4.75), which would be subject to a three-year moratorium. The US and UK proposed 20 on-site inspections per annum, while the Soviet Union proposed three. The verification procedures included in the Anglo-American plan were unacceptable to Tsarapkin, who responded with separate proposals rejected by the Western powers. Specifically, the Soviet Union proposed a "troika" mechanism: a monitoring board composed of representatives of the West, the Soviet Union, and nonaligned states that would require unanimity before acting (effectively giving the Soviet Union veto authority). In May 1961, Kennedy attempted via secret contact between Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and a Soviet intelligence officer to settle on 15 inspections per year. This was rejected by Khrushchev.
Ahead of the June 1961 Vienna summit between Kennedy and Khrushchev, Robert F. Kennedy spoke with the Soviet ambassador to the US, who suggested that progress on a test ban was possible in a direct meeting between the leaders. President Kennedy subsequently announced to the press that he had "strong hopes" for progress on a test ban. In Vienna, Khrushchev suggested that three inspections per year would have to be the limit, as anything more frequent would constitute espionage. Khrushchev privately believed allowing three inspections to be a significant concession to the West, as other Soviet officials preferred an even less intrusive system, and was angered by US resistance. Khrushchev later told his son, "hold out a finger to them—they chop off your whole hand."
Additionally, the Soviet Union had once been ready to support an control commission under the aegis of the UN, Khrushchev explained, but it could not longer do so given perceived bias in recent UN action in the Congo. Instead, Khrushchev reiterated the troika proposal. Furthermore, Khrushchev insisted that the test ban be considered in the context of "general and complete disarmament," arguing that a test ban on its own was unimportant; Kennedy said the US could only agree with a guarantee that a disarmament agreement would be reached quickly (the Vienna demands thus amounted to a reversal of both sides' earlier positions). Kennedy also disagreed that a test ban was itself insignificant; the world could expect many more countries in the coming years to cross the nuclear threshold without a test ban. Ultimately, the two leaders left Vienna without clear progress on the subject. The Soviet Union would drop the general-disarmament demand in November 1961.
Following the setback in Vienna and Berlin Crisis of 1961, as well as the Soviet decision to resume testing in August (attributed by Moscow to a changed international situation and French nuclear tests), Kennedy faced mounting pressure from the Department of Defense and nuclear laboratories to set aside the dream of a test ban. In June 1961, following stalled talks in Geneva, Kennedy had argued that Soviet negotiating behavior raised "a serious question about how long we can safely continue on a voluntary basis a refusal to undertake tests in this country without any assurance that the Russians are not testing." Whether or not the Soviet Union had actually conducted secret tests was a matter of debate within the Kennedy administration. A team led by physicist Wolfgang K. H. Panofsky reported that while the Soviet Union could have secretly tested weapons, there was no evidence indicating that it actually had. Panofsky's findings were dismissed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff as "assertive, ambiguous, semiliterate and generally unimpressive."
Two weeks after the lifting of the Soviet moratorium in August 1961, and after another failed Anglo-American attempt to have the Soviet Union agree to an atmospheric-test ban, the US restarted testing on 15 September 1961. Kennedy specifically limited such testing to underground and laboratory tests, but under mounting pressure as Soviet tests continued — during the time period of the Soviet "Tsar Bomba" 50 Mt+ test detonation on 30 October over Novaya Zemlya — Kennedy announced and dedicated funds to a renewed atmospheric testing program in November 1961.
A report on the 1961 Soviet tests, published by a group of American scientists led by Hans Bethe, determined "that [Soviet] laboratories had probably been working full speed during the whole moratorium on the assumption that tests would at some time be resume," with preparations likely having begun prior to the resumption of talks in Geneva in March 1961. In January 1962, Bethe, who had once supported a test ban, publicly argued that a ban was "no longer a desirable goal" and the US should test weapons developed by its laboratories. In contrast to Soviet laboratories, US laboratories had been relatively inactive on nuclear weapons issues during the moratorium.
In December 1961, Macmillan met with Kennedy in Bermuda, appealing for a final and permanent halt to tests. Kennedy, conversely, used the meeting to request permission to test on Christmas Island, with US testing grounds in the Pacific having largely been exhausted. Macmillan agreed to seek to give US permission "if the situation did not change." Christmas Island was ultimately opened to US use by February 1962.
On this matter of resumed atmospheric tests, Kennedy lacked the full backing of his administration and allies. In particularly, Macmillan, Adlai Stevenson (then the UN ambassador), the State Department, the United States Information Agency, and Jerome Wiesner, the PSAC chairman, opposed resuming atmospheric tests. On the side advocating resumption were the AEC, Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, Joint Chiefs of Staff (which had called for renewed atmospheric tests in October 1961), and Department of Defense, though then-Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara privately acknowledged that such tests were "not really necessary." Teller continued to advocate for atmospheric tests, as well, arguing in early 1962 that nuclear fallout was nothing be concerned about. Teller also argued that testing was necessary to continued advancement of US nuclear capabilities, particularly in terms of the mobility of its weapons and, accordingly, its second-strike capability.
Despite Teller's reassurances, Kennedy himself "hated the idea of reopening the race" and was uneasy with continued production of fallout, a negative consequence of resumed testing that its opponents within the administration stressed. Opponents of the tests also argued that renewed atmospheric tests would come at a significant moral cost to the US, given broad public opposition to the plan, and claimed that further tests were largely unnecessary, with the US already having an adequate nuclear arsenal. Arthur Dean believed that public opposition to atmospheric testing was so great that the US would have to halt such tests within four years even without an agreement. John Kenneth Galbraith, then the ambassador to India, had advised Kennedy in June 1961 that resumed testing "would cause us the gravest difficulties in Asia, Africa and elsewhere." Similarly, Hubert Humphrey described the moratorium as "a ray of hope to millions of worried people." Its termination, Humphrey warned, "might very well turn the political tides in the world in behalf of the Soviets."
Ultimately, Kennedy sided with those arguing for resumed testing. In particular, an argument by William C. Foster, the head of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, swayed Kennedy. Foster argued that if the US failed to respond to the Soviet test series, Moscow could order a second test series, which could give the Soviet Union a significant advantage. Furthermore, a second test series, without US reciprocation, could damage the push for a test ban and make Senate ratification of any agreement less likely. On 2 March 1962, building on the November 1961 announcement, Kennedy promised to resume atmospheric testing by the end of April 1962 if Moscow continued to resist the Anglo-American test-ban proposal. To an extent, the announcement was a compromise, as Kennedy restricted atmospheric tests to those tests which were "absolutely necessary," not feasible underground, and minimized fallout. The condition that testing would resume only if the Soviet Union continued to oppose the Anglo-American proposal also served as a concession to dissenting voices within his administration and to Macmillan.
Kennedy portrayed resumed testing as a necessary for the image of US resolve. If the US failed to respond to the Soviet test series, Kennedy explained, Moscow would "chalk it up, not to goodwill, but to a failure of will—not to our confidence in Western superiority, but to our fear of world opinion." Keeping the US in a position of strength, Kennedy argued, would be necessary for a test ban to ever come about.
The US suspension of atmospheric tests was lifted on 25 April 1962.
By March 1962, the trilateral talks in Geneva had shifted to 18-party talks at the UN Disarmament Conference. On 27 August 1962, within that conference, the US and UK offered two draft treaties to the Soviet Union. The primary proposal included a comprehensive ban verified by control posts under national command, but international supervision, and required on-site inspections. This was rejected by the Soviet Union due to the inspection requirement. The alternative proposal included a partial test ban—underground tests would be excluded—to be verified by national detection mechanisms, without supervision by a supranational body.
In October 1962, the US and Soviet Union experienced the Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought the two superpowers to the edge of nuclear war and prompted both Kennedy and Khrushchev to seek accelerated rapprochement. After years of dormant or lethargic negotiations, American and British negotiators subsequently forged a strong working relationship and with Soviet negotiators found common ground on test restrictions later in 1962. After years of pursuing a comprehensive ban, Khrushchev was convinced to accept a partial ban, partly due to the efforts of Soviet nuclear scientists, including Kurchatov, Sakharov, and Yulii Khariton, who argued that atmospheric testing had severe consequences for human health. Khrushchev had been concerned by a partial ban due to the greater US experience in underground tests; by 1962, the US had conducted 89 such tests and the Soviet Union just two (the Soviet focus had been on cheaper, larger-yield atmospheric tests). For this reason, many in the Soviet weapons industry argued that a partial ban would give the US the advantage in nuclear capabilities. Khrushchev would later recount that he saw test-ban negotiations as a prime venue for ameliorating tensions after the crisis in Cuba.
Shocked by how close the world had come to thermonuclear war, Khrushchev proposed easing of tensions with the US. In a letter to President Kennedy dated 30 October 1962, Kurshchev outlined a range of bold initiatives to forestall the possibility of nuclear war, including proposing a non-aggression treaty between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Warsaw Pact or even the disbanding these military blocs, a treaty to cease all nuclear weapons testing and even the elimination of all nuclear weapons, resolution of the hot-button issue of Germany by both East and West formally accepting the existence of West Germany and East Germany, and US recognition of the government of mainland China. The letter invited counter-proposals and further exploration of these and other issues through peaceful negotiations. Khrushschev invited Norman Cousins, the editor of a major US periodical and an anti-nuclear weapons activist, to serve as liaison with President Kennedy, and Cousins met with Khrushchev for four hours in December 1962. Kennedy's response to Khrushchev's proposals was lukewarm but Kennedy expressed to Cousins that he felt constrained in exploring these issues due to pressure from hardliners in the US national security apparatus. However Kennedy pursued negotiations for a partial nuclear test ban.
On 13 November 1962, Tsarapkin indicated that the Soviet Union would accept a proposal drafted by US and Soviet experts involving automated test detection stations ("black boxes") and a limited number of on-site inspections. The two sides disagreed over the number of black boxes, however, as the US sought 12–20 such stations and the Soviet Union rejected any more than three. On 28 December 1962, Kennedy lowered the US demand to 8–10 stations. On 19 February 1963, the number was lowered further to seven, as Khrushchev continued to insist on no more than three. Kennedy was willing to reduce the number to six, though this was not clearly communicated to the Soviet Union. On 20 April 1963, Khrushchev withdrew support for three inspections entirely.
Progress was further complicated in early 1963, as a group in the US Congress called for the Soviet proposal to be discarded in favor of the Geneva System. On 27 May 1963, 34 US Senators, led by Humphrey and Thomas J. Dodd, introduced a resolution calling for Kennedy to propose another partial ban to the Soviet Union involving national monitoring and no on-site inspections. Absent Soviet agreement, the resolution called for Kennedy to continue to "pursue it with vigor, seeking the widest possible international support" while suspending all atmospheric and underwater tests. The effect of the resolution was to bolster the general push for a test ban, though Kennedy initially was concerned that it would damage attempts to secure a comprehensive ban, and had administration figures (including the Joint Chiefs of Staff) reiterate a call for a comprehensive ban. That same spring of 1963, however, Kennedy had sent antinuclear activist Norman Cousins to Moscow to meet with Khrushchev, where he explained that the political situation in the US made it very difficult for Kennedy agree to a comprehensive ban with Khrushchev's required terms. Cousins also assured Khrushchev that though Kennedy had rejected Khrushchev's offer of three yearly inspections, he still was set on achieving a test ban. In March 1963, Kennedy had also held a press conference in which he re-committed to negotiations with the Soviet Union as a means of preventing rapid nuclear proliferation, which he characterized as "the greatest possible danger and hazard."
One of Kennedy's advisors, Walt Whitman Rostow, advised the President to make a test ban conditional on the Soviet Union withdrawing troops from Cuba and abiding by a 1962 agreement on Laos, but Kennedy opted instead for test-ban negotiations without preconditions. On 10 June 1963, in an effort to reinvigorate and recontextualize a test ban, President Kennedy dedicated his commencement address at American University to "the most important topic on earth: world peace" and proceeded to make his case for the treaty. Kennedy first called on Americans to dispel the idea that peace is unattainable. "Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace," Kennedy said, "based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions—on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements which are in the interest of all concerned." Second, Kennedy appealed for a new attitude towards the Soviet Union, calling Americans to not "see only a distorted and desperate view of the other side, not to see conflict as inevitable, accommodations as impossible and communication as nothing more than an exchange of threats." Finally, Kennedy argued for a reduction in Cold War tensions, with a test ban serving as a first step towards complete disarmament:
Kennedy proceeded to announce an agreement with Khrushchev and Macmillan to promptly resume comprehensive test-ban negotiations in Moscow and a US decision to unilaterally halt atmospheric tests. The speech was well received by Khrushchev, who later called it "the greatest speech by any American President since Roosevelt," though was met with some skepticism within the US. The speech was endorsed by Humphrey and other Democrats, but labeled a "dreadful mistake" by Republican Senator Barry Goldwater and "another case of concession" by Everett Dirksen, the leader of the Senate Republicans. Dirksen and Charles A. Halleck, the second-ranking House Republican, warned that the renewed negotiations might end in "virtual surrender."
Due to prior experience in arms control and his personal relationship with Khrushchev, former Assistant Secretary of War John J. McCloy was first considered the likely choice for chief US negotiator in Moscow, but his name was withdrawn after he turned out to be unavailable over the summer. W. Averell Harriman, a former ambassador to the Soviet Union well respected in Moscow, was chosen instead. The US delegation would also include Adrian S. Fisher, Carl Kaysen, John McNaughton, and William R. Tyler. In Britain, Macmillan initially wanted David Ormsby-Gore, who had just completed a term as foreign minister, to lead his delegation, but there were concerns that Ormsby-Gore would appear to be a US "stooge" (Kennedy described him as "the brightest man he ever knew"). Instead, Macmillan chose Quintin Hogg. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., a special advisor to Kennedy, believed that Hogg was "ill prepared on the technicalities of the problem and was consumed by a desire to get a treaty at almost any cost." Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs, served as Moscow's emissary.
Heading into the negotiations, there was still no resolution within the Kennedy Administration of the question of whether to pursue a comprehensive or partial ban. In an effort to achieve the former, Britain proposed reducing the number of mandated inspections to allay Soviet concerns, but Harriman believed such a reduction would have to be paired with other concessions that Khrushchev would be able to show off within the Soviet Union and to China. Withdrawing PGM-19 Jupiter missiles from Italy and Turkey would have been an option, had they not already been removed in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis. In meetings prior to the negotiations, Kennedy informed Harriman that he would be willing to make concessions on the Berlin question.
On 2 July 1963, Khrushchev proposed a partial ban on tests in the atmosphere, outer space, and underwater, which would avoid the contentious issue of detecting underground tests. Notably, Khrushchev did not link this proposal to a moratorium on underground tests (as had been proposed earlier), but said it should be followed by a non-aggression pact between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. "A test ban agreement combined with the signing of a non-aggression pact between the two groups of state will create a fresh international climate more favorable for a solution of the major problems of our time, including disarmament," Khrushchev said.
As the nuclear powers pursued a test ban agreement, they also sought to contend with a rising communist China, which at the time was pursuing its own nuclear program. In 1955, Mao Zedong expressed to the Soviet Union his belief that China could withstand a first nuclear strike and more than 100 million casualties. In the 1950s, the Soviet Union assisted the Chinese nuclear program, but stopped short of providing China with an actual nuclear bomb, which was followed by increasingly tense relations in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Khrushchev began the test-ban talks of 1958 with minimal prior discussion with China, and the two countries' agreement on military-technology cooperation was terminated in June 1959. Prior to the Moscow negotiations of the summer of 1963, Kennedy granted Harriman significant latitude in reaching a "Soviet-American understanding" vis-à-vis China. Secret Sino-Soviet talks in July 1963 revealed further discord between the two communist powers, as the Soviet Union released a statement that it did not "share the views of the Chinese leadership about creating 'a thousand times higher civilization' on the corpses of hundreds of millions of people." The Soviet Union also issued an ideological critique of China's nuclear policy, declaring that China's apparent openness to nuclear war was "in crying contradiction to the idea of Marxism–Leninism," as a nuclear war would "not distinguish between imperialists and working people."
The negotiations were inaugurated on 15 July 1963 at the Kremlin with Khrushchev in attendance. Khrushchev reiterated that the Anglo-American inspection plan would amount to espionage, effectively dismissing the possibility of a comprehensive ban. Following the script of his 3 July 1963 speech, Khrushchev did not demand a simultaneous moratorium on underground testing and instead proposed a non-aggression pact. Under instruction from Washington, Harriman replied that the US would explore the possibility of a non-aggression pact in good faith, but indicated that while a test ban could be quickly completed, a non-aggression pact would require lengthy discussions. Additionally, such a pact would complicate the issue of Western access to West Berlin. Harriman also took the opportunity to propose a non-proliferation agreement with would bar the transfer of nuclear weapons between countries. Khrushchev said that such an agreement should be considered in the future, but in the interim, a test ban would have the same effect on limiting proliferation.
Following initial discussions, Gromyko and Harriman began examining drafts of a test-ban agreement. First, language in the drafted preamble appeared to Harriman to prohibit the use of nuclear weapons in self-defense, which Harriman insisted be clarified. Harriman additionally demanded that an explicit clause concerning withdrawal from the agreement be added to the treaty; Khrushchev believed that each state had a sovereign right to withdraw, which should simply be assumed. Harriman informed Gromyko that without a clause governing withdrawal, which he believed the US Senate would demand, the US could not assent. Ultimately, the two sides settled upon compromise language:
Each Party shall in exercising its national sovereignty have the right to withdraw from the Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events, related to the subject matter of this Treaty, have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country.
Gromyko and Harriman debated how states not universally recognized (e.g., East Germany and China) could join the agreement. The US proposed asserting that accession to the treaty would not indicate international recognition. This was rejected by the Soviet Union. Eventually, with Kennedy's approval, US envoys Fisher and McNaughton devised a system whereby multiple government would serve as depositaries for the treaty, allowing individual states to sign only the agreement held by the government of their choice in association with other like-minded states. This solution, which overcame one of the more challenging roadblocks in the negotiations, also served to allay mounting concerns from Macmillan, which were relayed to Washington, that an agreement would once again be derailed. Finally, in an original Soviet draft, the signature of France would have been required for the treaty to come into effect. At Harriman's insistence, this requirement was removed.
The agreement was initialed on 25 July 1963, just 10 days after negotiations commenced. The following day, Kennedy delivered a 26-minute televised address on the agreement, declaring that since the invention of nuclear weapons, "all mankind has been struggling to escape from the darkening prospect of mass destruction on earth ... Yesterday a shaft of light cut into the darkness." Kennedy expressed hope that the test ban would be the first step towards broader rapprochement, limit nuclear fallout, restrict nuclear proliferation, and slow the arms race in such a way that fortifies US security. Kennedy concluded his address in reference to a Chinese proverb that he had used with Khrushchev in Vienna two years prior. "'A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step,'" Kennedy said. "And if that journey is a thousand miles, or even more, let history record that we, in this land, at this time, took the first step."
In a speech in Moscow following the agreement, Khrushchev declared that the treaty would not end the arms race and by itself could not "avert the danger of war," and reiterated his proposal of a NATO-Warsaw Pact non-aggression accord. For Khrushchev, the test ban negotiations had long been a means of improving the Soviet Union's global image and reducing strain in relations with the West. There are also some indications that military experts within the Soviet Union saw a test ban as a way to restrict US development of tactical nuclear weapons, which could have increased US willingness to deploy small nuclear weapons on battlefields while circumventing the Soviet nuclear deterrent. Concern that a comprehensive ban would retard modernization of the Soviet arsenal may have pushed Khrushchev towards a partial ban. Counteracting the move towards a partial ban was Khrushchev's interest in reducing spending on testing, as underground testing was more expensive than the atmospheric tests the Soviet Union had been conducting; Khrushchev preferred a comprehensive ban as it would have eliminated the cost of testing entirely. Furthermore, there was internal concern about nuclear proliferation, particularly regarding the prospect of France and China crossing the threshold and the possibility of a multilateral NATO nuclear force, which was seen as a step towards West Germany acquiring nuclear weapons (the first Soviet test ban proposal in 1955 was made in the same month than West Germany joined NATO).
It was not until after the agreement was reached that the negotiators broached the question of France and China joining the treaty. Harriman proposed to Khrushchev that the US lobby France while the Soviet Union pursued a Chinese signature. "That's your problem," Khrushchev said in reply. Earlier, the Soviet ambassador to the US, Mikhail A. Menshikov, reportedly asked whether the US could "deliver the French." Both Kennedy and Macmillan personally called on de Gaulle to join, offering assistance to the French nuclear program in return. Nevertheless, on 29 July 1963, France announced it would not join the treaty. It was followed by China two days later.
On 5 August 1963, British Foreign Secretary Alec Douglas-Home, Soviet foreign minister Gromyko, and US Secretary of State Dean Rusk signed the final agreement.
Between 8 and 27 August 1963, the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations held hearings on the treaty. The Kennedy administration largely presented a united front in favor of the deal. Leaders of the once-opposed Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and AEC acknowledged that the treaty would be of net benefit, though Teller, former members of the JCS and AEC, and the commander of the Strategic Air Command made clear their firm opposition. The opponents' argument centered on four themes. First, banning atmospheric tests would prevent the US from ensuring the hardness of its LGM-30 Minuteman missile silos and, second, from developing a capable missile defense system. Third, it was argued that the Soviet Union led the US in high-yield weapons (recall the Soviet Tsar Bomba test of 1961), which required atmospheric testing banned by the treaty, while the US led the Soviet Union in low-yield weapons, which were tested underground and would be permitted by the treaty. Fourth, the ban would prevent peaceful, civilian uses of nuclear detonations. Teller declared that the treaty would be a "step away from safety and possibly ... toward war."
Administration testimony sought to counteract these arguments. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara announced his "unequivocal support" for the treaty before the Foreign Relations Committee, arguing that US nuclear forces were secure and clearly superior to those of the Soviet Union, and that any major Soviet tests would be detected. Glenn T. Seaborg, the chairman of the AEC, also gave his support to the treaty in testimony, as did Harold Brown, the Department of Defense's lead scientist, and Norris Bradbury, the longtime director of the Los Alamos Laboratory. Maxwell D. Taylor, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also testified in favor of the deal. Taylor and other members of the JCS, including Curtis LeMay, had made their support for the treaty conditional on four "safeguards": (1) a continued, aggressive underground testing program, (2) continued nuclear research programs, (3) continued readiness to resume atmospheric tests, and (4) improved verification equipment. Kennedy emphasized that the US would retain the ability to use nuclear weapons in war, would not be bound by the treaty if the Soviets violated it, and would continue an aggressive underground testing program. Kennedy also stressed that a ban would be a key step in preventing nuclear war.
The testimonies of the Joint Chiefs were seen as particularly effective in allaying concerns, as were the reassurances issued by Kennedy, who had acquired a reputation for resoluteness against the Soviet Union in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Additionally, a number of prominent Republicans came out in support of the deal, including Eisenhower, Eisenhower's vice president Richard Nixon, and Senator Everett Dirksen, who had initially been skeptical of the treaty. Eisenhower's science advisor and former PSAC head, George Kistiakowsky, endorsed the treaty. Former President Harry S. Truman also lent his support. Supporters of the deal mounted a significant pressure campaign, with active lobbying in favor by a range of civilian groups, including the United Automobile Workers/AFL-CIO, the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, Women Strike for Peace, and Methodist, Unitarian Universalist, and Reform Jewish organizations. Jerome Wiesner, the chairman of PSAC, later said that this public advocacy was a primary motivation for Kennedy's push for a test ban. Civil opposition to the deal was less prominent, though the Veterans of Foreign Wars announced opposition to the deal along with the International Council of Christian Churches, which rejected a "covenant with a godless power." Polling in late August 1963 indicated that more than 60% of Americans supported the deal while less than 20% opposed it.
On 3 September 1963, the Foreign Relations Committee approved the treaty by a 16–1 vote. On 24 September 1963, the US Senate voted 80–14 to approve ratification of the treaty, exceeding the necessary two-thirds majority by 14 votes. The Soviet Union ratified the treaty the following day with a unanimous vote of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet. On 10 October 1963, the treaty entered into effect.
The treaty declares as its "principal aim the speediest possible achievement of an agreement on general and complete disarmament under strict international control" and explicitly states the goal of achieving a comprehensive test ban (one that bans underground tests). The treaty permanently forbids the parties to the treaty from conducting, permitting, or encouraging any nuclear explosion in the atmosphere, outer space, or underwater as well as "any other nuclear explosion" that threatens to send nuclear debris into another state's territory. The wording "any other nuclear explosion" prohibited peaceful nuclear explosions because of the difficulty in differentiating those from military tests without expanded verification measures.
Per the compromise forged by US delegates Adrian S. Fisher and John McNaughton in Moscow, Article 3 of the treaty allows states to deposit instruments of ratification or accession with the government of the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, or United States, thereby avoiding the issue of the treaty appearing to legitimize governments lacking universal recognition. Article 4 reflects the compromise struck by Gromyko and Harriman in Moscow on departure from the treaty. It recognizes the sovereign right of states to withdraw from treaties, as Khrushchev argued, but explicitly grants parties the right to withdraw if "extraordinary events... have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country," per the US demand.
By 15 April 1964, six months after the PTBT went into effect, more than 100 states had joined the treaty as signatories and 39 had ratified or acceded to it. The most recent party to the PTBT is Montenegro, which succeeded to the treaty in 2006. , 126 states were party to the treaty, with 10 other states having signed but not deposited instruments of ratification. There are 60 states that have not signed the PTBT, including the nuclear states of China, France, and North Korea. Albania, an ideological ally of China during the PTBT's enactment, also has not signed.
The PTBT's ratification coincided with the beginning of a steep decline in the amount of radioactive particles in the atmosphere (following the "bomb spike" in the early 1960s), but it did not halt nuclear proliferation. One year after the PTBT's entry into force, the nonsignatory China conducted the 596 test and became the world's fifth nuclear power. Since China, four other states are known or believed to have acquired nuclear weapons. However, the PTBT has been credited with slowing proliferation because of the greater expense associated with underground tests. Kennedy had warned in 1963 that without a test ban, there could be 10 nuclear states by 1970 and 15 to 20 by 1975.
The decade following ratification of the PTBT (1963–1972) featured more US nuclear tests than the decade prior (1953–1962). In the following decade, the US conducted 385 nuclear tests and 23 peaceful nuclear explosions (PNEs), as oppsed to 268 tests and three PNEs in the prior decade. In contrast, the number of Soviet detonations fell from 218 in the preceding decade to 157 in the following decade, as the Soviet Union was never able to meet the pace of US underground explosions. China and France, both nonsignatories, conducted 53 tests between 1963 and 1973. In all, 436 tests were conducted between the signing of the PTBT and 1 July 1973, compared to 499 tests between 16 July 1945 and the signing of the PTBT. In the 1960s and the 1970s, China conducted 22 atmospheric tests and France conducted 50. The last atmospheric test was conducted by China in 1980, after French atmospheric testing stopped in 1974. Public opposition to nuclear testing continued after the treaty's enactment. Greenpeace was founded in 1971 in opposition to a planned underground test on the Alaskan island of Amchitka. In 1982, a Greenpeace ship docked at Leningrad without permission to demand the Soviet Union to stop testing.
The PTBT was a first of a series of nuclear arms control treaties in the second half of 20th century. The PTBT has been considered the stepping stone to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) of 1968, which explicitly referred to the progress provided by the PTBT. In addition to the NPT, the PTBT was followed within ten years by the Outer Space Treaty and Treaty of Tlatelolco in 1967, the Seabed Arms Control Treaty in 1971, and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 1972. In 1974, the Threshold Test Ban Treaty prohibited underground tests with yields above 150 kilotons.
In October 1977, the original parties to the PTBT renewed discussion of a comprehensive test ban in Geneva. Through the end of the 1970s, the US, the UK, and Soviet Union reached agreement on draft provisions prohibiting all testing, temporarily banning PNEs, and establishing a verification system including on-site inspections. However, the sides remained at odds over the precise details of verification, and the talks would permanently disband with the departure of President Jimmy Carter in 1981.
Momentum towards a comprehensive ban re-emerged under Mikhail Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan, with Gorbachev initiating a testing moratorium in 1985. In December 1986, the US indicated support for the "long-term objective" of a comprehensive ban, followed by the commencement of testing negotiations between the US and Soviet Union in November 1987. In December 1987, the US and the Soviet Union agreed to a joint program of experiments on detecting underground tests. In August 1988, Indonesia, Mexico, Peru, Sri Lanka, Venezuela, and Yugoslavia petitioned to transform the PTBT into a comprehensive ban by extending the treaty to underground tests. At a conference on the plan in January 1991, the US indicated that it would not permit efforts to achieve a comprehensive ban by consensus with amendments to the PTBT.
Throughout the 1990s, progress accelerated towards a comprehensive test ban treaty (CTBT). Following a series of international meetings on the subject, the UN General Assembly approved Resolution 50/64, which appealed for states to follow the PTBT and called for conclusion of the CTBT talks. In September 1996, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty was signed and superseded the PTBT, but the PTBT is still in effect for states not party to the CTBT. The CTBT has yet to enter into force, as 8 required states have not ratified the treaty, including the US and China. France, Russia, and the UK have ratified the CTBT. The technology for detecting underground tests has significantly improved since the 1950s and 1960s, with monitors detecting tests down to 1 kiloton with a high degree of confidence.
Early compliance with the PTBT was believed to be good, but there have been a number of accidental releases of nuclear debris into the atmosphere by parties to the treaty. Additionally, "venting" of underground tests by the US and the Soviet Union also continued to release radioactive debris into the atmosphere. Fully-contained underground tests were not wholly "clean" either. Underground testing reduced the risk caused by radionuclides with short half-lives, such as iodine-131, and is generally safer than other forms of testing. However, underground testing may also cause long-lived radionuclides, including caesium-135, iodine-129, and plutonium, to seep into the ground.
A notable atmospheric release of radioactive gas followed the Soviet Chagan test of 15 January 1965 in present-day Kazakhstan. Roughly 20% of the radioactive debris produced by the 140-kiloton detonation was released into the atmosphere, with some fallout occurring over Japan. The US complained to Moscow, but no subsequent action was taken. On 25 April 1966, the "Pin Stripe" underground test in Nevada (part of Operation Flintlock) experienced a venting malfunction and produced a radioactive plume headed towards the Midwestern United States; the AEC determined that the test did not threaten human health.
Another accidental release occurred following the "Baneberry" shot at the Nevada Test Site on 18 December 1970 (part of Operation Emery). The 10-kiloton underground detonation produced a fissure in the ground, which allowed radioactive gas to escape into the atmosphere. Radioactive material released by the fissure reached an altitude of and exposed 86 workers to radiation but none at excessive levels. The incident has since been described as one of the "world's worst nuclear disasters."
Declassified US documents indicate that the US may have violated the PTBT's ban on atmospheric testing in 1972 by, at the instruction of Henry Kissinger, monitoring and collecting data on French atmospheric tests over the Pacific Ocean, which may have amounted to co-operation with the French program. Declassified documents also indicate that the US and:the UK circumvented the prescribed verification system in 1964–65 by establishing a series of additional control posts in Australia, Fiji, Mauritius, Pakistan, and South Africa.
The 1979 Vela Incident in the southern Atlantic may have been an atmospheric nuclear test in contravention of the PTBT by Israel and South Africa, both of which were parties to the treaty. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30592 |
Tribune
Tribune () was the title of various elected officials in ancient Rome. The two most important were the tribunes of the plebs and the military tribunes. For most of Roman history, a college of ten tribunes of the plebs acted as a check on the authority of the senate and the annual magistrates, holding the power of "ius intercessionis" to intervene on behalf of the plebeians, and veto unfavourable legislation. There were also military tribunes, who commanded portions of the Roman army, subordinate to higher magistrates, such as the consuls and praetors, promagistrates, and their legates. Various officers within the Roman army were also known as tribunes. The title was also used for several other positions and classes in the course of Roman history.
The word "tribune" is derived from the Roman tribes. The three original tribes known as the "Ramnes" or "Ramnenses", "Tities" or "Titienses," and the "Luceres," were each headed by a tribune, who represented each tribe in civil, religious, and military matters. Subsequently, each of the Servian tribes was also represented by a tribune.
Under the Roman Kingdom, the "Tribunus Celerum", in English "Tribune of the Celeres," or "Tribune of the Knights", was commander of the king's personal bodyguard, known as the "Celeres". This official was second only to the king, and had the authority to pass law, known as "lex tribunicia", and to preside over the "comitia curiata". Unless the king himself elected to lead the cavalry into battle, this responsibility fell to the tribune of the celeres. In theory he could deprive the king of his imperium, or authority to command, with the agreement of the "comitia curiata".
In the reign of Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the last Roman king, this office was held by Lucius Junius Brutus, the king's nephew, and thus the senior member of the king's household, after the king himself and his sons. It was Brutus who convened the "comitia" and asked that they revoke the king's imperium. After the fall of the monarchy, the powers of the tribune of the celeres were divided between the "Magister Militum", or Master of the Infantry, also known as the "Praetor Maximus" or "dictator", and his lieutenant, the "magister equitum" or "Master of the Horse".
The "Tribuni Plebis", known in English as "Tribunes of the Plebs, Tribunes of the People," or "Plebeian Tribunes," were instituted in 494 BC, after the first secession of the plebs, in order to protect the interests of the plebeians against the actions of the senate and the annual magistrates, who were uniformly patrician. The ancient sources indicate the tribunes may have originally been two or five in number. If the former, the college of tribunes was expanded to five in 470 BC. Either way, the college was increased to ten in 457 BC, and remained at this number throughout Roman history. They were assisted by two "aediles plebis", or plebeian aediles. Only plebeians were eligible for these offices, although there were at least two exceptions.
The tribunes of the plebs had the power to convene the "concilium plebis", or plebeian assembly, and propose legislation before it. Only one of the tribunes could preside over this assembly, which had the power to pass laws affecting only the plebeians, known as "plebiscita", or plebiscites. After 287 BC, the decrees of the "concilium plebis" had the effect of law over all Roman citizens. By the 3rd century BC, the tribunes could also convene and propose legislation before the senate.
Although sometimes referred to as "plebeian magistrates," technically the tribunes of the plebs were not magistrates, having been elected by the plebeians alone, and not the whole Roman people. However, they were sacrosanct, and the whole body of the plebeians were pledged to protect the tribunes against any assault or interference with their persons during their terms of office. Anyone who violated the sacrosanctity of the tribunes might be killed without penalty.
This was also the source of the tribunes' power, known as "ius intercessionis," or "intercessio," by which any tribune could intercede on behalf of a Roman citizen to prohibit the act of a magistrate or other official. Citizens could appeal the decisions of the magistrates to the tribunes, who would then be obliged to determine the legality of the action before a magistrate could proceed. This power also allowed the tribunes to forbid, or "veto" any act of the senate or another assembly. Only a dictator was exempt from these powers.
The "tribunicia potestas", or tribunician power, was limited by the fact that it was derived from the oath of the people to defend the tribunes. This limited most of the tribunes' actions to the boundaries of the city itself, as well as a radius of one mile around. They had no power to affect the actions of provincial governors.
The powers of the tribunes were severely curtailed during the constitutional reforms of the dictator Sulla in 81 BC. Although many of these powers were restored in further reforms of 75 BC and 70 BC, the prestige and authority of the tribunes had been irreparably damaged. In 48 BC, the senate granted tribunician powers ("tribunicia potestas", powers equivalent to those of a tribune without actually being one) to the dictator Julius Caesar. Caesar used them to prevent the other tribunes interfering with his actions. In 23 BC, the senate granted the same power to Augustus, the first Roman Emperor, and from that point onwards it was regularly granted to each emperor as part of their formal titles. Under the Roman Empire, the tribunes continued to be elected, but had lost their independence and most of their practical power. The office became merely a step in the political careers of plebeians who aspired toward a seat in the senate.
The "Tribuni Militum," known in English as "Military Tribunes" or literally, "Tribunes of the Soldiers", were elected each year along with the annual magistrates. Their number varied throughout Roman history, but eventually reached twenty-four. These were usually young men in their late twenties, who aspired to a senatorial career. Each tribune would be assigned to command a portion of the Roman army, subordinate to the magistrates and promagistrates appointed by the senate, and their legates.
Within each of the legions, various middle-ranking officers were also styled "tribune". These officers included:
In the late Roman army, a "tribunus" was a senior officer, sometimes called a "comes", who commanded a cavalry vexillatio. As "tribounos", the title survived in the East Roman army until the early 7th century.
From the use of "tribunus" to describe various military officers is derived the word "tribunal", originally referring to a raised platform used to address the soldiers or administer justice.
Military tribunes are featured in notable works of historical fiction, including "Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ", by Lew Wallace, and "The Robe" by Lloyd C. Douglas. Both novels involve characters affected by the life and death of Jesus, and were turned into epic films during the 1950s. Messala, the primary antagonist in "Ben-Hur", was played by Stephen Boyd, while Marcellus Gallio, the protagonist of "The Robe", was played by a young Richard Burton.
In 445 BC, the tribunes of the plebs succeeded in passing the "lex Canuleia", repealing the law forbidding the intermarriage of patricians and plebeians, and providing that one of the consuls might be a plebeian. Rather than permit the consular dignity to pass into the hands of a plebeian, the senate proposed a compromise whereby three military tribunes, who might be either patrician or plebeian, should be elected in place of the consuls. The first "tribuni militum consulare potestate", or "military tribunes with consular power", were elected for the year 444. Although plebeians were eligible for this office, each of the first "consular tribunes" was a patrician.
Military tribunes were elected in place of the consuls in half the years from 444 to 401 BC, and in each instance, all of the tribunes were patricians; nor did any plebeian succeed in obtaining the consulship. The number of tribunes increased to four beginning in 426, and six beginning in 405. At last, the plebeians elected four of their number military tribunes for the year 400; others were elected in 399, 396, 383, and 379. But apart from these years, no plebeian obtained the highest offices of the Roman State.
The patricians' monopoly on power was finally broken by Gaius Licinius Calvus Stolo and Lucius Sextius Lateranus, tribunes of the people, who in 376 BC brought forward legislation demanding not merely that one of the consuls "might" be a plebeian, but that henceforth one "must" be chosen from their order. When the senate refused their demand, the tribunes prevented the election of annual magistrates for five years, before relenting and permitting the election of consular tribunes from 370 to 367. In the end, and with the encouragement of the dictator Marcus Furius Camillus, the senate conceded the battle, and passed the Licinian Rogations. Sextius was elected the first plebeian consul, followed by Licinius two years later; and with this settlement, the consular tribunes were abolished.
The exact nature of the "Tribuni Aerarii", or "Tribunes of the Treasury" is shrouded in mystery. Originally they seem to have been tax collectors, but this power was slowly lost to other officials. By the end of the Republic, this style belonged to a class of persons slightly below the equites in wealth. When the makeup of Roman juries was reformed in 70 BC, it was stipulated that one-third of the members of each jury should belong to this class.
In the early history of the Republic of Venice, during the tenure of the sixth Doge Domenico Monegario, Venice instituted a dual Tribunal modeled on the above Roman institution - two new Tribunes being elected each year, with the intention to oversee the Doge and prevent abuse of power (though this aim was not always successfully achieved).
The "Tribunat", the French word for tribunate, derived from the Latin term "tribunatus", meaning the office or term of a Roman "tribunus" (see above), was a collective organ of the young revolutionary French Republic composed of members styled "tribun" (the French for tribune), which, despite the apparent reference to one of ancient Rome's prestigious magistratures, never held any real political power as an assembly, its individual members no role at all.
It was instituted by Napoleon I Bonaparte's Constitution of the Year VIII "in order to moderate the other powers" by discussing every legislative project, sending its "orateurs" ("orators", i.e. spokesmen) to defend or attack them in the Corps législatif, and asking the Senate to overturn "the lists of eligibles, the acts of the Legislative Body and those of the government" on account of unconstitutionality. Its 100 members were designated by the Senate from the list of citizens from 25 years up, and annually one fifth was renewed for a five-year term.
When it opposed the first parts of Bonaparte's proposed penal code, he made the Senate nominate 20 new members at once to replace the 20 first opponents to his politic; they accepted the historically important reform of penal law. As the Tribunate opposed new despotic projects, he got the Senate in year X to allow itself to dissolve the Tribunate. In XIII it was further downsized to 50 members. On August 16, 1807 it was abolished and never revived. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30594 |
Train
A train is a form of rail transport consisting of a series of connected vehicles that generally run along a railroad (or railway) track to transport passengers or cargo (also known as "freight" or "goods"). The word "train" comes from the Old French "trahiner", derived from the Latin "trahere" meaning "to pull" or "to draw".
Motive power for a train is provided by a separate locomotive or individual motors in a self-propelled multiple unit. The term "engine" is often used as an alternative to locomotive. Although historically steam propulsion dominated, the most common types of locomotive are diesel and electric, the latter supplied by overhead wires or additional rails. Trains can also be hauled by horses, pulled by engine or water-driven cable or wire winch, run downhill using gravity, or powered by pneumatics, gas turbines or batteries.
The track usually consists of two running rails with a fixed spacing, which may be supplemented by additional rails such as electric conducting rails and rack rails. Monorails and maglev guideways are also used occasionally.
A passenger train includes passenger-carrying vehicles and can often be very long and fast. High-speed rail service began expanding rapidly in the late 20th century, and is also a major subject of further development. The term "light rail" is sometimes used to refer to a modern tram system, but it may also mean an intermediate form between a tram and a train, similar to a heavy rail rapid transit system.
A freight train (or goods train) uses freight cars (or wagons/trucks) to transport goods or materials (cargo). It is possible to carry passengers and freight in the same train using a "mixed consist".
Rail cars and machinery that are used for the maintenance and repair of tracks, are termed "maintenance of way" equipment; these may be assembled into maintenance of way trains. Similarly, dedicated trains may be used to provide support services to stations along a train line, such as garbage or revenue collection.
There are various types of trains that are designed for particular purposes. A train can consist of a combination of one or more locomotives and attached railroad cars, or a self-propelled multiple unit, or occasionally a single or articulated powered coach called a railcar. Special kinds of train running on corresponding purpose-built "railways" are monorails, high-speed railways, maglev, atmospheric railways, rubber-tired underground, funicular and cog railways.
A passenger train consists of one or more locomotives and (usually) several coaches. Alternatively, a train may consist entirely of passenger-carrying coaches, some or all of which are powered; this is known as a "multiple unit". In many parts of the world, particularly the Far East and Europe, high-speed rail is used extensively for passenger travel. Freight trains consist of cars, wagons or trucks rather than carriages, though some parcel and mail trains (especially Travelling Post Offices) appear outwardly to be more like passenger trains. Trains can also have "mixed consist", with both passenger accommodation and freight vehicles. These mixed trains are most likely to be used for services that run infrequently, where the provision of separate passenger and freight trains would not be cost-effective, but the disparate needs of passengers and freight means that this is avoided where possible. Special trains are also used for track maintenance; in some places, this is called "maintenance of way".
In the United Kingdom, a train hauled using two locomotives is known as a "double-headed" train. In Canada and the United States, it is quite common for a long freight train to be headed by three or more locomotives. A train with a locomotive attached at both ends is described as "top and tailed", this practice typically being used when there are no reversing facilities available. Where a second locomotive is attached temporarily to assist a train when ascending steep banks or gradients (or to provide braking power for a descent), this is referred to as "banking" in the UK. Many loaded trains in the US are assembled using one or more locomotives in the middle or at the rear of the train, which are then operated remotely from the lead cab. This is referred to as "DP" or "Distributed Power."
The railway terminology that is used to describe a train varies between countries.
In the United Kingdom, the interchangeable terms "set" and "unit" are used to refer to a group of permanently or semi-permanently coupled vehicles, such as those of a multiple unit. While when referring to a train made up of a variety of vehicles, or of several sets/units, the term "formation" is used. (Although the UK public and media often forgo "formation", for simply "train".) The word "rake" is also used for a group of coaches or wagons.
Section 83(1) of the UK's Railways Act 1993 defines "train" as follows:
The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway's 1948 operating rules define a train as: "An engine or more than one engine coupled, with or without cars, displaying markers."
In North America, Australia and other countries, the term "consist" ( ) is used to describe the group of rail vehicles that make up a train. When specifically referring to motive power, the term refers to the group of locomotives powering the train, as does "lash-up". The term "trainset" refers to a group of rolling stock that is permanently or semi-permanently coupled together to form a unified set of equipment (the term is most often applied to passenger train configurations).
A bogie ( ) is a wheeled wagon or trolley. In mechanics terms, a bogie is a chassis or framework carrying wheels, attached to a vehicle. It can be fixed in place, as on a cargo truck, mounted on a swivel, as on a railway carriage or locomotive, or sprung as in the suspension of a caterpillar tracked vehicle. Usually, two bogies are fitted to each carriage, wagon or locomotive, one at each end. An alternate configuration, which is often used in articulated vehicles, places the bogies (often Jacobs bogies) under the connection between the carriages or wagons. Most bogies have two axles, as this is the simplest design, but some cars designed for extremely heavy loads have been built with up to five axles per bogie. Heavy-duty cars may have more than two bogies using span bolsters to equalize the load and connect the bogies to the cars. Usually, the train floor is at a level above the bogies, but the floor of the car may be lower between bogies, such as for a double decker train to increase interior space while staying within height restrictions, or in easy-access, stepless-entry, low-floor trains.
The first trains were rope-hauled, gravity powered or pulled by horses, but from the early 19th century almost all trains were powered by steam locomotives. From the 1910s onwards, steam locomotives began to be replaced with less labor-intensive (and cleaner) diesel and electric locomotives, although these new forms of propulsion were far more complex and expensive than steam power. At about the same time, self-propelled multiple unit vehicles (both diesel and electric) became much more widely used in passenger service. Dieselisation of locomotives in day-to-day use was completed in most countries by the 1970s. Steam locomotives are still used in heritage railways operated in many countries for the leisure and enthusiast market.
Electric traction offers a lower cost per mile of train operation but at a higher initial cost, which can only be justified on high traffic lines. Even though the cost per mile of construction is much higher, electric traction is more viable during operation because diesel import costs are substantially higher. Electric trains receive their current via overhead lines or through a third rail electric system.
A developing technology is fuel cells, which combine the advantage of not needing an electrical system in place, with the advantage of emissionless operation. However, an impediment is substantial initial cost associated with fuel cell vehicles.
A passenger train includes passenger-carrying vehicles and can often be very long and fast. It may be a self-powered multiple unit or railcar, or else a combination of one or more locomotives and one or more unpowered trailers known as coaches, cars or carriages. Passenger trains travel between stations or depots, where passengers may board and disembark. In most cases, passenger trains operate on a fixed schedule and have superior track occupancy rights over freight trains.
Unlike freight trains, passenger trains must supply head-end power to each coach for lighting and heating, among other purposes. This can be drawn directly from the locomotive's prime mover (modified for the purpose), or from a separate diesel generator in the locomotive. For passenger service on remote routes where a head-end-equipped locomotive may not always be available, a separate generator van may be used.
Oversight of a passenger train is the responsibility of the conductor. He or she is sometimes assisted by other crew members, such as service attendants or porters. During the heyday of North American passenger rail travel, long-distance trains carried two conductors: the aforementioned train conductor, and a Pullman conductor, the latter being in charge of sleeping car personnel.
Many prestigious passenger train services have been given a specific name, some of which have become famous in literature and fiction. In past years, railroaders often referred to passenger trains as the "varnish", alluding to the bygone days of wooden-bodied coaches with their lustrous exterior finishes and fancy livery. "Blocking the varnish" meant a slow-moving freight train was obstructing a fast passenger train, causing delays.
Some passenger trains, both long-distance and short-distance, may use bi-level (double-decker) cars to carry more passengers per train. Car design and the general safety of passenger trains have dramatically evolved over time, making travel by rail remarkably safe.
Long-distance trains travel between many cities or regions of a country, and sometimes cross several countries. They often have a dining car or restaurant car to allow passengers to have a meal during the course of their journey. Trains travelling overnight may also have sleeping cars. Currently much of travel on these distances of over is done by air in many countries but in others long-distance travel by rail is a popular or the only cheap way to travel long distances.
One notable and growing long-distance train category is high-speed rail. Generally, high-speed rail runs at speeds above and often operates on dedicated track that is surveyed and prepared to accommodate high speeds. Japan's Shinkansen (popularly known as the "bullet train") commenced operation in 1964, and was the first successful example of a high-speed passenger rail system.
The fastest wheeled train running on rails is France's TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse, literally "high speed train"), which achieved a speed of , twice the takeoff speed of a Boeing 727 jetliner, under test conditions in 2007. The highest speed currently attained in scheduled revenue operation is on the Beijing–Tianjin Intercity Rail and Wuhan–Guangzhou High-Speed Railway systems in China. The TGV runs at a maximum revenue speed of , as does Germany's Inter-City Express and Spain's AVE (Alta Velocidad Española).
In most cases, high-speed rail travel is time- and cost-competitive with air travel when distances do not exceed , as airport check-in and boarding procedures may add as many as two hours to the overall transit time. Also, rail operating costs over these distances may be lower when the amount of fuel consumed by an airliner during takeoff and climbout is considered. As travel distance increases, the latter consideration becomes less of the total cost of operating an airliner and air travel becomes more cost-competitive.
Some high-speed rail equipment employs tilting technology to improve stability in curves. Examples of such equipment are the Advanced Passenger Train (APT), the Pendolino, the N700 Series Shinkansen, Amtrak's Acela Express and the Talgo. Tilting is a dynamic form of superelevation, allowing both low- and high-speed traffic to use the same trackage (though not simultaneously), as well as producing a more comfortable ride for passengers.
"Inter-city" is a general term for any rail service that uses trains with limited stops to provide fast long-distance travel. Inter-city services can be divided into three major groups:
The distinction between the three types of inter-city rail service may be unclear; trains can run as InterCity services between major cities, then revert to an express (or even regional) train service to reach communities at the extremity of the journey. This practice allows marginal communities to be served in the most cost-effective way, at the expense of a longer journey time for those wishing to travel to the terminus station.
Regional trains usually connect between towns and cities, serving smaller urban (and some rural) communities en route. These services are provided to meet local traffic demand in less accessible areas.
Higher-speed rail is a special category of trains. The trains for higher-speed rail services can operate at top speeds that are higher than conventional inter-city trains but the speeds are not as high as those in the high-speed rail services. These services are provided after improvements to the conventional rail infrastructure to support trains that can operate safely at higher speeds.
For shorter distances many cities have networks of commuter trains (also known as suburban trains) serving the city and its suburbs. Trains are a very efficient mode of transport to cope with large traffic demand in a metropolis. Compared with road transport, it carries many people with much smaller land area and little air pollution. Commuter rail also travels longer ranges compared to rapid transit systems with comparatively less frequency and may share tracks with other trains.
Some carriages may be laid out to have more standing room than seats, or to facilitate the carrying of prams, cycles or wheelchairs. Some countries have double-decked passenger trains for use in conurbations. Double deck high speed and sleeper trains are becoming more common in mainland Europe.
Sometimes extreme congestion of commuter trains becomes a problem. For example, an estimated 3.5 million passengers ride every day on Yamanote Line in Tokyo, Japan, with its 29 stations. For comparison, the New York City Subway carries 5.7 million passengers per day on services serving stations. To cope with large traffic, special cars in which the bench seats fold up to provide standing room only during the morning rush hour (until 10 a.m.) are operated in Tokyo (E231 series train). In the past this train has included 2 cars with six doors on each side to shorten the time for passengers to get on and off at station.
Passenger trains usually have emergency brake handles (or a "communication cord") that the public can operate. Misuse is punished by a heavy fine.
Various commuter and suburban train operators (e.g. Sydney Trains, NJ Transit, Paris RER) use double-decker trains. Double-decker trains offer increased capacity even when running less services.
Large cities often have a rapid transit system, also called "metro", "underground", "subway" or "tube". The trains are electrically powered, usually by third rail, and their railroads are separate from other traffic, usually without level crossings. Usually they run in tunnels in the city center and sometimes on elevated structures in the outer parts of the city. They can accelerate and decelerate faster than heavier, long-distance trains.
The general term "rapid transit" is used for public transport such as commuter trains, metro and light rail. However, services on the New York City Subway have been referred to as "trains", while services on the London Underground are commonly referred to as "tube trains" or "tubes".
In the UK, the distinction between a tramway and a railway is precise and defined in law. In Canada and the US, such street railways are referred to as trolleys or streetcars. The key physical difference between a railroad and a trolley system is that the latter runs primarily on public streets, whereas trains have a right-of-way separated from the public streets. Often the US-style interurban and modern light rail are confused with a trolley system, as it too may run on the street for short or medium-length sections. In some languages, the word "tram" also refers to interurban and light rail-style networks, in particular Dutch.
The length of a tram or trolley may be determined by national regulations. Germany has the so-called Bo-Strab standard, restricting the length of a tram to 75 meters, while in the US, vehicle length is normally restricted by local authorities, often allowing only a single type of vehicle to operate on the network.
The term "light rail" is sometimes used for a modern tram system, despite light rail lines commonly having a mostly exclusive right-of-way, more similar to that of a heavy-rail line and less like that of a tramway. It may also mean an intermediate form between a tram and a train, similar to a subway, except that it may have level crossings which are then usually protected with crossing gates. In US terminology, these systems are often referred to as "inter-urban" because they connect larger urban areas in the vicinity of a major city to the center of the city. Modern light rail systems often use abandoned heavy rail rights-of-way (e.g. former railway lines) to revitalize deprived areas and redevelopment sites in and around large agglomerations.
Monorails were developed to meet medium-demand traffic in urban transit, and consist of a train running on a single rail, typically elevated. Monorails represent a relatively small part of the overall railway field. Almost all monorail trains use linear induction motors.
To achieve much faster operation over , innovative maglev technology has been researched since the early 20th century. The technology uses magnets to levitate the train above the track, reducing friction and allowing higher speeds. An early prototype was demonstrated in 1913. The first commercial maglev train was an airport shuttle introduced in 1984 at Birmingham Airport in England.
The Shanghai Maglev Train, opened in 2003, is the fastest commercial train service of any kind, operating at speeds of up to . Maglev has not yet been used for inter-city mass transit routes.
A railcar, in British English and Australian English, is a self-propelled railway vehicle designed to transport passengers. The term "railcar" is usually used in reference to a train consisting of a single coach (carriage, car), with a driver's cab at one or both ends. Some railways, e.g., the Great Western Railway, used the term Railmotor. If it is able to pull a full train, it is rather called a motor coach or a motor car. The term is sometimes also used as an alternative name for the small types of multiple unit which consist of more than one coach.
Railway companies often give a name to a train service as a marketing exercise, to attract more passengers and gain recognition for the company. Naming is usually reserved for the most prestigious services, such as high-speed express trains that run between major cities, stopping at few intermediate stations, or for particularly luxurious trains.
The names of special passenger trains have passed into popular culture: the "Orient Express" has been a setting for films and other works of fiction. The "Flying Scotsman", "Golden Arrow", and "Royal Scot" are examples of famous British trains; the "Texas Eagle" and "California Zephyr" are particularly well known in the US; and the "Red Arrow" is a celebrated Russian sleeper train. In India, some of the popular specially-named train services are the Brindavan Express (Chennai–Bengaluru), Deccan Queen (Mumbai CST–Pune), and Flying Ranee (Mumbai Central–Surat).
A less common practice is the naming of freight trains, for the same commercial reasons. In the 1960s, the "Condor" was an overnight London–Glasgow express goods train, hauled by pairs of "Metrovick" diesel locomotives. In the mid-1960s, British Rail introduced the "Freightliner" brand, for the new train services carrying containers between dedicated terminals around the rail network. The Rev. W. Awdry also named freight trains, coining the name "Flying Kipper" for the overnight express fish train that appeared in his stories in "The Railway Series" books.
Airport trains transport people between terminals within an airport complex.
Heritage trains are operated by volunteers, often railfans, as a tourist attraction. Usually trains are formed from historic vehicles retired from national commercial operation.
Mine trains are operated in large mines and carry both workers and goods.
Overland trains are used to carry cargo over rough terrain.
A freight train (or "goods train") uses freight cars or wagons (also known as "trucks" or "goods wagons") to transport goods or materials (cargo) – essentially any train that is not used for carrying passengers. Much of the world's freight is transported by train, and the rail system in the US is used mostly for transporting freight rather than passengers.
Under the right circumstances, transporting freight by train is highly economic, and also more energy efficient than transporting freight by road. Rail freight is most economic when goods are being carried in bulk and over large distances, but it is less suited to short distances and small loads. Bulk aggregate movements of a mere can be cost effective, even allowing for trans-shipment costs which dominate in many cases; modern practices such as intermodal container freight are aimed at minimizing these costs.
The main disadvantage of rail freight is its lack of flexibility and for this reason, rail has lost much of the freight business to road competition. Many governments are trying to encourage more freight back onto trains because of the benefits that it would bring.
There are many different types of freight train, used for carrying a huge variety of different kinds of freight, with various types of wagon. One of the most common types on modern railways are intermodal (container) trains, where the containers can be lifted on and off the train by cranes and loaded off or onto trucks or ships. In the US, this type of freight train has largely superseded the traditional boxcar (wagon-load) type of freight train, which requires the cargo to be loaded or unloaded manually. In Europe the sliding wall wagon has taken over from the ordinary covered goods wagon.
In some countries "piggy-back" trains or rolling highways are used. In the latter case trucks can drive straight onto the train and drive off again when the end destination is reached. A system like this is used through the Channel Tunnel between England and France, and for the trans-Alpine service between France and Italy (this service uses Modalohr road trailer carriers). "Piggy-back" trains are the fastest growing type of freight train in the US, where they are also known as "trailer on flatcar" or TOFC trains. Piggy-back trains require no special modifications to the vehicles being carried. An alternative type of "intermodal" vehicle, known as a roadrailer, is designed to be physically attached to the train. The original trailers were fitted with two sets of wheels: one set flanged, for the trailer to run connected to other such trailers as a rail vehicle in a train; and one set with tires, for use as the semi-trailer of a road vehicle. More modern trailers have only road wheels and are designed to be carried on specially adapted bogies (trucks) when moving on rails.
There are also many other types of wagon, such as "low loader" wagons or well wagons for transporting road vehicles. There are refrigerator cars for transporting foods such as ice cream. There are simple types of open-topped wagons for transporting minerals and bulk material such as coal, and tankers for transporting liquids and gases. Today, however, most coal and aggregates are moved in hopper wagons that can be filled and discharged rapidly, to enable efficient handling of the materials.
Freight trains are sometimes illegally boarded by passengers who want a free ride, or do not have the money to travel by ordinary means. This is referred to as "freighthopping." A common way of boarding the train illegally is by sneaking into a train yard and stowing away in an unattended boxcar; a more dangerous practice is trying to catch a train "on the fly", that is, while it is moving, leading to occasional fatalities. Railroads treat it as trespassing and may prosecute it as such. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30598 |
Tunnels & Trolls
Tunnels & Trolls (abbreviated "T&T") is a fantasy role-playing game designed by Ken St. Andre and first published in 1975 by Flying Buffalo. The second modern role-playing game published, it was written by Ken St. Andre to be a more accessible alternative to "Dungeons & Dragons" and is suitable for solitaire, group, and play-by-mail gameplay.
Ken St. Andre, a public librarian in Phoenix, Arizona, liked the idea of fantasy role-playing after reading a friend's "D&D" rule books but found the actual rules confusing, so he wrote his own. "I just wanted something I could play with my friends at a reasonable price, with reasonable equipment,” he said. The first edition of "Tunnels & Trolls" was self-published in April 1975. In June 1975, publisher Flying Buffalo Inc. released a second edition of the game, and Tunnels & Trolls quickly became D&D's biggest competitor. "Tunnels & Trolls" had similar statistics, classes, and adventures to "Dungeons & Dragons", but introduced a points-based magic system and used six-sided dice exclusively. According to Michael Tresca, "Tunnels & Trolls" presented a better overall explanation of its rules, and "brought a sense of impish fun to the genre".
The game underwent several modifications between the original release and when the 5th edition of the rules was published in 1979. This edition was also translated and published abroad in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Finland, Japan, and it entered these markets before "Dungeons & Dragons" did in most cases.
In 1999 "Pyramid" magazine named "Tunnels & Trolls" as one of "The Millennium's Most Underrated Games". Editor Scott Haring said of the game "everybody knows this was the second ever fantasy roleplaying game ... But to dismiss it as just an opportunistic ripoff would be grossly unfair. Flying Buffalo's "T&T" had its own zany feel – it was much less serious than "D&D" – and a less-complicated game system."
In 2005, Flying Buffalo updated the 5th edition rules with a "5.5" publication that added about 40 pages of extra material. That same year, Fiery Dragon Productions produced a "30th Anniversary Edition" under license in a tin box complete with CD, map, and monster counters, and two new versions of the rules. Ken St. Andre used the opportunity to extensively update the style of play and introduce new role-playing concepts, such as character level determined by character attribute statistics instead of arbitrary numbers of experience points. The "30th Anniversary" rules are generally known as the 7th edition. One of the most significant innovations of 7th edition is the introduction of a skills system. The 7.5 edition was released in 2008 by Fiery Dragon, being an update and clarification on the 30th Anniversary Edition.
In 2012, Tunnels & Trolls was re-introduced in French-speaking markets by Grimtooth under license by Flying Buffalo. The French rulebook, which is officially the 8th edition, is based on the 7th edition, but includes elements taken from the 5.5 edition as well as clarifications by Ken St. Andre. The interior artwork includes the illustrations of the 5th edition, plus new inks by Liz Danforth. Several other products (solos and GM adventures) have already been released via Lulu.com and others have been announced.
The production work for the 8th edition prompted Flying Buffalo to start working on a Deluxe (9th) Edition of the rulebook. As Rick Loomis, head of Flying Buffalo Inc., put it, "The French edition came out so beautiful that now that I have run out of 5.5, I am not satisfied to just reprint 5.5. I wanted to have a deluxe edition even better than the French one. (Competition is what drives us to be better!)". "Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls", written by St. Andre with additional design input and editing from longtime players Liz Danforth and James "Bear" Peters, was published in August 2015.
The 5th edition "Tunnels & Trolls" core ruleset does not detail a specific setting, saying only that gameplay occurs in "a world somewhat but not exactly similar to Tolkien's Middle Earth." In an interview in 1986, Ken St. Andre stated that "my conception of the "T&T" world was based on "The Lord of The Rings" as it would have been done by Marvel Comics in 1974 with Conan, Elric, the Gray Mouser and a host of badguys thrown in."
The current Deluxe Edition includes Ken St. Andre's house campaign setting, Trollworld. Along with additional material by early players Jim "Bear" Peters and Liz Danforth.
Eight prime attributes define characters in "Tunnels & Trolls":
Later editions add the following prime attributes:
A new character begins with a randomly generated score for each attribute, determined by rolling three six-side dice.
The rules recommend that novice players create human characters, but also offer the options of elves, dwarves, and hobbits. Other races, like leprechauns and fairies, serve as additional character options. A character's race affects his or her attributes. A player may also choose to play as a "monster race" such as a zombie or vampire.
Players also choose a character class for their character. The two base classes are Warriors and Wizards. Wizards can cast spells but have combat limitations. While Warriors cannot cast magic, they are allowed the full use of weapons and armor is twice as effective in blocking damage. Rogues and Warrior-Wizards are also available as character classes. These two classes both combine the abilities of the Warrior and the Wizard. Rogues in "Tunnels & Trolls" are not thieves, unlike the Rogue classes in "Dungeons & Dragons", but could be more accurately described as 'Rogue Wizards'. Rogues are limited in their spell-casting abilities, can utilize the full range of combat weapons and armor as a warrior but do not receive the Warrior's armor bonus or the Wizard's spell-creating ability. Warrior-Wizards are not so limited, but the player must be lucky with the dice when creating the character: high minimum attribute scores are required. Later editions include new classes such as Specialist Mage, Paragon (a renaming of the Warrior-Wizard), Leader, and Ranger.
New characters begin with a number of gold pieces determined by rolling three six-sided dice and multiplying the total by ten. These gold pieces can be used to buy weapons, armor, and other equipment.
Combat is handled by comparing dice rolls between a character and his opponent. Both sides roll a number of dice determined by which weapon is in use, then modify the appropriate result by "personal adds". Totals are compared, with the higher roll damaging the opposing combatant by the difference in totals. Armor absorbs this damage taken, and any amount remaining is subtracted from the Constitution attribute.
"Tunnels & Trolls" is unusual among roleplaying games in conducting mass combat resolution with one set of rolls, as the above system applies to combats between any number of opponents.
Personal adds are determined by Strength, Luck, and Dexterity. For every point above 12 possessed in each of these attributes, the character receives a one-point bonus to his personal adds. Similarly, for every point below 9 possessed in each of these attributes, the character receives a one-point penalty.
In the 7th Edition, the formula was changed to include Speed in the personal adds. This also applies to the Deluxe Edition.
The 5.5, 7th and Deluxe edition include 'spite damage' whereby each "6" rolled on the combat dice causes a minimum of one damage to be inflicted on the opposing side, regardless of armor or the respective combat totals. This helped resolve the interminable stalemate that could occur between evenly matched, heavily armored opponents.
The Saving Roll (SR) is used during combat to break a stalemate or overcome the characters being outmatched as well as for use of ranged weapons. The SR is also used in all other tests of skill or luck the characters may be presented with by the GM or solo adventure. Checks are made using a character's attribute plus 2d6 (doubles add and roll over) against a difficulty level based on the task at hand. For every level of saving roll the formula is 15+5x, with x being the level of difficulty. This was one of the earliest uses of this mechanic in RPGs.
In the third issue of "The Space Gamer", Brant Bates called the first edition of "Tunnels & Trolls" "very playable, and a lot of fun", and recommended it for fantasy fans who are "not purists."
Lewis Pulsipher reviewed "Tunnels & Trolls" for "White Dwarf" #2, and stated that "T&T is much more limited than D&D in every way. Anyone who likes T&T will sooner or later 'graduate' to the much more satisfying (and much more widely played) D&D."
Five years later, in the March–April 1980 edition of "The Space Gamer" (Issue 27), Steve Jackson said of the 5th edition, "On the whole, a good book, worth the price for any adventure gamer just for the ideas and comments it holds. A "must" for anyone playing T&T with an earlier edition."
That same year, in the July 1980 edition of "Ares" (Issue 3), Eric Goldberg dismissed the 5th edition as "a pleasant puff piece", although he agreed that since 1st edition, "the production values have increased from amateur status to a nearly professional standard." However, he did not recommend it, saying, "the game will be passed over by all but the completist; there are better buys on the market now."
In the August 1992 edition of "Dragon" (Issue 184), Rick Swan liked several aspects of the 5th edition: "What the combat system lacks in realism, it makes up for in simplicity and speed" and "Players... will find the magic system to be exceptionally clever." Swan criticized the imprecision of the rules, calling them "a hairsplitter's delight", as well as the simplicity of the monster ratings, which meant "there’s no meaningful distinction between fighting a giant slug and a drunken swordsman." But he concluded that the simplicity of the rules was its own virtue, especially for new players. "The "Tunnels & Trolls" game is by no means the most sophisticated alternative to the "D&D" game — the "AD&D" game, the Avalon Hill Game Company's "Runequest" game, and even the new "Lord of the Rings" game are all better designs — but it’s certainly the easiest to learn. A beginner should be able to master it in an afternoon, and a veteran will probably nail it in under an hour."
In a 1996 reader poll undertaken by "Arcane" magazine to determine the 50 most popular roleplaying games of all time, "Tunnels and Trolls" was ranked 32nd. Paul Pettengale, the magazine's editor, called "T&T" "pretty crude", noting its early release, and said "It's probably here for nostalgic reasons."
"Tunnels & Trolls" was also the first system to publish a series of fantasy-themed gamebooks - adventures which are designed to be played by one person, without the need for a referee. At least twenty such adventures were published by Flying Buffalo. The "Fighting Fantasy" series achieved great popularity using this format. Both "T&T"'s simplicity and its reliance on use of six-sided dice (as compared to the various polyhedral dice used by Dungeons and Dragons) contributed to its success in this format.
Sorcerer's Apprentice was the "Tunnels & Trolls" magazine published by Flying Buffalo. In Ken St. Andre's editorial in the first issue (Winter 1978) the magazine was described as a "'zine based around T&T specifically and fantasy role-playing in general".
A number of books were published that support GMs by giving them ideas for "traps" and other tools for creating adventures when designing a dungeon or adventure. One example is the Grimtooth's Traps series, authored by Paul O'Connor (and others), that is a listing of traps that GMs can insert into their adventures.
"Monsters! Monsters!" is a subset of the "T&T" rules tailored to playing monsters. It is fully compatible with 5th edition. Copyright dates listed are 1976 and 1979, published by Metagaming and then Flying Buffalo. It is occasionally reprinted as photocopies by the author, Ken St. Andre. It is currently available from Flying Buffalo.
"Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes" is a variant system, credited to Michael A. Stackpole. Publication was by Flying Buffalo, who released it in 1983, and Sleuth Publications Ltd. in 1986. While the basics are the same, it adds a skill system, changes the time scale of combat rounds, and includes rules for modern weapons.
In the 1980s, a ColecoVision adaptation was announced but never released.
In 1990 a computer version ("Crusaders of Khazan") was published by New World Computing, which embedded portions of many of the favorite old solo modules. "Crusaders of Khazan" is included in the "30th Anniversary Edition" tin, but not the PDF version.
In 2017, MetaArcade has published "Tunnels & Trolls Adventures" for iOS and Android, an adaptation of "Tunnels & Trolls" featuring over 20 classic quests. According to MetaArcade, new content will be published on a regular basis. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30600 |
Trombetas River
The Trombetas is a large river on the northern side of the Amazon River.
The Trombetas is long, and is navigable by 500 ton vessels for a stretch of . The Trombetas river gives birth to very many rivers, including the Anamu river.
It is formed by the junction of the Poana and Anuma rivers on the border between Brazil and Guyana.
Where it meets the Paraná de Sapucuá it takes the name of lower Trombetas, and reaches up to in width, with the stream divided by several long and narrow islands.
It runs through the municipalities of Oriximiná, Terra Santa, Óbidos and Faro.
The river basin has an area of about , with an intricate pattern of tributaries including the Poana, Anamu, Turuna, Inhabu, Mapuera and Paru de Oeste.
In the Saracá-Taquera National Forest the main streams in the Trombetas basin are the Papagaio, Água Fria, Moura, Jamari, Ajará, Terra Preta and Saracá.
Its confluence with the Amazon is just west of the town of Óbidos, Pará in Brazil. Its sources is in the Guiana highlands, but its long course is frequently interrupted by violent currents, rocky barriers, and rapids. The inferior zone of the river, as far up as the first fall, the Porteira, has but little broken water and is low and swampy; but above the long series of cataracts and rapids the character and aspect of the valley completely change, and the climate is much better. The river is navigable for above its mouth.
The river reaches its highest levels in April and May, since the rainy season usually peaks in April.
The river flows through the Uatuma-Trombetas moist forests ecoregion.
The river basin lies partly within the Grão-Pará Ecological Station, the largest fully protected tropical forest conservation unit on the planet.
South of the ecological station it flows through the Trombetas State Forest from north to south. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30601 |
Tetrahedron
In geometry, a tetrahedron (plural: tetrahedra or tetrahedrons), also known as a triangular pyramid, is a polyhedron composed of four triangular faces, six straight edges, and four vertex corners. The tetrahedron is the simplest of all the ordinary convex polyhedra and the only one that has fewer than 5 faces.
The tetrahedron is the three-dimensional case of the more general concept of a Euclidean simplex, and may thus also be called a 3-simplex.
The tetrahedron is one kind of pyramid, which is a polyhedron with a flat polygon base and triangular faces connecting the base to a common point. In the case of a tetrahedron the base is a triangle (any of the four faces can be considered the base), so a tetrahedron is also known as a "triangular pyramid".
Like all convex polyhedra, a tetrahedron can be folded from a single sheet of paper. It has two such nets.
For any tetrahedron there exists a sphere (called the circumsphere) on which all four vertices lie, and another sphere (the insphere) tangent to the tetrahedron's faces.
A regular tetrahedron is a tetrahedron in which all four faces are equilateral triangles. It is one of the five regular Platonic solids, which have been known since antiquity.
In a regular tetrahedron, all faces are the same size and shape (congruent) and all edges are the same length.
Regular tetrahedra alone do not tessellate (fill space), but if alternated with regular octahedra in the ratio of two tetrahedra to one octahedron, they form the alternated cubic honeycomb, which is a tessellation. Some tetrahedra that are not regular, including the Schläfli orthoscheme and the Hill tetrahedron, can tessellate.
The regular tetrahedron is self-dual, which means that its dual is another regular tetrahedron. The compound figure comprising two such dual tetrahedra form a stellated octahedron or stella octangula.
The following Cartesian coordinates define the four vertices of a tetrahedron with edge length 2, centered at the origin, and two level edges:
Expressed symmetrically as 4 points on the unit sphere, centroid at the origin, with lower face level, the vertices are:
formula_2
formula_3
formula_4
formula_5
with the edge length of formula_6.
Still another set of coordinates are based on an alternated cube or demicube with edge length 2. This form has Coxeter diagram and Schläfli symbol h{4,3}. The tetrahedron in this case has edge length 2. Inverting these coordinates generates the dual tetrahedron, and the pair together form the stellated octahedron, whose vertices are those of the original cube.
For a regular tetrahedron of edge length "a":
With respect to the base plane the slope of a face (2) is twice that of an edge (), corresponding to the fact that the "horizontal" distance covered from the base to the apex along an edge is twice that along the median of a face. In other words, if "C" is the centroid of the base, the distance from "C" to a vertex of the base is twice that from "C" to the midpoint of an edge of the base. This follows from the fact that the medians of a triangle intersect at its centroid, and this point divides each of them in two segments, one of which is twice as long as the other (see ).
For a regular tetrahedron with side length "a", radius "R" of its circumscribing sphere, and distances "di" from an arbitrary point in 3-space to its four vertices, we have
The vertices of a cube can be grouped into two groups of four, each forming a regular tetrahedron (see above, and also , showing one of the two tetrahedra in the cube). The symmetries of a regular tetrahedron correspond to half of those of a cube: those that map the tetrahedra to themselves, and not to each other.
The tetrahedron is the only Platonic solid that is not mapped to itself by point inversion.
The regular tetrahedron has 24 isometries, forming the symmetry group Td, [3,3], (*332), isomorphic to the symmetric group, "S"4. They can be categorized as follows:
The regular "tetrahedron" has two special orthogonal projections, one centered on a vertex or equivalently on a face, and one centered on an edge. The first corresponds to the A2 Coxeter plane.
The two skew perpendicular opposite edges of a "regular tetrahedron" define a set of parallel planes. When one of these planes intersects the tetrahedron the resulting cross section is a rectangle. When the intersecting plane is near one of the edges the rectangle is long and skinny. When halfway between the two edges the intersection is a square. The aspect ratio of the rectangle reverses as you pass this halfway point. For the midpoint square intersection the resulting boundary line traverses every face of the tetrahedron similarly. If the tetrahedron is bisected on this plane, both halves become wedges.
This property also applies for tetragonal disphenoids when applied to the two special edge pairs.
The tetrahedron can also be represented as a spherical tiling, and projected onto the plane via a stereographic projection. This projection is conformal, preserving angles but not areas or lengths. Straight lines on the sphere are projected as circular arcs on the plane.
Regular tetrahedra can be stacked face-to-face in a chiral aperiodic chain called the Boerdijk–Coxeter helix. In four dimensions, all the convex regular 4-polytopes with tetrahedral cells (the 5-cell, 16-cell and 600-cell) can be constructed as tilings of the 3-sphere by these chains, which become periodic in the three-dimensional space of the 4-polytope's boundary surface.
An isosceles tetrahedron, also called a disphenoid, is a tetrahedron where all four faces are congruent triangles. A space-filling tetrahedron packs with congruent copies of itself to tile space, like the disphenoid tetrahedral honeycomb.
In a trirectangular tetrahedron the three face angles at one vertex are right angles. If all three pairs of opposite edges of a tetrahedron are perpendicular, then it is called an orthocentric tetrahedron. When only one pair of opposite edges are perpendicular, it is called a semi-orthocentric tetrahedron. An isodynamic tetrahedron is one in which the cevians that join the vertices to the incenters of the opposite faces are concurrent, and an isogonic tetrahedron has concurrent cevians that join the vertices to the points of contact of the opposite faces with the inscribed sphere of the tetrahedron.
The isometries of an irregular (unmarked) tetrahedron depend on the geometry of the tetrahedron, with 7 cases possible. In each case a 3-dimensional point group is formed. Two other isometries (C3, [3]+), and (S4, [2+,4+]) can exist if the face or edge marking are included. Tetrahedral diagrams are included for each type below, with edges colored by isometric equivalence, and are gray colored for unique edges.
The volume of a tetrahedron is given by the pyramid volume formula:
where "A"0 is the area of the base and "h" is the height from the base to the apex. This applies for each of the four choices of the base, so the distances from the apexes to the opposite faces are inversely proportional to the areas of these faces.
For a tetrahedron with vertices
,
, and
, the volume is , or any other combination of pairs of vertices that form a simply connected graph. This can be rewritten using a dot product and a cross product, yielding
If the origin of the coordinate system is chosen to coincide with vertex d, then d = 0, so
where a, b, and c represent three edges that meet at one vertex, and is a scalar triple product. Comparing this formula with that used to compute the volume of a parallelepiped, we conclude that the volume of a tetrahedron is equal to of the volume of any parallelepiped that shares three converging edges with it.
The absolute value of the scalar triple product can be represented as the following absolute values of determinants:
Hence
which gives
where "α", "β", "γ" are the plane angles occurring in vertex d. The angle "α", is the angle between the two edges connecting the vertex d to the vertices b and c. The angle "β", does so for the vertices a and c, while "γ", is defined by the position of the vertices a and b.
Given the distances between the vertices of a tetrahedron the volume can be computed using the Cayley–Menger determinant:
where the subscripts represent the vertices and "d" is the pairwise distance between them – i.e., the length of the edge connecting the two vertices. A negative value of the determinant means that a tetrahedron cannot be constructed with the given distances. This formula, sometimes called Tartaglia's formula, is essentially due to the painter Piero della Francesca in the 15th century, as a three dimensional analogue of the 1st century Heron's formula for the area of a triangle.
Denote "a,b,c" be three edges that meet at a point, and "x,y,z" the opposite edges. Let "V" be the volume of the tetrahedron; then
where
The above formula uses different expressions with the following formula,The above formula uses six lengths of edges, and the following formula uses three lengths of edges and three angles.
If "U", "V", "W", "u", "v", "w" are lengths of edges of the tetrahedron (first three form a triangle; "u" opposite to "U" and so on), then
where
A plane that divides two opposite edges of a tetrahedron in a given ratio also divides the volume of the tetrahedron in the same ratio. Thus any plane containing a bimedian (connector of opposite edges' midpoints) of a tetrahedron bisects the volume of the tetrahedron.
For tetrahedra in hyperbolic space or in three-dimensional elliptic geometry, the dihedral angles of the tetrahedron determine its shape and hence its volume. In these cases, the volume is given by the Murakami–Yano formula. However, in Euclidean space, scaling a tetrahedron changes its volume but not its dihedral angles, so no such formula can exist.
Any two opposite edges of a tetrahedron lie on two skew lines, and the distance between the edges is defined as the distance between the two skew lines. Let "d" be the distance between the skew lines formed by opposite edges a and as calculated here. Then another volume formula is given by
The tetrahedron has many properties analogous to those of a triangle, including an insphere, circumsphere, medial tetrahedron, and exspheres. It has respective centers such as incenter, circumcenter, excenters, Spieker center and points such as a centroid. However, there is generally no orthocenter in the sense of intersecting altitudes.
Gaspard Monge found a center that exists in every tetrahedron, now known as the Monge point: the point where the six midplanes of a tetrahedron intersect. A midplane is defined as a plane that is orthogonal to an edge joining any two vertices that also contains the centroid of an opposite edge formed by joining the other two vertices. If the tetrahedron's altitudes do intersect, then the Monge point and the orthocenter coincide to give the class of orthocentric tetrahedron.
An orthogonal line dropped from the Monge point to any face meets that face at the midpoint of the line segment between that face's orthocenter and the foot of the altitude dropped from the opposite vertex.
A line segment joining a vertex of a tetrahedron with the centroid of the opposite face is called a "median" and a line segment joining the midpoints of two opposite edges is called a "bimedian" of the tetrahedron. Hence there are four medians and three bimedians in a tetrahedron. These seven line segments are all concurrent at a point called the "centroid" of the tetrahedron. In addition the four medians are divided in a 3:1 ratio by the centroid (see Commandino's theorem). The centroid of a tetrahedron is the midpoint between its Monge point and circumcenter. These points define the "Euler line" of the tetrahedron that is analogous to the Euler line of a triangle.
The nine-point circle of the general triangle has an analogue in the circumsphere of a tetrahedron's medial tetrahedron. It is the twelve-point sphere and besides the centroids of the four faces of the reference tetrahedron, it passes through four substitute "Euler points", one third of the way from the Monge point toward each of the four vertices. Finally it passes through the four base points of orthogonal lines dropped from each Euler point to the face not containing the vertex that generated the Euler point.
The center "T" of the twelve-point sphere also lies on the Euler line. Unlike its triangular counterpart, this center lies one third of the way from the Monge point "M" towards the circumcenter. Also, an orthogonal line through "T" to a chosen face is coplanar with two other orthogonal lines to the same face. The first is an orthogonal line passing through the corresponding Euler point to the chosen face. The second is an orthogonal line passing through the centroid of the chosen face. This orthogonal line through the twelve-point center lies midway between the Euler point orthogonal line and the centroidal orthogonal line. Furthermore, for any face, the twelve-point center lies at the midpoint of the corresponding Euler point and the orthocenter for that face.
The radius of the twelve-point sphere is one third of the circumradius of the reference tetrahedron.
There is a relation among the angles made by the faces of a general tetrahedron given by
where "α" is the angle between the faces "i" and "j".
A tetrahedron is a 3-simplex. Unlike the case of the other Platonic solids, all the vertices of a regular tetrahedron are equidistant from each other (they are the only possible arrangement of four equidistant points in 3-dimensional space).
A tetrahedron is a triangular pyramid, and the regular tetrahedron is self-dual.
A regular tetrahedron can be embedded inside a cube in two ways such that each vertex is a vertex of the cube, and each edge is a diagonal of one of the cube's faces. For one such embedding, the Cartesian coordinates of the vertices are
This yields a tetrahedron with edge-length 2, centered at the origin. For the other tetrahedron (which is dual to the first), reverse all the signs. These two tetrahedra's vertices combined are the vertices of a cube, demonstrating that the regular tetrahedron is the 3-demicube.
The volume of this tetrahedron is one-third the volume of the cube. Combining both tetrahedra gives a regular polyhedral compound called the compound of two tetrahedra or stella octangula.
The interior of the stella octangula is an octahedron, and correspondingly, a regular octahedron is the result of cutting off, from a regular tetrahedron, four regular tetrahedra of half the linear size (i.e., rectifying the tetrahedron).
The above embedding divides the cube into five tetrahedra, one of which is regular. In fact, five is the minimum number of tetrahedra required to compose a cube. To see this, starting from a base tetrahedron with 4 vertices, each added tetrahedra adds at most 1 new vertex, so at least 4 more must be added to make a cube, which has 8 vertices.
Inscribing tetrahedra inside the regular compound of five cubes gives two more regular compounds, containing five and ten tetrahedra.
Regular tetrahedra cannot tessellate space by themselves, although this result seems likely enough that Aristotle claimed it was possible. However, two regular tetrahedra can be combined with an octahedron, giving a rhombohedron that can tile space.
However, several irregular tetrahedra are known, of which copies can tile space, for instance the disphenoid tetrahedral honeycomb. The complete list remains an open problem.
If one relaxes the requirement that the tetrahedra be all the same shape, one can tile space using only tetrahedra in many different ways. For example, one can divide an octahedron into four identical tetrahedra and combine them again with two regular ones. (As a side-note: these two kinds of tetrahedron have the same volume.)
The tetrahedron is unique among the uniform polyhedra in possessing no parallel faces.
A corollary of the usual law of sines is that in a tetrahedron with vertices "O", "A", "B", "C", we have
One may view the two sides of this identity as corresponding to clockwise and counterclockwise orientations of the surface.
Putting any of the four vertices in the role of "O" yields four such identities, but at most three of them are independent: If the "clockwise" sides of three of them are multiplied and the product is inferred to be equal to the product of the "counterclockwise" sides of the same three identities, and then common factors are cancelled from both sides, the result is the fourth identity.
Three angles are the angles of some triangle if and only if their sum is 180° (π radians). What condition on 12 angles is necessary and sufficient for them to be the 12 angles of some tetrahedron? Clearly the sum of the angles of any side of the tetrahedron must be 180°. Since there are four such triangles, there are four such constraints on sums of angles, and the number of degrees of freedom is thereby reduced from 12 to 8. The four relations given by this sine law further reduce the number of degrees of freedom, from 8 down to not 4 but 5, since the fourth constraint is not independent of the first three. Thus the space of all shapes of tetrahedra is 5-dimensional.
Let be the points of a tetrahedron. Let Δ"i" be the area of the face opposite vertex "Pi" and let "θij" be the dihedral angle between the two faces of the tetrahedron adjacent to the edge "PiPj".
The law of cosines for this tetrahedron, which relates the areas of the faces of the tetrahedron to the dihedral angles about a vertex, is given by the following relation:
Let "P" be any interior point of a tetrahedron of volume "V" for which the vertices are "A", "B", "C", and "D", and for which the areas of the opposite faces are "F"a, "F"b, "F"c, and "F"d. Then
For vertices "A", "B", "C", and "D", interior point "P", and feet "J", "K", "L", and "M" of the perpendiculars from "P" to the faces,
Denoting the inradius of a tetrahedron as "r" and the inradii of its triangular faces as "r""i" for "i" = 1, 2, 3, 4, we have
with equality if and only if the tetrahedron is regular.
If "A""1", "A""2", "A""3" and "A""4" denote the area of each faces, the value of "r" is given by
This formula is obtained from dividing the tetrahedron into four tetrahedra whose points are the three points of one of the original faces and the incenter. Since the four subtetrahedra fill the volume, we have formula_33.
Denote the circumradius of a tetrahedron as "R". Let "a", "b", "c" be the lengths of the three edges that meet at a vertex, and "A", "B", "C" the length of the opposite edges. Let "V" be the volume of the tetrahedron. Then
The circumcenter of a tetrahedron can be found as intersection of three bisector planes. A bisector plane is defined as the plane centered on, and orthogonal to an edge of the tetrahedron.
With this definition, the circumcenter of a tetrahedron with vertices ,, can be formulated as matrix-vector product:
In contrast to the centroid, the circumcenter may not always lay on the inside of a tetrahedron.
Analogously to an obtuse triangle, the circumcenter is outside of the object for an obtuse tetrahedron.
The tetrahedron's center of mass computes as the arithmetic mean of its four vertices, see Centroid.
The sum of the areas of any three faces is greater than the area of the fourth face.
There exist tetrahedra having integer-valued edge lengths, face areas and volume. These are called Heronian tetrahedra. One example has one edge of 896, the opposite edge of 990 and the other four edges of 1073; two faces are isosceles triangles with areas of and the other two are isosceles with areas of , while the volume is .
A tetrahedron can have integer volume and consecutive integers as edges, an example being the one with edges 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 and volume 48.
A regular tetrahedron can be seen as a triangular pyramid.
A regular tetrahedron can be seen as a degenerate polyhedron, a uniform "digonal antiprism", where base polygons are reduced digons.
A regular tetrahedron can be seen as a degenerate polyhedron, a uniform dual "digonal trapezohedron", containing 6 vertices, in two sets of colinear edges.
A truncation process applied to the tetrahedron produces a series of uniform polyhedra. Truncating edges down to points produces the octahedron as a rectified tetrahedron. The process completes as a birectification, reducing the original faces down to points, and producing the self-dual tetrahedron once again.
This polyhedron is topologically related as a part of sequence of regular polyhedra with Schläfli symbols {3,"n"}, continuing into the hyperbolic plane.
The tetrahedron is topologically related to a series of regular polyhedra and tilings with order-3 vertex figures.
An interesting polyhedron can be constructed from five intersecting tetrahedra. This compound of five tetrahedra has been known for hundreds of years. It comes up regularly in the world of origami. Joining the twenty vertices would form a regular dodecahedron. There are both left-handed and right-handed forms, which are mirror images of each other. Superimposing both forms gives a compound of ten tetrahedra, in which the ten tetrahedra are arranged as five pairs of stellae octangulae. A stella octangula is a compound of two tetrahedra in dual position and its eight vertices define a cube as their convex hull.
The square hosohedron is another polyhedron with four faces, but it does not have triangular faces.
In numerical analysis, complicated three-dimensional shapes are commonly broken down into, or approximated by, a polygonal mesh of irregular tetrahedra in the process of setting up the equations for finite element analysis especially in the numerical solution of partial differential equations. These methods have wide applications in practical applications in computational fluid dynamics, aerodynamics, electromagnetic fields, civil engineering, chemical engineering, naval architecture and engineering, and related fields.
The tetrahedron shape is seen in nature in covalently bonded molecules. All sp3-hybridized atoms are surrounded by atoms (or lone electron pairs) at the four corners of a tetrahedron. For instance in a methane molecule () or an ammonium ion (), four hydrogen atoms surround a central carbon or nitrogen atom with tetrahedral symmetry. For this reason, one of the leading journals in organic chemistry is called "Tetrahedron". The central angle between any two vertices of a perfect tetrahedron is arccos(−), or approximately 109.47°.
Water, , also has a tetrahedral structure, with two hydrogen atoms and two lone pairs of electrons around the central oxygen atoms. Its tetrahedral symmetry is not perfect, however, because the lone pairs repel more than the single O–H bonds.
Quaternary phase diagrams in chemistry are represented graphically as tetrahedra.
However, quaternary phase diagrams in communication engineering are represented graphically on a two-dimensional plane.
If six equal resistors are soldered together to form a tetrahedron, then the resistance measured between any two vertices is half that of one resistor.
Since silicon is the most common semiconductor used in solid-state electronics, and silicon has a valence of four, the tetrahedral shape of the four chemical bonds in silicon is a strong influence on how crystals of silicon form and what shapes they assume.
The Royal Game of Ur, dating from 2600 BC, was played with a set of tetrahedral dice.
Especially in roleplaying, this solid is known as a 4-sided die, one of the more common polyhedral dice, with the number rolled appearing around the bottom or on the top vertex. Some Rubik's Cube-like puzzles are tetrahedral, such as the Pyraminx and Pyramorphix.
Tetrahedra are used in color space conversion algorithms specifically for cases in which the luminance axis diagonally segments the color space (e.g. RGB, CMY).
The Austrian artist Martina Schettina created a tetrahedron using fluorescent lamps. It was shown at the light art biennale Austria 2010.
It is used as album artwork, surrounded by black flames on "The End of All Things to Come" by Mudvayne.
Stanley Kubrick originally intended the monolith in "" to be a tetrahedron, according to Marvin Minsky, a cognitive scientist and expert on artificial intelligence who advised Kubrick on the HAL 9000 computer and other aspects of the movie. Kubrick scrapped the idea of using the tetrahedron as a visitor who saw footage of it did not recognize what it was and he did not want anything in the movie regular people did not understand.
In Season 6, Episode 15 of "Futurama", named "Möbius Dick", the Planet Express crew pass through an area in space known as the Bermuda Tetrahedron. Many other ships passing through the area have mysteriously disappeared, including that of the first Planet Express crew.
In the 2013 film "Oblivion" the large structure in orbit above the Earth is of a tetrahedron design and referred to as the Tet.
The tetrahedral hypothesis, originally published by William Lowthian Green to explain the formation of the Earth, was popular through the early 20th century.
A tetrahedron having stiff edges is inherently rigid. For this reason it is often used to stiffen frame structures such as spaceframes.
At some airfields, a large frame in the shape of a tetrahedron with two sides covered with a thin material is mounted on a rotating pivot and always points into the wind. It is built big enough to be seen from the air and is sometimes illuminated. Its purpose is to serve as a reference to pilots indicating wind direction.
The skeleton of the tetrahedron (comprising the vertices and edges) forms a graph, with 4 vertices, and 6 edges. It is a special case of the complete graph, K4, and wheel graph, W4. It is one of 5 Platonic graphs, each a skeleton of its Platonic solid. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30606 |
Track cycling
Track cycling is a bicycle racing sport usually held on specially built banked tracks or velodromes using track bicycles.
Track cycling has been around since at least 1870. When track cycling was in its infancy, it was held on velodromes similar to the ones used today. These velodromes consisted of two straights and slightly banked turns, though they varied more in length and material than the modern 250m track.
One appeal of indoor track racing was that spectators could be easily controlled, and hence an entrance fee could be charged, making track racing a lucrative sport. Early track races attracted crowds of up to 2,000 people. Indoor tracks also enabled year-round cycling for the first time. The main early centers for track racing in Britain were Birmingham, Sheffield, Liverpool, Manchester and London.
The most noticeable changes in over a century of track cycling have concerned the bikes themselves, engineered to be lighter and more aerodynamic to enable ever-faster times.
With the exception of the 1912 Olympics, track cycling has been featured in every modern Olympic Games. Women's track cycling events were first included in the modern Olympics in 1988. The sport was moved indoors since 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, mainly because of the hot weather.
Along the decades, track lengths have been gradually reduced. Early velodromes varied in length between 130 and 500 metres long. By the 1960s, a standard length of length was commonly used for international competitions. Since 1990, international velodromes are built with a length of , though tracks of many lengths are still in use.
Track cycling is particularly popular in Europe, notably Belgium, France, Germany and the United Kingdom where it is often used as off-season training by road racers who can frequently be seen at professional six-day events (races entered by two-rider teams.)
In the United States, track racing reached a peak of popularity in the 1930s when six-day races were held in Madison Square Garden in New York. The word "Madison" is still used as the name for a type of race.
In Japan, the Keirin race format is a very popular betting sport. The sport is well-regarded, and riders are extensively trained through the Japanese Keirin School.
Track cycling events fit into two broad categories: sprint races and endurance races. Riders will typically fall into one category and not compete in the other.
Sprint races are generally between 3 and a laps in length and focus on raw sprinting power and race tactics over a small number of laps to defeat opponents. Sprint riders train specifically to compete in races of this length, and do not generally compete in endurance events.
The main sprint events are:
Endurance races are held over longer distances. These races test the riders endurance capacity, as well as tactics and speed. The length of track endurance events varies by race type, whether it is a part of the Omnium or not, and the gender of the competitors. Many track endurance riders also compete in road cycling events.
The main endurance events are:
There are currently five events in track cycling at the Olympics: team sprint, match sprint, keirin, omnium, and team pursuit. The madison will be added in the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Each event will be run separately for men and women. It was not until the 2012 Summer Olympics, that women were allowed to compete in the same number of events as men.
The UCI Track Cycling World Championships are held every year, usually in March or April at the end of the winter track season. There are currently 20 events in the World Championships, 10 for men and 10 for women. Qualification places are determined by different countries performance during the World Cup Classic series held through the season.
The UCI Track Cycling World Cup series consists of six, held in different countries beginning annually in October, and finishing in January. These meeting include 17 of the 19 events (excluding the omnium for men and women) that take place in a World Championship over three days.
Events won and points scored by the riders throughout this series count towards qualification places individually and for their nation in the World Championships at the end of the season. The overall leader in each event may wear a white points leaders jersey at each race, with the overall winner at the end of the season may keep the jersey and wear it at the World Championships. Riders compete for either national teams or trade teams, though the future of trade teams is unknown after controversial decisions by the UCI to eliminate World Cup events, and replace them with Nation's Cup events.
The UCI Track Cycling World Ranking is based upon the results in all UCI-sanctioned races over a twelve-month period. The ranking includes an individual and a nations ranking and includes the disciplines: individual pursuit, points race, scratch, sprint, time trial, keirin, omnium, team pursuit, team sprint and madison.
Women's track cycling was only introduced as an Olympic sport in 1988, and women were not permitted to compete in the same number of events as men until 2012. Though men and women currently compete in the same number of events, there are still significant differences between men's and women's races of the same type. For example, in the team sprint, men race three riders over three laps, whereas women race two riders over two laps, and men's individual pursuit is a 4km race and women only race 3km. It is also the case that women race shorter distances than men in mass start events such as stand-alone scratch and points races, and omnium events.
In many cycle sports, women race shorter distances, are paid less, and receive less air-time. It was not until 2018 that the UCI mandated minimum wages for women's cycling at all. It is unclear how this will impact female track cyclists, as track cycling is generally not an athlete's primary source of income (rather they are road cyclists selected for specific events by their national team). There is no talk of changing race distances to create gender parity in time for the 2020 Olympics.
In 2018, Veronica Ivy (then known as Rachel McKinnon) became the first transgender World Champion in any sport, with a victory in the Masters Women Age 35-44 age category. In 2019, Ivy became a repeat champion in the same discipline. Though met with some criticism, Ivy holds her title as transgender athletes are permitted to compete as per the International Olympic Committee.
Aerodynamic drag is a significant factor in both road and track racing. Frames are often constructed of moulded carbon fiber, for a lightweight design. More recently, track bikes have employed airfoil designs on the tubes of the frame to reduce aerodynamic drag.
Given the importance of aerodynamics, the riders' sitting position becomes extremely important. The riding position is similar to the road racing position, but is ultimately dependent on the frame geometry of the bicycle and the handlebars used. Handlebars on track bikes used for longer events such as the points race are similar to the drop bars found on road bicycles. However, in the sprint event the rider's position is more extreme compared with a road rider. The bars are lower and the saddle is higher and more forward. Bars are often narrower with a deeper drop. Carbon fiber bars of many shapes, as opposed to lighter alloys, are used by many riders for their higher stiffness and durability.
In timed events such as the pursuit and the time trial, riders often use aerobars or 'triathlon bars' similar to those found on road time trial bicycles, allowing the rider to position the arms closer together in front of the body. This results in a more horizontal back and presents the minimum frontal area to reduce drag. Aerobars can be separate bars that are attached to time trial or bull horn bars, or they can be part of a one-piece monocoque design. Use of aerobars is permitted only in pursuit and time trial events.
Formats of track cycle races are also heavily influenced by aerodynamics. If one rider closely follows, they draft or slipstream another, because the leading rider pushes air around themselves; any rider closely following has to push out less air than the lead rider and thus can travel at the same speed while expending less effort. This fact has led to a variety of racing styles that allow skilled riders or teams to exploit this tactical advantage, as well as formats that simply test strength, speed and endurance.
During the early 1990s in individual pursuit events, some riders, most notably Graeme Obree, adopted a straight-armed "Superman"-like position with their arms fully extended horizontally, but this position was subsequently outlawed by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), the sport's ruling body.
In addition to regular track racing, tracks are also the venue for many speed records. These are over either a fixed distance or for a fixed period of time. Generally, time trial events (200m, 500m, 1km, and Individual Pursuit) will be recorded for both gender categories as well as several age categories on each track, for each nation, and for the world.
One of the most heavily contested records is the hour record, which involves simply riding as far as possible in one hour.
The history of the hour record has been attempted by some of the greatest names in cycling from both road and track racing (including, among others, Major Taylor, Henri Desgrange, Fausto Coppi, Anna Wilson, Eddy Merckx, Francesco Moser, Jeannie Longo and Tony Rominger).
Attempts are generally made at velodromes with a reputation for being fast. Recently, these have mostly been at high-altitude locations, such as Mexico City, Mexico or Aguascalientes, Mexico, where the thinner air results in lower aerodynamic drag, offsetting the added difficulty of breathing. Innovations in equipment and the rider's position on the bike have also led to dramatic improvements in the hour record, but have also been a source of controversy (see Graeme Obree).
In 2019, the Pan Am Championships held at the newly built velodrome in Cochabamba, Bolivia, Kelsey Mitchell and Nicholas Paul broke the 200m world records in their respective gender categories. The track proved fast for many other events, with Pan Am records being set in nearly all timed events. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30611 |
Team pursuit
The team pursuit is a track cycling event similar to the individual pursuit, except that two teams, each of up to four riders, compete, starting on opposite sides of the velodrome.
Both men's and women's events are competed over a distance of 4 km, by a team of 4 riders. Prior to the start of the 2012–13 season the women's event was competed over a distance of 3 km, by a team of 3 riders.
As with the individual pursuit, the objective is to cover the distance in the fastest time or to catch and overtake the other team in a final. Riders in a team follow each other closely in line, drafting to minimize total drag, and periodically the lead rider (who works the hardest) peels off the front, swings up the track banking and rejoins the team at the rear. The position of the third rider is pivotal because final times are measured as the third team member's front wheel crosses the finishing line. Since the winning team is decided by the third rider, it is common for one rider to take a "death pull", pedaling very hard before the finish to tow the teammates, which means that this rider cannot maintain the group-pace afterwards. This allows their teammates to briefly recover behind them before they make a final three-man acceleration towards the finish line.
The first round of the competition at major events is the qualifying round. This still involves two teams on the track at the same time but they are not directly competing against each other but attempting to set the fastest time to progress in the competition. In the Olympic Games since 2012, the top teams progress into knock-out rounds, with the top two surviving into the Gold and Silver medal race and the top two teams from all remaining compete in the Bronze Medal race. Prior to 2012, the two losers of the knock-out rounds would race for the Bronze Medal; this change was instituted to encourage performance from all qualifying teams since all would have a chance to race for a medal depending on their performance. In the World Championships or World Cup Classic events the top two teams from the qualifying round progress directly to the Gold and Silver medal race while the third and fourth qualifiers fight it out for Bronze. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30614 |
Track time trial
In the track time trial, a track cycling event, cyclists compete individually against the clock to record the fastest time over the specified distance from a standing start.
Track time trial bikes differ from normal track bikes in two major ways; firstly they have disc or 3–5 spoked wheels and secondly they often use aero-bars to allow the rider to adopt a more aerodynamic riding position, for the same reasons as in road individual time trials. The frames are often more streamlined to reduce air resistance.
At the UCI Track World Championships, the distance for senior men is 1,000 metres, hence the event's alternative name, the 'Kilo', short for kilometre. Junior men also race 1000 m. Being such a short, high-intensity event, the kilo is popular with riders who specialise in the sprint. The Kilo time trial was removed from the Olympics programme after 2004 to make way for BMX racing. This led to a number of Kilo riders, most notably Chris Hoy, to begin focusing on other sprint events.
This event is a race against the clock from a standing start over 1,000 m. Most indoor tracks are 250 m in length, so a kilo is usually held over four laps. Other common track lengths are 167 m (six laps), 333 m (three laps) or 400 m (2.5 laps). Riders will keep to the black line at the bottom of the track to ensure they have to cover the least distance over the 1,000 m. Riders usually only get one attempt to set a time, and the winner of the event is simply the rider to post the quickest time.
A fast time at the elite level is around 1 minute 5 seconds.
The world record is 56.303 seconds (63.940 km/h), set by Francois Pervis in the 2013 Track World Cup at Aguascalientes, Mexico.
The Women's version of the event is held over 500 m. Other than the race distance this is the same as the men's Kilo event, with the fastest rider over the distance declared the winner. This event was also removed from the Olympic programme after 2004 to make way for BMX.
The world record is held by Russian rider Anastasia Voinova; set on 17 October 2015 in Grenchen, Switzerland during the European championships with 32.794 seconds (54.888 km/h).
The flying 200 m time trial (so-called because riders have a flying start, as opposed to the standing start in the kilo/500 m) is rarely held on its own. It is more commonly used as the qualifying event for the sprint competition, or as part of an Omnium competition. Velodromes have a line painted across the track at 200 m before the finish line, for this purpose. Therefore, the size the track will determine where the 200-meter line is (for 250 m tracks, it is about two-thirds of the way through the first bend; for 200-meter tracks, it is the finish line; for 400-meter tracks, it is the start line in the back straight). The clock will start as they cross this line and stop when they reach the finish line.
Depending on the size of the track, riders have between one and three laps to build up speed before the clock starts. They will ride around the very top of the track as they near the start line, then drop down to the bottom to gain as much speed as possible from rolling down the steep inclined banking. The Flying 200 m is ridden on a standard track bike (drop handlebars, spoked front wheel) when it is part of the Sprint competition, and often during the Omnium as well so riders need have only one bike. Disc front wheel is permitted for sprint qualification round. UCI rules and regulations Article 1.3.018
A fast time at the elite level is just above 10 seconds for men, 11 seconds for women.
The world record of 9.347 seconds was set by French rider Francois Pervis in Aguascalientes, Mexico on 6 December 2013, beating the record of 9.572 seconds set by his teammate Kévin Sireau in Moscow, Russia.
The Olympic Record of 9.551 seconds was set by Jason Kenny of Great Britain at the Rio 2016 Olympics, beating his own Olympic Record of 9.713 set at the 2012 London Olympics. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30615 |
Points race
A points race is a mass start track cycling event involving large numbers of riders simultaneously on track. It was an Olympic event for men between 1984–2008 and for women 1996–2008. Starting in 2012, the points race is one of the omnium events in the Olympics.
This race can be one of the more confusing races to watch for less familiar viewers. Put simply, it is a race over a long distance, with 40 km for men and 25 km for women in UCI championships. A sprint is held every ten laps, with 5, 3, 2, and 1 point(s) being awarded to the top four finishers in each sprint. The winner of the race is the one to have the most points at the end of the race. In addition to the sprints, any riders managing to lap the main field are awarded an extra 20 points. This is therefore a popular way of gaining the points required to win the race and leads to many such attempts to gain a lap during the race.
Different tactics can be employed to win the race. Some riders may sit back in the main bunch conserving energy, only attacking for the sprints to gain points. Other riders may attempt to gain the lead early on in the race and try to defend the advantage. The most common breakaways seen in the points race are groups of two to five riders, sharing the work to enable them to gain a lap. Although it is a difficult feat to gain the lap on your own, it is not uncommon for the top riders to be able to do this in order to win the race.
At the Olympic Games and World Championships qualification is determined by performance at the World Cup Classics events throughout the season. At the World Cup Classics meetings there are usually two heats taking place to decide qualification for the final. These are commonly half the race distance of the final.
The snowball is a variation on the points race where every sprint, only the first-place finisher is awarded any points. The number of points awarded increases with each sprint: the first sprint gives one point, the second gives two points, the third gives three points, etc. The sprints are also more frequent than in the normal points race, and can happen every lap or every two laps. In the case of a tie, the order of the final sprint is used to break the tie.
The point-a-lap is, as its name would imply, a variation on the points race where a single point is awarded to the first rider to finish each lap. Typically more points are awarded on the final lap, going several riders deep.
The tempo race is the 2nd event of the new Omnium format, it lasts 7.5 km (30 laps on a 250-m-track) for women and 10 km (40 laps on a 250-m-track) for men. During this race one point is awarded to the first rider each lap from the end of the 5th lap. If one rider gains a lap, they score 20 points, if they lose a lap, they lose 20 points. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30616 |
Madison (cycling)
The madison is a relay race event in track cycling, named after the first Madison Square Garden in New York, and known as the "American race" in French ("course à l'américaine") and in Italian and Spanish as "Americana".
The madison is a race where each team must complete more laps than any of the other teams. Riders in each team alternate during the race, handing over to the other member, resting, and then returning to the race. Teams are usually of two riders but occasionally of three. Only one of the team is racing at any time, and the replacement rider has to be touched before he can take over. The touch can also be a push, often on the shorts, or one rider hurling the other into the race by a hand-sling.
How long each rider stays in the race is for each team to decide. Originally, riders took stints of a couple of hours or more and the resting rider went off for a sleep or a meal. That was easier in earlier six-day races because hours could pass without riders attempting to speed away from the others. As races became more intensive, both riders from the team began riding on the track at the same time, one going fast on the short line around the bottom of the track and the other idling higher up until his turn comes to take over. Modern six-days last less than 12 hours a day and the madison is now only a featured part, so staying on the track throughout is more feasible.
Tied positions are split by points awarded for placings at a series of sprints at intervals during the race.
The madison is a feature of six-day races, but it can also be a separate race, as in the Olympic Games. It has its own championships and specialist riders. UCI-sanctioned madison races have a total distance of .
The madison began as a way of circumventing laws passed in New York in the US, aimed at restricting the exhaustion of cyclists taking part in six-day races.
The "Brooklyn Daily Eagle" said:
The wear and tear upon their nerves and their muscles, and the loss of sleep make them [peevish and fretful]. If their desires are not met with on the moment, they break forth with a stream of abuse. Nothing pleases them. These outbreaks do not trouble the trainers with experience, for they understand the condition the men are in.
The condition included delusions and hallucinations. Riders wobbled and frequently fell. But the riders were often well paid, especially since more people came to watch them as their condition worsened. Promoters in New York paid Teddy Hale $5,000 when he won in 1896 and he won "like a ghost, his face as white as a corpse, his eyes no longer visible because they'd retreated into his skull," as one report had it.
The "New York Times" said in 1897:
An athletic contest in which participants "go queer" in their heads, and strain their powers until their faces become hideous with the tortures that rack them, is not sport. It is brutality. Days and weeks of recuperation will be needed to put the Garden racers in condition, and it is likely that some of them will never recover from the strain.
Alarmed, New York and Illinois ruled in 1898 that no competitor could race for more than 12 hours a day. The promoter of the event at Madison Square Garden, reluctant to close his stadium for half the day, realised that giving each rider a partner with whom he could share the racing meant the race could still go on 24 hours a day but that no one rider would exceed the 12-hour limit. Speeds rose, distances grew, crowds increased, money poured in. Where Charlie Miller rode alone, the Australian Alf Goullet and a decent partner could ride .
The fastest known average speed of a madison men's race is , achieved by the Australian duo of Sam Welsford and Leigh Howard, at the world cup race in Glasgow, United Kingdom, 9 November 2019.
The official rules of the madison, traditionally regarded as being hard to follow, are stated as follows by British Cycling, the British Governing Body of Cycling:
The madison was an Olympic event for men in 2000, 2004 and 2008, but was dropped ahead of the 2012 London Olympics, partly for reasons of equality as there was no equivalent race for women at the time. However, in June 2017, the International Olympic Committee announced that the madison would be added to the Olympic programme for the 2020 Summer Olympics. The 2020 Games will see a relaunch of the men's madison event as well as the introduction of the women's madison as an Olympic event for the first time. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30617 |
Sprint (track cycling)
The sprint or match sprint is a track cycling event involving between two and four riders, though it is usually run as a one-on-one match race between opponents who, unlike in the individual pursuit, start next to each other. Men's sprint has been an Olympic event at every games except 1904 (which had races at seven different distances) and 1912 (which had no track cycling events). Women's sprints have been contested at every Olympics since 1988.
Depending on the size of the velodrome, this event can be from 250 m to 1000 m. Unlike the sprints in athletics, these events do not usually start with riders sprinting from the starting line and they are not confined to lanes. The early parts of each race will often be highly tactical with riders pedalling slowly, as they carefully jockey for position, often trying to force their opponents up high on the track in an attempt to get their rivals to make the first move. Some even bring their bicycles to a complete stop, balanced upright with both feet still on the pedals and both hands on the handle bars (a track stand), in an attempt to make the other rider take the lead. Track stands can only be held for a certain time and it is not permissible to go backwards in a track stand by rocking backwards and forwards as the judge will be following the track stand from the bottom of the track. The reason for this behaviour, as in many track cycling events, is both aerodynamics and tactics.
When racing at high speed, the rider who manages to stay just behind their opponent can draft, expending less effort. By riding behind the 'lead out' rider, the second rider reduces the aerodynamic drag felt. Just before the finish, the trailing rider pulls out of the slipstream, and aided by fresher legs, may be able to overtake the opponent before the line. To prevent this, the leading rider may choose to accelerate quickly before the last lap, hoping to catch their opponent off guard and establish a large enough gap to negate the aerodynamic effect or to keep the speed high enough to prevent their opponent from completing a pass.
During the race, the "lead out" rider may choose to hug the measurement line on the inside of the track giving them the shortest path around the track. Likewise, they may choose to hug the sprinter's line (a red line 85 cm up track) to force their opponent to come higher over the top of them. The sprinter's line defines the sprinter's lane; once the sprint is initiated riders may not drop into the sprinter's lane or cross out of the lane unless they have a clear lead over their opponent.
As defined by Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) rules, the first round of competition used to qualify for the sprint competition is the flying 200 m time trial. In this round each rider completes two to three warm up laps and then completes the final 200 m, which is usually just under a lap. The number of riders that qualify for the sprint rounds depends on the competition; in World Cup competitions, 16 riders will advance and in a world championship, 24 riders will advance. The top riders are seeded in the following rounds, meaning the fastest qualifier will face the slowest qualifier and so on. Knock-out rounds then proceed, initially on a one race basis and then on a best-of three-race format from the quarter-final stage. Riders defeated in the earlier rounds may get a chance to continue in the competition through the repechage races.
Great Britain and Germany currently hold two of the major titles in this event. Jason Kenny is Olympic men's sprint champion, and Kristina Vogel the Olympic women's sprint champion.
The Keirin is a variant of the sprint in which a higher number (usually 6–8, or 9 in Japan) of sprinters compete in a very different format. Riders are paced in the early laps by (and are required to stay behind) a Derny motorcycle, which slowly increases the speed of the race from 25 km/h to about 50 km/h. It then leaves the track with about 600–700 m remaining. The first rider across the finish line in the high-speed (sometimes 70 km/h) finish is the winner.
The team sprint (also known as the Olympic sprint) is a short distance three-man team pursuit held over three laps of a velodrome. Like the (much longer) team pursuit event, two teams race against each other, starting on opposite sides of the track, but at the end of the first lap, the leading rider in each team drops out of the race by riding up the banking leaving the second rider to lead for the second lap; at the end of the second lap, the second rider does the same, leaving the third rider to complete the last lap on his own. In the women's event, teams of two compete over a two-lap distance. The team sprint has been an Olympic event for men since 2000 and for women since 2012.
The chariot is a short, usually one lap, race. Depending on track size, between four and eight cyclists start from a standing start, and do an all out sprint for one lap. The first rider across the finish line is the winner. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30618 |
Keirin
Riders use brakeless fixed-gear bicycles.
Races are typically long: 6 laps on a track, 4 laps on a track, or 4 laps on a track. Lots are drawn to determine starting positions for the sprint riders behind the pacer, which is usually a motorcycle, but can be a derny, electric bicycle or tandem bicycle. Riders must remain behind the pacer for 3 laps on a track. The pacer starts at , gradually increasing to by its final circuit. The pacer leaves the track before the end of the race (3 laps on a track). The winner's finishing speed can exceed .
Competition keirin races are conducted over several rounds with one final. Some eliminated cyclists can try again in the repechages.
Keirin has been a UCI men's World Championship event since 1980 and a UCI women's World Championship event since 2002. Danny Clark of Australia and Li Na of China were the first UCI world champions. The 2019 men's and women's world champions are Matthijs Büchli of Netherlands and Lee Wai Sze of Hong Kong.
Keirin made its debut at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney as a men's event, after being admitted into the Olympics in December 1996. The women's event was added for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.
A BBC News investigation, reported in July 2008, found evidence that following admission into the Olympics, the Union Cycliste Internationale required (in writing) the Japan Keirin Association to support UCI projects in "material terms"; over a period of time the association subsequently gave US$3 million to UCI in consideration of "the excellent relationship the UCI has with representatives of the Olympic movement". Four members of the governing body were later arrested in Tokyo.
began as a betting sport in Japan in 1948, and has since become very popular there. In 1957, the Nihon Jitensha Shinkōkai (NJS; also known in English as the Japanese Keirin Association) was founded to establish a uniform system of standards for the sport in Japan. Today keirin racing is regulated by the JKA Foundation. In 2011, the sum of bets placed on keirin races exceeded ¥600 billion (approximately US$5 billion), and the number of attendees in the races was approximately 4.9 million people.
Aspiring professional keirin riders in Japan compete for entrance into the Japan Keirin School. The 10 percent of applicants who are accepted then undergo a strict 15-hours-per-day training regimen. Those who pass the graduation exams, and are approved by the NJS become eligible for professional keirin races in Japan.
Japanese races for women were reintroduced in July 2012, under the title of "Girl's Keirin" (). Women were previously permitted to participate from 1949 until 1964. Like the men, the women must also undergo a strict training regimen at the Keirin School.
was one of the first Japanese keirin athletes to compete outside of his native country, Nakano holds the best matched sprint record as a track cyclist at the UCI Track World Championships with a record of ten consecutive professional Sprint World Track Cycling Championship wins from 1977–86 against mostly western European pro track cyclists, although he never won the Keirin World Championship. At that time, many leading sprint riders were from the Eastern bloc countries and competed in separate "amateur" events.
Katsuaki Matsumoto (born 1928) is the all-time professional keirin athlete with the most wins - 1341 - over his career (he retired in 1981 at the age of 53).
Keirin races in Japan begin with the cyclists parading to the starting blocks, bowing as they enter the track and again as they position their bikes for the start of the race. Every participant is assigned a number and a colour for identification and betting purposes.
At the sound of the gun, the cyclists leave their starting blocks and settle into a position behind the pacer, who is another keirin bicyclist wearing purple with orange stripes. Cyclists initially settle into different groups, referred to as "lines", where they try to work together with others to maximize their chance of winning.
As the pace quickens, the pacer will usually depart the track with between one and two laps remaining, though the actual location where the pacer leaves varies with every race. With laps remaining, officials begin sounding a bell or gong, increasing in frequency until the bicyclists come around to begin the final lap.
Keirin ovals are divided into specific areas: The two straightaways (homestretch and backstretch), the four turns (corners), and two locations called the "center", referring to the area between corners 1 and 2 (1 center) and corners 3 and 4 (2 center).
The race is monitored by referees. Two of the referees are stationed in towers along the backstretch (2nd and 3rd corners), while others review the homestretch area from a control room using closed-circuit cameras. Once the race has finished, a referee can signal a possible rule violation by illuminating a red light at the corner nearest to where the infraction may have occurred, or by waving a red flag. Judges then examine the video of the race and decide if a competitor committed a rules violation and should be disqualified. Once the order of finish is finalized, the race is declared official and the winning bets are paid.
There are a total of six ranks that competitors can obtain in Japanese keirin racing. SS is the highest rank, followed by S1, S2, A1, A2 and A3. All new keirin graduates begin their careers with an A3 rank and work their way up by competing in keirin events.
The color of the shorts worn by each keirin competitor indicates rank. Those in A-class (A1, A2, A3) wear black shorts with a green stripe and white stars. S-class competitors (S1 and S2) wear a red stripe instead of a green stripe. Those in the elite SS class wear red shorts with a black stripe, white stars and special insignia. Introduced in 2007, the SS ranking is assigned by the NJS every December to the top nine Keirin athletes. These nine compete in that year's Keirin Grand Prix and retain their rank until the following December.
The distance of each race depends on gender and rank. For men, distances for those ranked A3 are at 1,600 meters, while all others compete at 2,000 meters. The finals of some of the top graded events are run at a longer distance of 2,400 meters. The season-ending Keirin Grand Prix is held at 2,800 meters.
All events for women are currently run at 1,600 meters. There are usually small variances in distance based on the size of the track.
A race meeting at any given keirin velodrome in Japan is assigned a grade. The highest graded events are GP, GI (G1), GII (G2) and GIII (G3), reserved only for S-class riders. Underneath those are FI (F1) events, which are open to both S-class and A-class riders. The lowest graded events, FII (F2), are reserved for A-class riders.
The GP grade designation is reserved for the Keirin Grand Prix, a three-day meet held at the end of December for the year's top keirin competitors. The meet ultimately concludes with the Grand Prix race itself, which determines the annual Keirin racing champion.
As of 2018, a selection committee determines the competitors for the Grand Prix race using the following priority:
Also part of the Grand Prix meet is the Young Grand Prix, which is open to the best of those that have begun competing in Keirin within the last three years; it is the only Keirin race of the year in which both S-class and A-class compete in the same race. A new addition to the meet in 2012 was the Girls' Grand Prix for the sport's top female competitors.
Another prestigious event on the annual keirin racing calendar is the GI Japan Championship. Held every May over a period of six days, it is the longest single race meeting of the year.
Each of the keirin velodromes are generally permitted to host one event per year of either GI, GII or GIII designation. The remaining events at each track consist of a combination of FI and FII races for a total of approximately 70 race days per year. On average there is one GI or GII event every month and one GIII meeting per week on the annual calendar.
As of 2019, the top events on the Keirin racing calendar are as follows:
Keirin velodromes follow the same basic schedule of races when conducting a race meeting. On the first day of competition, the better keirin competitors are assigned to races of higher caliber, while others are assigned to low-caliber races. Keirin racers are guaranteed to compete on each day of the meeting unless they are disqualified from a race or retire from the meet for any reason - in which case alternate competitors are called up to fill in the lower-caliber races.
Below is a schedule of races conducted during a typical three-day FI event (open to both S-class and A-class riders).
After six races, S-class riders compete:
S-class riders then compete to advance:
As a result of the parimutuel gambling that surrounds keirin racing in Japan, a strict system of standards was developed for bicycles and repair tools. The Nihon Jitensha Shinkōkai (Japanese Bicycle Association or NJS) - now under the JKA Foundation - requires that all keirin racers in Japan ride and use equipment that meets their standards. All riders use very similar bicycles, so that no rider will have any advantage or disadvantage based on equipment. In addition, all riders must pass strict licensing requirements.
Those who wish to race in Japan must attend the Japan Bicycle Racing School where they learn the necessary rules, etiquette, and skills. The school typically accepts only 10% of applicants. Those who pass final examination must still be approved by the Japan Keirin Association.
All bicycles and equipment must be built within strict guidelines set by the NJS, by a certified builder using NJS-approved materials. The products are then stamped by NJS and only equipment bearing this stamp may be used. Exceptions to this are a very limited set of equipment including carbon wheels, tires, stems and saddles used in Girls' Keirin, which can be used without NJS certification. The NJS standard is to ensure that no rider will have any advantage or disadvantage based on equipment and does not necessarily relate to quality or standard of manufacture. For example, 36 spoke wheels are allowed but not 32, although 32 spoke wheels are typically lighter, and frames must be built by a very limited number of approved builders.
Since its beginning, the bicycle frames used in Keirin races have been made from chromoly steel. Exceptions to this are frames used in Girls' Keirin, and Keirin Evolution races, where the frames used are made from carbon-fiber. Manufacturers of the frames used in Girls' Keirin are Boma, Bridgestone, Gan Well, Kalavinka, Bomber, and MBK. Participants in Keirin Evolution races may use any NJS, UCI or JCF approved carbon frame and components.
NJS approved equipment often sells for more than comparable equipment because of its specific use, build requirements, and limited manufacturers. Popular manufacturers include Nagasawa, 3Rensho, Makino, Kalavinka, Level, Bridgestone, Panasonic, Samson, Shimano, Nitto, Hatta, MKS, Kashimax, and Sugino. Because the NJS's main objective is supporting the Japanese cycling market, its bureaucracy is notoriously critical of foreign manufacturers attempting to enter the Japanese market. The Italian cycling equipment manufacturer Campagnolo has, though, received NJS certification.
NJS-approved equipment is not required for keirin races sanctioned by the Union Cycliste Internationale or its local national sporting associations, including UCI-sanctioned races in Japan.
Bets that can be made on Keirin races include, but are not limited to:
Some wagers cannot be placed if there are a smaller number of competitors in the race.
During major race meets, some jackpot wagers are offered:
The money bet into the Dokanto wagers can carry over if there are no winning tickets, even to subsequent race meets at another velodrome in the country.
In extraordinary circumstances, races have been declared no-contests, forcing velodromes to refund millions of yen in bets. Such results are generally known as a . A race at Shizuoka velodrome on January 2, 2008 was declared a failure when the back wheel of the pacer's bicycle nicked the bicycle of an actual competitor, causing him to fall. In a race at Iwaki-Taira Velodrome on December 14, 2008, separate infractions resulted in the disqualification of the entire field; all but one of the competitors were handed a one-year suspension by the velodrome after the race. The suspensions were lifted four months later. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30619 |
Turing completeness
In computability theory, a system of data-manipulation rules (such as a computer's instruction set, a programming language, or a cellular automaton) is said to be Turing-complete or computationally universal if it can be used to simulate any Turing machine. This means that this system is able to recognize or decide other data-manipulation rule sets. Turing completeness is used as a way to express the power of such a data-manipulation rule set. Virtually all programming languages today are Turing-complete. The concept is named after English mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing.
A related concept is that of Turing equivalence two computers P and Q are called equivalent if P can simulate Q and Q can simulate P. The Church–Turing thesis conjectures that any function whose values can be computed by an algorithm can be computed by a Turing machine, and therefore that if any real-world computer can simulate a Turing machine, it is Turing equivalent to a Turing machine. A universal Turing machine can be used to simulate any Turing machine and by extension the computational aspects of any possible real-world computer.
To show that something is Turing-complete, it is enough to show that it can be used to simulate some Turing-complete system. For example, an imperative language is Turing-complete if it has conditional branching (e.g., "if" and "goto" statements, or a "branch if zero" instruction; see one-instruction set computer) and the ability to change an arbitrary amount of memory (e.g., the ability to maintain an arbitrary number of data items). Of course, no physical system can have infinite memory; but if the limitation of finite memory is ignored, most programming languages are otherwise Turing-complete.
In colloquial usage, the terms "Turing-complete" or "Turing-equivalent" are used to mean that any real-world general-purpose computer or computer language can approximately simulate the computational aspects of any other real-world general-purpose computer or computer language.
Real computers constructed so far can be functionally analyzed like a single-tape Turing machine (the "tape" corresponding to their memory); thus the associated mathematics can apply by abstracting their operation far enough. However, real computers have limited physical resources, so they are only linear bounded automaton complete. In contrast, a universal computer is defined as a device with a Turing-complete instruction set, infinite memory, and infinite available time.
In computability theory, several closely related terms are used to describe the computational power of a computational system (such as an abstract machine or programming language):
Turing completeness is significant in that every real-world design for a computing device can be simulated by a universal Turing machine. The Church–Turing thesis states that this is a law of mathematics that a universal Turing machine can, in principle, perform any calculation that any other programmable computer can. This says nothing about the effort needed to write the program, or the time it may take for the machine to perform the calculation, or any abilities the machine may possess that have nothing to do with computation.
Charles Babbage's analytical engine (1830s) would have been the first Turing-complete machine if it had been built at the time it was designed. Babbage appreciated that the machine was capable of great feats of calculation, including primitive logical reasoning, but he did not appreciate that no other machine could do better. From the 1830s until the 1940s, mechanical calculating machines such as adders and multipliers were built and improved, but they could not perform a conditional branch and therefore were not Turing-complete.
In the late 19th century, Leopold Kronecker formulated notions of computability, defining primitive recursive functions. These functions can be calculated by rote computation, but they are not enough to make a universal computer, because the instructions that compute them do not allow for an infinite loop. In the early 20th century, David Hilbert led a program to axiomatize all of mathematics with precise axioms and precise logical rules of deduction that could be performed by a machine. Soon it became clear that a small set of deduction rules are enough to produce the consequences of any set of axioms. These rules were proved by Kurt Gödel in 1930 to be enough to produce every theorem.
The actual notion of computation was isolated soon after, starting with Gödel's incompleteness theorem. This theorem showed that axiom systems were limited when reasoning about the computation that deduces their theorems. Church and Turing independently demonstrated that Hilbert's (decision problem) was unsolvable, thus identifying the computational core of the incompleteness theorem. This work, along with Gödel's work on general recursive functions, established that there are sets of simple instructions, which, when put together, are able to produce any computation. The work of Gödel showed that the notion of computation is essentially unique.
In 1941 Konrad Zuse completed the Z3 (computer), the first working Turing-complete machine; this was the first digital computer in the modern sense.
Computability theory characterizes problems as having, or not having, computational solutions.
The first result of computability theory is that there exist problems for which it is impossible to predict what a (Turing-complete) system will do over an arbitrarily long time.
The classic example is the halting problem: create an algorithm that takes as input a program in some Turing-complete language and some data to be fed to "that" program, and determines whether the program, operating on the input, will eventually stop or will continue forever. It is trivial to create an algorithm that can do this for "some" inputs, but impossible to do this in general. For any characteristic of the program's eventual output, it is impossible to determine whether this characteristic will hold.
This impossibility poses problems when analyzing real-world computer programs. For example, one cannot write a tool that entirely protects programmers from writing infinite loops or protects users from supplying input that would cause infinite loops.
One can instead limit a program to executing only for a fixed period of time (timeout) or limit the power of flow-control instructions (for example, providing only loops that iterate over the items of an existing array). However, another theorem shows that there are problems solvable by Turing-complete languages that cannot be solved by any language with only finite looping abilities (i.e., any language guaranteeing that every program will eventually finish to a halt). So any such language is not Turing-complete. For example, a language in which programs are guaranteed to complete and halt cannot compute the computable function produced by Cantor's diagonal argument on all computable functions in that language.
A computer with access to an infinite tape of data may be more powerful than a Turing machine: for instance, the tape might contain the solution to the halting problem or some other Turing-undecidable problem. Such an infinite tape of data is called a Turing oracle. Even a Turing oracle with random data is not computable (with probability 1), since there are only countably many computations but uncountably many oracles. So a computer with a random Turing oracle can compute things that a Turing machine cannot.
All known laws of physics have consequences that are computable by a series of approximations on a digital computer. A hypothesis called digital physics states that this is no accident because the universe itself is computable on a universal Turing machine. This would imply that no computer more powerful than a universal Turing machine can be built physically.
The computational systems (algebras, calculi) that are discussed as Turing-complete systems are those intended for studying theoretical computer science. They are intended to be as simple as possible, so that it would be easier to understand the limits of computation. Here are a few:
Most programming languages (their abstract models, maybe with some particular constructs that assume finite memory omitted), conventional and unconventional, are Turing-complete. This includes:
Some rewrite systems are Turing-complete.
Turing completeness is an abstract statement of ability, rather than a prescription of specific language features used to implement that ability. The features used to achieve Turing completeness can be quite different; Fortran systems would use loop constructs or possibly even goto statements to achieve repetition; Haskell and Prolog, lacking looping almost entirely, would use recursion. Most programming languages are describing computations on von Neumann architectures, which have memory (RAM and register) and a control unit. These two elements make this architecture Turing-complete. Even pure functional languages are Turing-complete.
Turing completeness in declarative SQL is implemented through recursive common table expressions. Unsurprisingly, procedural extensions to SQL (PLSQL, etc.) are also Turing-complete. This illustrates one reason why relatively powerful non-Turing-complete languages are rare: the more powerful the language is initially, the more complex are the tasks to which it is applied and the sooner its lack of completeness becomes perceived as a drawback, encouraging its extension until it is Turing-complete.
The untyped lambda calculus is Turing-complete, but many typed lambda calculi, including System F, are not. The value of typed systems is based in their ability to represent most typical computer programs while detecting more errors.
Rule 110 and Conway's Game of Life, both cellular automata, are Turing-complete.
Some games and other software are Turing-complete by accident.
Video games:
Card games:
Zero-person games (simulations):
Computational languages:
Computer hardware:
Many computational languages exist that are not Turing-complete. One such example is the set of regular languages, which are generated by regular expressions and which are recognized by finite automata. A more powerful but still not Turing-complete extension of finite automata is the category of pushdown automata and context-free grammars, which are commonly used to generate parse trees in an initial stage of program compiling. Further examples include some of the early versions of the pixel shader languages embedded in Direct3D and OpenGL extensions.
In total functional programming languages, such as Charity and Epigram, all functions are total and must terminate. Charity uses a type system and control constructs based on category theory, whereas Epigram uses dependent types. The LOOP language is designed so that it computes only the functions that are primitive recursive. All of these compute proper subsets of the total computable functions, since the full set of total computable functions is not computably enumerable. Also, since all functions in these languages are total, algorithms for recursively enumerable sets cannot be written in these languages, in contrast with Turing machines.
Although (untyped) lambda calculus is Turing-complete, simply typed lambda calculus is not.
The notion of Turing completeness does not apply to languages such as XML, HTML, JSON, YAML and S-expressions, because they are typically used to represent structured data, not describe computation. These are sometimes referred to as markup languages, or more properly as "container languages" or "data description languages". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30621 |
The Shawshank Redemption
The Shawshank Redemption is a 1994 American drama film written and directed by Frank Darabont, based on the 1982 Stephen King novella "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption". It tells the story of banker Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), who is sentenced to life in Shawshank State Penitentiary for the murders of his wife and her lover, despite his claims of innocence. Over the following two decades, he befriends a fellow prisoner, contraband smuggler Ellis "Red" Redding (Morgan Freeman), and becomes instrumental in a money-laundering operation led by the prison warden Samuel Norton (Bob Gunton). William Sadler, Clancy Brown, Gil Bellows, and James Whitmore appear in supporting roles.
Darabont purchased the film rights to King's story in 1987, but development did not begin until five years later, when he wrote the script over an eight-week period. Two weeks after submitting his script to Castle Rock Entertainment, Darabont secured a $25 million budget to produce "The Shawshank Redemption", which started pre-production in January 1993. While the film is set in Maine, principal photography took place from June to August 1993 almost entirely in Mansfield, Ohio, with the Ohio State Reformatory serving as the eponymous penitentiary. The project attracted many stars of the time for the role of Andy, including Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise, and Kevin Costner. Thomas Newman provided the film's score.
While "The Shawshank Redemption" received positive reviews on its release, particularly for its story and the performances of Robbins and Freeman, it was a box-office disappointment, earning only $16 million during its initial theatrical run. Many reasons were cited for its failure at the time, including competition from films such as "Pulp Fiction" and "Forrest Gump", to the general unpopularity of prison films, lack of female characters, and even the title, which was considered to be confusing for audiences. It went on to receive multiple award nominations, including seven Academy Award nominations, and a theatrical re-release that, combined with international takings, increased the film's box-office gross to $58.3 million.
Over 320,000 VHS copies were shipped throughout the United States, and based on its award nominations and word of mouth, it became one of the top rented films of 1995. The broadcast rights were acquired following the purchase of Castle Rock by Turner Broadcasting System, and it was shown regularly on the TNT network starting in 1997, further increasing its popularity. It is now considered by many to be one of the greatest films of the 1990s. Decades after its release, the film was still broadcast regularly, and is popular in several countries, with audience members and celebrities citing it as a source of inspiration, and naming the film as a favorite in various surveys. In 2015, the United States Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry, finding it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
In 1947 Portland, Maine, banker Andy Dufresne is convicted of murdering his wife and her lover and is sentenced to two consecutive life sentences at the Shawshank State Penitentiary. He is befriended by Ellis "Red" Redding, an inmate and prison contraband smuggler serving a life sentence. Red procures a rock hammer and a large poster of Rita Hayworth for Andy. Assigned to work in the prison laundry, Andy is frequently sexually assaulted by "the Sisters" and their leader, Bogs.
In 1949, Andy overhears the captain of the guards, Byron Hadley, complaining about being taxed on an inheritance and offers to help him shelter the money legally. After an assault by the Sisters nearly kills Andy, Hadley beats and cripples Bogs, who is subsequently transferred to another prison. Andy is not attacked again. Warden Samuel Norton meets Andy and reassigns him to the prison library to assist elderly inmate Brooks Hatlen, a front to allow Andy to manage financial matters for other prison staff, guards from other prisons, and the warden himself. Andy begins writing weekly letters to the state legislature requesting funds to improve the prison's decaying library.
Brooks is paroled in 1954 after serving 50 years, but he cannot adjust to the outside world and eventually hangs himself. The legislature sends a library donation that includes a recording of "The Marriage of Figaro"; Andy plays an excerpt over the public address system and is punished with solitary confinement. After his release from solitary, Andy explains that hope is what gets him through his time, a concept that Red dismisses. In 1963, Norton begins exploiting prison labor for public works, profiting by undercutting skilled labor costs and receiving bribes. Andy launders the money using the alias "Randall Stephens".
Tommy Williams is incarcerated for burglary in 1965. Andy and Red befriend him, and Andy helps him pass his GED exam. A year later, Tommy reveals to Red and Andy that his cellmate at another prison had claimed responsibility for the murders for which Andy was convicted. Andy approaches Norton with this information, but Norton refuses to listen, and when Andy mentions the money laundering, Norton sends him back to solitary confinement. Norton has Hadley murder Tommy under the guise of an escape attempt. Andy attempts to discontinue the laundering, but relents after Norton threatens to destroy the library, remove Andy's protection from the guards, and move him to worse conditions. Andy is released from solitary confinement after two months, and he tells a skeptical Red that he dreams of living in Zihuatanejo, a Mexican coastal town. Andy also tells him of a specific hayfield near Buxton, asking Red—once he is released—to retrieve a package that Andy buried there. Red worries about Andy's well-being, especially when he learns Andy asked a fellow inmate for of rope.
At the next day's roll call, the guards find Andy's cell empty. An irate Norton throws a rock at a poster of Raquel Welch hanging on the cell wall, revealing a tunnel that Andy dug with his rock hammer over the past 19 years. The previous night, Andy used the rope to escape through the tunnel and prison sewage pipe, taking Norton's suit, shoes, and ledger, containing proof of the money laundering. While guards search for him, Andy poses as Randall Stephens, withdraws over $370,000 (equivalent to $ in ) of the laundered money from several banks, and mails the ledger and other evidence of the corruption and murders at Shawshank to a local newspaper. State police arrive at Shawshank and take Hadley into custody, while Norton commits suicide to avoid arrest.
The following year, Red is finally paroled after serving 40 years. He struggles to adapt to life outside prison and fears that he never will. Remembering his promise to Andy, he visits Buxton and finds a cache containing money and a letter asking him to come to Zihuatanejo. Red violates his parole by traveling to Fort Hancock, Texas, and crossing the border into Mexico, admitting that he finally feels hope. He finds Andy on a beach in Zihuatanejo, and the two reunited friends happily embrace.
The cast also includes: Mark Rolston as Bogs Diamond, the head of "the Sisters" gang and a prison rapist; Jeffrey DeMunn as the prosecuting attorney in Dufresne's trial; Alfonso Freeman as Fresh Fish Con; Ned Bellamy and Don McManus as, respectively, prison guards Youngblood and Wiley; and Dion Anderson as Head Bull Haig. Renee Blaine portrays Andy's wife, and Scott Mann portrays her golf-instructor lover Glenn Quentin. Frank Medrano plays Fat Ass, one of Andy's fellow new inmates who is beaten to death by Hadley, and Bill Bolender plays Elmo Blatch, a convict who may actually be responsible for the crimes for which Andy is convicted. James Kisicki and Claire Slemmer portray the Maine National Bank manager and a teller, respectively.
The film has been interpreted as being grounded in Christian mysticism. Andy is offered as a messianic, Christ-like figure, with Red describing him early in the film as having an aura that engulfs and protects him from Shawshank. The scene in which Andy and several inmates tar the prison roof can be seen as a recreation of the Last Supper, with Andy obtaining beer/wine for the twelve inmates/disciples as Freeman describes them as the "lords of all creation" invoking Jesus' blessing. Director Frank Darabont responded that this was not his deliberate intention, but he wanted people to find their own meaning in the film. The discovery of "The Marriage of Figaro" record is described in the screenplay as akin to finding the Holy Grail, bringing the prisoners to a halt, and causing the sick to rise up in their beds.
Early in the film, Warden Norton quotes Jesus Christ to describe himself to Andy, saying, "I am the light of the world", declaring himself Andy's savior, but this description can also reference Lucifer, the bearer of light. Indeed, the warden does not enforce the general rule of law, but chooses to enforce his own rules and punishments as he sees fit, becoming a law unto himself, like the behavior of Satan. The warden has also been compared to former United States President Richard Nixon. Norton's appearance and public addresses can be seen to mirror Nixon's. Similarly, Norton projects an image of a holy man, speaking down sanctimoniously to the servile masses while running corrupt scams, like those which made Nixon infamous.
Zihuatanejo has been interpreted as an analogue for heaven or paradise. In the film, Andy describes it as a place with no memory, offering absolution from his sins by forgetting about them or allowing them to be washed away by the Pacific Ocean, whose name means "peace". The possibility of escaping to Zihuatanejo is only raised after Andy admits that he feels responsible for his wife's death. Similarly, Red's freedom is only earned once he accepts he cannot save himself or atone for his sins. Freeman has described Red's story as one of salvation as he is not innocent of his crimes, unlike Andy who finds redemption. While some Christian viewers interpret Zihuatanejo as heaven, it can also be interpreted as a Nietzschean form of guiltlessness achieved outside traditional notions of good and evil, where the amnesia offered is the destruction rather than forgiveness of sin, meaning Andy's aim is secular and atheistic. Just as Andy can be interpreted as a Christ-like figure, he can be seen as a Zarathustra-like prophet offering escape through education and the experience of freedom. Film critic Roger Ebert argued that "The Shawshank Redemption" is an allegory for maintaining one's feeling of self-worth when placed in a hopeless position. Andy's integrity is an important theme in the story line, especially in prison, where integrity is lacking.
Robbins himself believes that the concept of Zihuatanejo resonates with audiences because it represents a form of escape that can be achieved after surviving for many years within whatever "jail" someone finds themselves in, whether a bad relationship, job, or environment. Robbins said that it is important that such a place exists for us. Isaac M. Morehouse suggests that the film provides a great illustration of how characters can be free, even in prison, or imprisoned, even in freedom, based on their outlooks on life. Philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre described freedom as an ongoing project that requires attention and resilience, without which a person begins to be defined by others or institutions, mirroring Red's belief that inmates become dependent on the prison to define their lives. Andy displays resilience through rebellion, by playing music over the prison loudspeaker, and refusing to continue with the money-laundering scam.
Many elements can be considered as tributes to the power of cinema. In the prison theater, the inmates watch the film "Gilda" (1946), but this scene was originally intended to feature "The Lost Weekend" (1945). The interchangeability of the films used in the prison theater suggests that it is the cinematic experience and not the subject that is key to the scene, allowing the men to escape the reality of their situation. Immediately following this scene, Andy is assaulted by the Sisters in the projector room and uses a film reel to help fight them off. Then in the end of the film, Andy passes through a hole in his cell hidden by a movie poster to escape both his cell and ultimately Shawshank.
Andy and Red's relationship has been described as a nonsexual story between two men, that few other films offer, where the friendship is not built on conducting a caper, car chases, or developing a relationship with women. Philosopher Alexander Hooke argued that Andy and Red's true freedom is their friendship, being able to share joy and humor with each other.
Darabont first collaborated with author Stephen King in 1983 on the short film adaptation of "The Woman in the Room", buying the rights from him for $1—a Dollar Deal that King used to help new directors build a résumé by adapting his short stories. After receiving his first screenwriting credit in 1987 for "", Darabont returned to King with $5,000 to purchase the rights to adapt "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption", a 96-page novella from King's 1982 collection "Different Seasons", written to explore genres other than the horror stories for which he was commonly known. Although King did not understand how the story, largely focused on Red contemplating his fellow prisoner Andy, could be turned into a feature film, Darabont believed it was "obvious". King never cashed the $5,000 check from Darabont; he later framed it and returned it to Darabont accompanied by a note which read: "In case you ever need bail money. Love, Steve."
Five years later, Darabont wrote the script over an eight-week period. He expanded on elements of King's story. Brooks, who in the novella is a minor character who dies in a retirement home, became a tragic character who eventually hanged himself. Tommy, who in the novella trades his evidence exonerating Andy for transfer to a nicer prison, in the screenplay is murdered on the orders of Warden Norton, who is a composite of several warden characters in King's story. Darabont opted to create a single warden character to serve as the primary antagonist. Among his inspirations, Darabont listed the works of director Frank Capra, including "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (1939) and "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946), describing them as tall tales; Darabont likened "The Shawshank Redemption" to a tall tale more than a prison movie. He also cited "Goodfellas" (1990) as an inspiration on the use of dialogue to illustrate the passage of time in the script, and the prison drama "Birdman of Alcatraz" (1962) directed by John Frankenheimer. While later scouting filming locations, Darabont happened upon Frankenheimer who was scouting for his own prison-set project "Against the Wall". Darabont recalled that Frankenheimer took time out from his scouting to provide Darabont with encouragement and advice.
At the time, prison-based films were not considered likely box-office successes, but Darabont's script was read by then-Castle Rock Entertainment producer Liz Glotzer, whose interest in prison stories, and reaction to the script, led her to threaten to quit if Castle Rock did not produce "The Shawshank Redemption". Director and Castle Rock co-founder Rob Reiner also liked the script. He offered Darabont between $2.4 million and $3 million to allow him to direct it himself. Reiner, who had previously adapted King's 1982 novella "The Body" into the 1986 film "Stand by Me", planned to cast Tom Cruise as Andy and Harrison Ford as Red.
Castle Rock offered to finance any other film Darabont wanted to develop. Darabont seriously considered the offer, citing growing up poor in Los Angeles, believing it would elevate his standing in the industry, and that Castle Rock could have contractually fired him and given the film to Reiner, anyway, but he chose to remain the director, saying in a 2014 "Variety" interview, "you can continue to defer your dreams in exchange for money and, you know, die without ever having done the thing you set out to do". Reiner served as Darabont's mentor on the project, instead. Within two weeks of showing the script to Castle Rock, Darabont had a $25 million budget to make his film (taking a $750,000 screenwriting and directing salary plus a percentage of the net profits), and pre-production began in January 1993.
Freeman was cast at the suggestion of producer Liz Glotzer, who ignored the novella's character description of a white Irishman, nicknamed "Red". Freeman's character alludes to the choice when queried by Andy on why he is called Red, replying "Maybe it's because I'm Irish." Freeman opted not to research his role, saying "acting the part of someone who's incarcerated doesn't require any specific knowledge of incarceration ... because men don't change. Once you're in that situation, you just toe whatever line you have to toe." Darabont was already aware of Freeman from his minor role in another prison drama, "Brubaker" (1980), while Robbins had been excited to work alongside the actor, having grown up watching him in "The Electric Company" children's television show.
Darabont looked initially at some of his favorite actors, such as Gene Hackman and Robert Duvall, for the role of Andy Dufresne, but they were unavailable; Clint Eastwood and Paul Newman were also considered. Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, and Kevin Costner were offered, and passed on the role—Hanks due to his starring role in "Forrest Gump", and Costner because he had the lead in "Waterworld". Johnny Depp, Nicolas Cage, and Charlie Sheen were also considered for the role at different stages. Cruise attended table readings of the script, but declined to work for the inexperienced Darabont. Darabont said he cast Robbins after seeing his performance in the 1990 psychological horror "Jacob's Ladder". When Robbins was cast, he insisted that Darabont use experienced cinematographer Roger Deakins, who had worked with him on "The Hudsucker Proxy". To prepare for the role, Robbins observed caged animals at a zoo, spent an afternoon in solitary confinement, spoke with prisoners and guards, and had his arms and legs shackled for a few hours.
Cast initially as young convict Tommy, Brad Pitt dropped out following his success in "Thelma & Louise" (the role went to a debuting Gil Bellows); James Gandolfini passed on portraying prison rapist Bogs. Bob Gunton was filming "Demolition Man" (1993) when he went to audition for the role of Warden Norton. To convince the studio that Gunton was right for the part, Darabont and producer Niki Marvin arranged for him to record a screen test on a day off from "Demolition Man". They had a wig made for him as his head was shaved for his "Demolition Man" role. Gunton wanted to portray Norton with hair as this could then be grayed to convey his on-screen aging as the film progressed. Gunton performed his screen test with Robbins, which was filmed by Deakins. After being confirmed for the role, he used the wig in the film's early scenes until his hair regrew. Gunton said that Marvin and Darabont saw that he understood the character, which went in his favor, as did the fact his height was similar to Robbins', allowing Andy to believably use the warden's suit.
Portraying the head guard Byron Hadley, Clancy Brown was given the opportunity to speak with former guards by the production's liaison officer, but declined, believing it would not be a good thing to say that his brutal character was in any way inspired by Ohio state correctional officers. William Sadler, who portrays Heywood, said that Darabont had approached him in 1989 on the set of the "Tales from the Crypt" television series, where he was a writer, about starring in the adaptation he was intending to make. Freeman's son Alfonso has a cameo as a young Red in mug shot photos, and as a prisoner shouting "fresh fish" as Andy arrives at Shawshank. Among the extras used in the film were the former warden and former inmates of the reformatory, and active guards from a nearby incarceration facility. The novella's original title attracted several people to audition for the nonexistent role of Rita Hayworth, including a man in drag clothing.
On a $25 million budget, principal photography took place over three months between June and August 1993. Filming regularly required up to 18-hour workdays, six days a week. Freeman described filming as tense, saying, "Most of the time, the tension was between the cast and director. I remember having a bad moment with the director, had a few of those." Freeman referred to Darabont's requiring multiple takes of scenes, which he considered had no discernible differences. For example, the scene where Andy first approaches Red to procure a rock hammer took nine hours to film, and featured Freeman throwing and catching a baseball with another inmate throughout it. The number of takes that were shot resulted in Freeman turning up to filming the following day with his arm in a sling. Freeman sometimes simply refused to do the additional takes. Robbins said that the long days were difficult. Darabont felt that making the film taught him a lot, "A director really needs to have an internal barometer to measure what any given actor needs." He found his most frequent struggles were with Deakins. Darabont favored more scenic shots, while Deakins felt that not showing the outside of the prison added a sense of claustrophobia, and it meant that when a wide scenic shot was used, it had more impact.
Marvin spent five months scouting prisons across the United States and Canada, looking for a site that had a timeless aesthetic, and was completely abandoned, hoping to avoid the complexity of filming the required footage, for hours each day, in an active prison with the security difficulties that would entail. Marvin eventually chose the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, Ohio, to serve as the fictional Shawshank State Penitentiary in Maine, citing its Gothic-style stone and brick buildings. The facility had been shuttered three years earlier in 1990, due to inhumane living conditions.
The 15-acre reformatory, housing its own power plant and farm, was partially torn down shortly after filming was completed, leaving the main administration building and two cellblocks. Several of the interior shots of the specialized prison facilities, such as the admittance rooms and the warden's office, were shot in the reformatory. The interior of the boarding room used by Brooks and Red was in the administration building; exterior shots of the boarding house were taken elsewhere. Internal scenes in the prison cellblocks were filmed on a sound stage built inside a nearby shuttered Westinghouse Electric factory. Since Darabont wanted the inmates' cells to face each other, almost all the cellblock scenes were shot on a purpose-built set housed in the Westinghouse factory, except for the scene featuring Elmo Blatch's admission of guilt for the crimes for which Andy was convicted. It was filmed in one of the actual prison's more confined cells. Scenes were also filmed in Mansfield, as well as neighboring Ashland, Ohio. The oak tree under which Andy buries his letter to Red was located near Malabar Farm State Park, in Lucas, Ohio; it was destroyed by winds in 2016.
Just as a prison in Ohio stood in for a fictional one in Maine, the beach scene showing Andy and Red's reunion in Zihuatanejo, Mexico, was actually shot in the Caribbean on the island of Saint Croix, one of the U.S. Virgin Islands. The beach at 'Zihuatanejo' is the Sandy Point National Wildlife Refuge, a protected area for leatherback sea turtles. Scenes shot in Upper Sandusky included the prison wood shop scene where Red and his fellow inmates hear "The Marriage of Figaro" (the woodshop is now called the Shawshank Woodshop), and the opening court scene which was shot at the Wyandot County Courthouse. Other shooting locations included Pugh Cabin in Malabar Farm State Park, where Andy sits outside as his wife engages in an affair, Butler, Ohio, stood in for Buxton, Maine, and the Bissman Building in Mansfield served as the halfway house where Brooks stayed following his release.
For the scene depicting Andy's escape from the prison, Darabont envisioned Andy using his miniature rock hammer to break into the sewage pipe, but he determined that this was not realistic. He opted instead to use a large piece of rock. While the film portrays the iconic scene of Andy escaping to freedom through a sewer pipe described as a "river of shit", Robbins crawls through a mixture of water, chocolate syrup, and sawdust. The stream into which Robbins emerges was actually certified toxic by a chemist according to production designer Terence Marsh. The production team dammed the stream to make it deeper and used chlorination to partially decontaminate it. Of the scene, Robbins said, "when you're doing a film, you want to be a good soldier—you don't want to be the one [who] gets in the way. So you will do things as an actor that are compromising to your physical health and safety." The scene was intended to be much longer and more dramatic, detailing Andy's escape across a field and onto a train, but with only a single night available to film the sequence, it was shortened to showing Andy standing triumphant in the water. Of his own work, Deakins considers the scene to be one of his least favorite, saying that he "over-lit" it. In response, Darabont disagreed with Deakins' self-assessment. He said that the time and precision taken by Deakins, and their limited filming schedule, meant he had to be precise in what he could film and how. In a 2019 interview, he stated that he regretted that this meant he could not film a close up of Robbins' face as he climbed down out of the hole from his cell.
As for the scene where Andy rebelliously plays music over the prison announcement system, it was Robbins' idea for Andy to turn the music up and not shut it off. While in the finished film the inmates watch Rita Hayworth in "Gilda" (1946), they were originally intended to be watching Billy Wilder's "The Lost Weekend" (1945), a film about the dangers of alcohol. As the footage was too costly to procure from Paramount Pictures, producer Niki Marvin approached "The Shawshank Redemption"s domestic distribution rights-holder Columbia Pictures, which offered a list of lower-priced titles, one of which was "Gilda". As filming took place mainly in and around the prison, scenes were often shot in near chronological order respective of the different eras depicted throughout the story. This aided the actors' performances as their real-life relationships evolved alongside those of their respective characters. Darabont commented that the scene in which Andy tells Red about his dreams of going to Mexico, was one of the last filmed and one that he most revisited in recollecting on the film's production. He praised Robbins and Freeman for completing the scene in only a few takes.
The final cut of the theatrically released film runs for 142 minutes, and was dedicated to Allen Greene, Darabont's former agent, who died during filming from AIDS. The film's first edit ran for nearly two and a half hours, which Glotzer considered "long", and several scenes were cut including a longer sequence of Red adjusting to life after incarceration; Darabont said that in test screenings the audience seemed to be getting impatient with the scene as they were already convinced that Red would not make it. Another scene cut for time showed a prison guard investigating Andy's escape tunnel; this was thought to slow down the action. The film originally had a cold open that played out Andy's crime, with his trial playing throughout the opening credits, but these scenes were edited together to create a more "punchy" opening. One scripted scene, which Darabont described as his best work, was left unfilmed because of the shooting schedule. In the scene, a dreaming Red is sucked into the poster of Rita Hayworth to find himself alone and insignificant on the Pacific shore, saying "I am terrified, there is no way home." Darabont said that he regretted being unable to capture the scene.
In Darabont's original vision for the end of the film, Red is seen riding a bus towards the Mexican border, leaving his fate ambiguous. Glotzer insisted on including the scene of Red and Andy reuniting in Zihuatanejo. She said Darabont felt this was a "commercial, sappy" ending, but Glotzer wanted the audience to see them together. Castle Rock agreed to finance filming for the scene without requiring its inclusion, guaranteeing Darabont the final decision. The scene originally featured a longer reunion in which Andy and Red recited dialogue from their first meeting, but Darabont said it had a "golly-gee-ain't-we-cute" quality and excised it. The beach reunion was test audiences' favorite scene; both Freeman and Robbins felt it provided the necessary closure. Darabont agreed to include the scene after seeing the test audience reactions, saying: "I think it's a magical and uplifting place for our characters to arrive at the end of their long saga..."
The film's score was composed by Thomas Newman. He felt that it already elicited such strong emotions without music that he found it difficult to compose one that would elevate scenes without distracting from them. The piece, "Shawshank Redemption", plays during Andy's escape from Shawshank and originally had a three-note motif, but Darabont felt it had too much of a "triumphal flourish" and asked that it be toned down to a single-note motif. "So Was Red", played following Red's release from prison, and leading to his discovery of Andy's cache, became one of Newman's favorite pieces. The piece was initially written for a solo oboe, until Newman reluctantly agreed to add harmonica—a reference to the harmonica Red receives from Andy to continue his message of hope. According to Darabont, harmonica player Tommy Morgan "casually delivered something dead-on perfect on the first take", and this is heard in the finished film. Newman's score was so successful that excerpts from it were used in movie trailers for years afterwards.
Leading up to its release, the film was test screened with the public. These were described as "through the roof", and Glotzer said they were some of the best she had seen. It was decided to mostly omit Stephen King's name from any advertising, as the studio wanted to attract a "more prestigious audience", who might reject a film from a writer known mostly for pulp fiction works such as "The Shining" and "Cujo".
Following early September premieres at the Renaissance Theatre in Mansfield, and the Toronto International Film Festival, "The Shawshank Redemption" began a limited North American release on September 23, 1994. During its opening weekend, the film earned $727,000 from 33 theaters—an average of $22,040 per theater. Following a Hollywood tradition of visiting different theaters on opening night to see the audiences view their film live, Darabont and Glotzer went to the Cinerama Dome, but found no one there. Glotzer claimed that the pair actually sold two tickets outside the theater with the promise that if the buyers did not like the film, they could ask Castle Rock for a refund. While critics praised the film, Glotzer believed that a lackluster review from the "Los Angeles Times" pushed crowds away. It received a wide release on October 14, 1994, expanding to a total of 944 theaters to earn $2.4 million—an average of $2,545 per theater—finishing as the number-nine film of the weekend, behind sex-comedy "Exit to Eden" ($3 million), and just ahead of the historical drama "Quiz Show" ($2.1 million), which was in its fifth week at the cinemas. "The Shawshank Redemption" closed in late November 1994, after 10 weeks with an approximate total gross of $16 million. It was considered a box-office bomb, failing to recoup its $25 million budget, not including marketing costs and the cinema exhibitors' cuts.
The film was also competing with "Pulp Fiction" ($108 million), which also premiered October 14 following its Palme d'Or award win, and "Forrest Gump" ($330 million), which was in the middle of a successful 42-week theatrical run. Both films would become quotable cultural phenomena. A general audience trend towards action films starring the likes of Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger was also considered to work against the commercial success of "The Shawshank Redemption". Freeman blamed the title, saying it was unmemorable, while Robbins recalled fans asking: "What was that "Shinkshonk Reduction" thing?". Several alternative titles had been posited before the release due to concerns that it was not a marketable title. The low box office was also blamed on a lack of female characters to broaden the audience demographics, the general unpopularity of prison films, and the bleak tone used in its marketing.
After being nominated for several Oscars in early 1995, the film was re-released between February and March, earning a further $12 million. In total, the film made about $28.3 million in North American theaters, and about $30 million from other markets for a worldwide total of $58.3 million. In the United States, it became the 51st-highest-grossing film of 1994, and the 21st-highest-grossing R-rated film of 1994.
Despite its disappointing box-office returns, in what was then considered a risky move, Warner Home Video shipped 320,000 rental video copies throughout the United States in 1995. It went on to become one of the top rented films of the year. Positive recommendations and repeat customer viewings, and being well-received by both male and female audiences, were considered key to the film's rental success.
Ted Turner's Turner Broadcasting System had acquired Castle Rock in 1993, which enabled his TV channel, TNT, to obtain the cable-broadcast rights to the film. According to Glotzer, because of the low box-office numbers, TNT could air the film at a very low cost, but still charge premium advertising rates. The film began airing regularly on the network in June 1997. TV airings of the film accrued record-breaking numbers, and its repeated broadcast was considered essential to turning the film into a cultural phenomenon after its poor box-office performance. Darabont felt the turning point for the film's success was the Academy Award nominations, saying "nobody had heard of the movie, and that year on the Oscar broadcast, they were mentioning this movie seven times". In 1996, the rights to "The Shawshank Redemption" were passed to Warner Bros., following the merger of its parent company Time Warner with the Turner Broadcasting System.
By 2013, "The Shawshank Redemption" had aired on 15 basic cable networks, and in that year occupied 151 hours of airtime, rivaling "Scarface" (1983), and behind only "Mrs. Doubtfire" (1993). It was in the top 15% of movies among adults between the ages of 18 and 49 on the Spike, Up, Sundance TV, and Lifetime channels. Despite its mainly male cast, it was the most-watched movie on the female-targeted OWN network. In a 2014 "Wall Street Journal" article, based on the margins studios take from box office returns, home media sales, and television licensing, "The Shawshank Redemption" had made an estimated $100 million. Jeff Baker, then-executive vice president and general manager of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, said that the home video sales had earned about $80 million. While finances for licensing the film for TV are unknown, in 2014, current and former Warner Bros. executives confirmed that it was one of the highest-valued assets in the studio's $1.5 billion library. That same year, Gunton said that by its tenth anniversary in 2004, he was still earning six-figure residual payments, and was still earning a "substantial income" from it, which was considered unusual so many years after its release.
"The Shawshank Redemption" opened to generally positive reviews. Some reviewers compared the film to other well-received prison dramas, including: "Birdman of Alcatraz", "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", "Cool Hand Luke", and "Riot in Cell Block 11". Gene Siskel said that like "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", "The Shawshank Redemption" is an inspirational drama about overcoming overbearing authority.
"Entertainment Weekly"s Owen Gleiberman said that Freeman makes the Red character feel genuine and "lived-in". Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" said that Freeman was quietly impressive, but lamented that Red's role in the film had limited range, restricted to observing Andy. She considered Freeman's commanding performance made him a much stronger figure than simply an observer. Maslin said that Freeman's performance was especially moving when describing how dependent Red had become on living within the prison walls. "Variety"s Leonard Klady suggested that Freeman had the "showier" role, allowing him "a grace and dignity that came naturally", without ever becoming banal, and "The Washington Post"s Desson Howe called Freeman a "master" of comedic and poignant cadence. Even Kenneth Turan's "Los Angeles Times" review, which Glotzer credited with derailing the film's box-office success, praised Freeman, saying his "effortless screen presence lends "Shawshank" the closest thing to credibility it can manage".
Of Robbins' performance, Gleiberman said that in his "laconic-good-guy, neo-Gary Cooper role, [Robbins] is unable to make Andy connect with the audience". Conversely, Maslin said that Andy has the more subdued role, but that Robbins portrays him intensely, and effectively depicts the character as he transitions from new prisoner to aged father figure, and Klady stated that his "riveting, unfussy ... precise, honest, and seamless" performance anchors the film. Howe said that while the character is "cheesily messianic" for easily charming everyone to his side, comparing him to "Forrest Gump goes to jail", Robbins exudes the perfect kind of innocence to sell the story. "The Hollywood Reporter" stated that both Freeman and Robbins gave outstanding, layered performances that imbued their characters with individuality, and "Rolling Stone"s Peter Travers said that the pair created something "undeniably powerful and moving". Gunton and Brown were deemed by Klady as "extremely credible in their villainy", Howe countered that Gunton's warden was a clichéd character who extols religious virtues while having people murdered.
Maslin called the film an impressive directorial debut that tells a gentle tale with a surprising amount of loving care, with Klady saying the only failings came when Darabont focused for too long on supporting characters, or embellished a secondary story. "The Hollywood Reporter" said that both the directing and writing were crisp, while criticizing the film's long running time. Klady said that the length and tone, while tempered by humor and unexpected events, would dampen the film's mainstream appeal, but the story offered a fascinating portrait of the innate humanity of the inmates. Gleiberman disliked that the prisoners' crimes were overlooked to portray them more as good guys. Turan similarly objected to what he perceived as extreme violence and rape scenes, and making most of the prisoners seem like a "bunch of swell and softhearted guys" to cast the prison experience in a "rosy glow". Klady summarized the film as "estimable and haunting entertainment", comparing it to a rough diamond with small flaws, but Howe criticized it for deviating with multiple subplots, and pandering by choosing to resolve the story with Andy and Red's reunion, rather than leaving the mystery. Ebert noted that the story works because it is not about Andy as the hero, but how Red perceives him.
Deakins' cinematography was routinely praised, with "The Hollywood Reporter" calling it "foreboding" and "well-crafted", and Travers saying "the everyday agonies of prison life are meticulously laid out ... you can almost feel the frustration and rage seeping into the skin of the inmates". Gleiberman praised the choice of scenery, writing "the moss-dark, saturated images have a redolent sensuality; you feel as if you could reach out and touch the prison walls". "The Hollywood Reporter" said of Newman's score, "at its best moments, alights with radiant textures and sprightly grace notes, nicely emblematic of the film's central theme", and Klady described it as "the right balance between the somber and the absurd".
The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards in 1995, the most for a Stephen King film adaptation: Best Picture (Marvin), Best Actor (Freeman), Best Adapted Screenplay (Darabont), Best Cinematography (Deakins), Best Editing (Richard Francis-Bruce), Best Sound Mixing (Robert J. Litt, Elliot Tyson, Michael Herbick, and Willie D. Burton), and Best Original Score (Newman, his first Academy Award nomination). It did not win in any category. It received two Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture for Freeman, and Best Screenplay for Darabont.
Robbins and Freeman were both nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role at the inaugural Screen Actors Guild Awards in 1995. Darabont was nominated for a Directors Guild of America award in 1994 for Best Director of a feature film, and a Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Deakins won the American Society of Cinematographers award for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography, while producer Niki Marvin was nominated for a 1994 Golden Laurel Award by the Producers Guild of America.
Darabont later adapted and directed two other King stories, "The Green Mile" (1999) and "The Mist" (2007). In a 2016 interview, King said that "The Shawshank Redemption" was his favorite adaptation of his work, alongside "Stand by Me".
The oak tree, under which Andy leaves a note for Red directing him to Zihuatanejo, became a symbol of hope for its role in the film, and is considered iconic. In 2016, "The New York Times" reported that the tree attracted thousands of visitors annually. The tree was partially destroyed on July 29, 2011, when it was split by lightning; news of the damage was reported across the United States on newscasts, in newspapers, and on websites as far away as India. The tree was completely felled by strong winds on or around July 22, 2016, and its vestiges were cut down in April 2017. The remains were turned into "The Shawshank Redemption" memorabilia including rock hammers and magnets.
The prison site, which was planned to be fully torn down after filming, became a tourist attraction. The Mansfield Reformatory Preservation Society, a group of enthusiasts of the film, purchased the building and site from Ohio for one dollar in 2000 and took up maintaining it as a historical landmark, both as its purpose as a prison and as the filming site. A 2019 report estimated the attraction to be earning $16 million in annual revenue. Many of the rooms and props remain there, including the false pipe through which Andy escapes, and a portion of the oak tree from the finale, after it was damaged in 2011. The surrounding area is also visited by fans, while local businesses market "Shawshanwiches" and Bundt cakes in the shape of the prison. According to the Mansfield/Richland County Convention and Visitors Bureau (later renamed Destination Mansfield), tourism in the area had increased every year since "The Shawshank Redemption" premiered, and in 2013 drew in 18,000 visitors and over $3 million to the local economy. As of 2019, Destination Mansfield operates the Shawshank Trail, a series of 15 marked stops around locations related to the film across Mansfield, Ashland, Upper Sandusky, and St Croix. The trail earned $16.9 million in revenue in 2018.
In late August 2014, a series of events was held in Mansfield to celebrate the film's 20th anniversary including a screening of the film at the Renaissance Theatre, a bus tour of certain filming locations, and a cocktail party at the reformatory. Cast from the film attended some of the events, including Gunton, Scott Mann, Renee Blaine, and James Kisicki. The 25th anniversary was similarly celebrated in August 2019. Guests included Darabont, Blaine, Mann, Gunton, Alfonso Freeman, Bellows, Rolston, Claire Slemmer, and Frank Medrano. Darabont stated that only at this event, the first time he had returned to Mansfield, was he able to realize the lasting impact of the film, stating, "It is a very surreal feeling to be back all these years later and people are still talking about it."
Contemporary review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes offers a 90% approval rating from 72 critics, with an average rating of 8.18/10. The consensus reads, ""The Shawshank Redemption" is an uplifting, deeply satisfying prison drama with sensitive direction and fine performances." The film also has a score of 80 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 20 critics indicating "generally favorable reviews".
In 1999, film critic Roger Ebert listed "Shawshank" on his list of "The Great Movies". The film has been nominated for, or appeared on, the American Film Institute's lists celebrating the top 100 film or film-related topics. In 1998, it was nominated for AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies list, and was number 72 on the 2007 revised list, outranking "Forrest Gump" (76) and "Pulp Fiction" (94). It was also number 23 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers (2006) list charting inspiring films. The characters of Andy and Warden Norton received nominations for AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains list; AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes list for "Get busy livin', or get busy dyin; AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs list for "Duettino – Sull'Aria" (from "The Marriage of Figaro"); and AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores for Newman's work.
In 2005, the Writers Guild of America listed Darabont's screenplay at number 22 on its list of the 101 greatest screenplays, and in 2006, Film4 listed it number 13 on its list of 50 Films to See Before You Die. In 2014, "The Shawshank Redemption" was named Hollywood's fourth-favorite film, based on a survey of 2,120 Hollywood-based entertainment industry members; entertainment lawyers skewed the most towards the film. In 2017, "The Daily Telegraph" named it the 17th-best prison film ever made, and "USA Today" listed it as one of the 50 best films of all time. In 2019, "GamesRadar+" listed its ending as one of the best of all time.
"The Shawshank Redemption" appeared on several lists of the greatest films of the 1990s, by outlets including: "Paste" and "NME" (2012), "Complex" (2013), CHUD.com (2014), MSN (2015), "TheWrap", "Maxim", and "Rolling Stone" (2017).
In November 2014, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences celebrated the film's 20th anniversary with a special one-night screening at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, California. In 2015, the film was selected by the United States Library of Congress to be preserved in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Darabont responded: "I can think of no greater honor than for "The Shawshank Redemption" to be considered part of our country's cinematic legacy." "Variety" said that the word "Shawshank" could be used to instantly convey images of a prison.
The significant and enduring public appreciation for the film has often been difficult for critics to define. In an interview, Freeman said, "About everywhere you go, people say, "The Shawshank Redemption"—greatest movie I ever saw" and that such praise "Just comes out of them". Robbins said, "I swear to God, all over the world—all over the world—wherever I go, there are people who say, 'That movie changed my life' ". In a separate interview, Stephen King said, "If that isn't the best [adaptation of my works], it's one of the two or three best, and certainly, in moviegoers' minds, it's probably the best because it generally rates at the top of these surveys they have of movies. ... I never expected anything to happen with it." In a 2014 "Variety" article, Robbins claimed that South African politician Nelson Mandela told him about his love for the film, while it has been cited as a source of inspiration by several sportsmen including Jonny Wilkinson (UK), Agustín Pichot (Argentina), Al Charron (Canada), and Dan Lyle (USA), and Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York. Gunton said he had encountered fans in Morocco, Australia, South America, Germany, France, and Bora Bora. Director Steven Spielberg said that the film was "a chewing-gum movie—if you step on it, it sticks to your shoe". Speaking on the film's 25th anniversary, Darabont said that older generations were sharing it with younger generations, contributing to its longevity.
It has been the number-one film on IMDb's user-generated Top 250 since 2008, when it surpassed "The Godfather", having remained at or near the top since the late 1990s. In the United Kingdom, readers of "Empire" voted the film as the best of the 1990s, the greatest film of all time in 2006, and it placed number four on "Empire"s 2008 list of "The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time" and their 2017 list of "The 100 Greatest Movies". In March 2011, the film was voted by BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 1Xtra listeners as their favorite film of all time. It regularly appears on "Empire"s top 100 films, was named the greatest film to not win the Academy Award for Best Picture in a 2013 poll by Sky UK (it lost to "Forrest Gump"), and ranked as Britain's favorite film in a 2015 YouGov poll. When the British Film Institute analyzed the demographic breakdown of the YouGov poll, it noted that "The Shawshank Redemption" was not the top-ranked film in any group, but was the only film to appear in the top 15 of every age group, suggesting it is able to connect with every polled age group, unlike "Pulp Fiction" which fared better with younger voters, and "Gone with the Wind" (1939) with older voters.
A 2017 poll conducted by Gatwick Airport also identified the film as the fourth-best to watch while in flight. When UK film critic Mark Kermode interviewed a host of United States moviegoers, they compared it to a "religious experience". It was also voted as New Zealand's favorite film in a 2015 poll. Lasting fan appreciation has led to it being considered one of the most beloved films of all time. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30625 |
The Residents
The Residents are an American art collective best known for their avant-garde music and multimedia works. Since their first official release, "Meet the Residents" (1974), the group has released over sixty albums, numerous music videos and short films, three CD-ROM projects, and ten DVDs. They have undertaken seven major world tours and scored multiple films. Pioneers in exploring the potential of CD-ROM and similar technologies, the Residents have won several awards for their multimedia projects. Ralph Records, a record label focusing on avant-garde music, was started by the band in 1972.
Throughout the group's existence, the individual members have ostensibly attempted to operate under anonymity, preferring instead to have attention focused on their art output. Much outside speculation and rumor has focused on this aspect of the group. In public, the group appears silent and costumed, often wearing eyeball helmets, top hats and tails—a long-lasting costume now recognized as its signature iconography. In 2017, Hardy Fox, long known to be associated with the Residents, identified himself as the band's co-founder and primary composer; he died in 2018.
The Residents' albums generally fall into two categories: deconstructions of Western popular music, and complex conceptual pieces composed around a theme, theory, or plot. The group is noted for surrealistic lyrics and sound, with a disregard for conventional music composition.
The artists who became The Residents met in high school in Shreveport, Louisiana in the early 1960s. Around 1965, the group of young artists began making their first amateur home tape recordings and making art together with a number of friends. In 1966, with the intentions of joining the flourishing hippie movement, the members headed west for San Francisco, but after their truck broke down in San Mateo, California they decided to remain there.
While attempting to make a living, the group purchased crude recording equipment and began to build on their home recording and tape editing skills, as well as photography, painting, and anything remotely to do with art that they could afford. The Residents have acknowledged the existence of at least two (of perhaps hundreds) unreleased reel-to-reel items dating from this era, titled "The Ballad of Stuffed Trigger" and "Rusty Coathangers For The Doctor". "Uncle Willie", former Residents fan club president, wrote in his book "Uncle Willie's Highly Opinionated Guide to the Residents" that, while searching through the band's archives, he came across "a suite named "The Ballad of Stuffed Trigger"," but not a complete album. Further evidence of pre-1970 recordings surfaced with the release of the song "I Hear You Got Religion", supposedly recorded in 1969, and released originally as a downloadable track from Ralph America in 1999. The Cryptic Corporation has confirmed that there are many tapes in their archives dating back decades, but all were recorded before the group had officially become "The Residents" so the band does not generally consider them to be part of its discography.
Word of the unnamed group's experimentation spread, and in 1969 British guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Phil Lithman, known as Snakefinger, began to participate with them. Around this time the group also made the acquaintance of the mysterious (and perhaps apocryphal) N. Senada, whom Lithman had picked up in Bavaria where the aged avant-gardist was recording birds singing. The two Europeans became great influences and life-long collaborators with the group.
In 1971 the group sent a reel-to-reel demo tape to Hal Halverstadt at Warner Brothers, as he had signed Captain Beefheart (one of the group's musical heroes) to the label. Halverstadt was not overly impressed with "The Warner Bros. Album" (he describes it as "okay at best" in "Uncle Willie's Cryptic Guide to the Residents"), but awarded the tape an "A for Ariginality". Because the band had not included any name in the return address, the rejection slip was simply addressed to "Residents". The members of the group then decided to use this name, first becoming "Residents Unincorporated", then shortening it to the current name. "The Warner Bros. Album" remained officially unreleased by the group until 2018, when it was remastered and re-issued in a limited edition as part of their comprehensive "pREServed" campaign.
The first known public performance of the band who became The Residents was at the Boarding House in San Francisco in 1971. This brief, guerrilla-style performance took the audience completely by surprise, and produced a photograph of Lithman playing violin with his pinky "about to strike the violin like a snake" – this photo originated the nickname that he used as his stage name for the rest of his life, Snakefinger. Later in 1971, a second tape was completed called "Baby Sex", featuring a long collage partially consisting of recordings from the Boarding House performance. The original cover art for the tape box was a silk-screened copy of an old photo depicting a woman fellating a small child, an example of the extremely confronting and deliberately puerile visual and lyrical style the group had adopted throughout this period.
In early 1972, the band left San Mateo and relocated to 20 Sycamore St, San Francisco; a studio they named "El Ralpho", which boasted a completely open ground floor (seemingly ideal for a sound stage), allowing the group to expand their operations and also begin preliminary work on their most ambitious project up to that point, a full-length film entitled "Vileness Fats", which consumed most of their attention for the next four years. Intended to be the first-ever long form music video, The Residents saw this project as an opportunity to create the ultimate cult film. After four years of filming (from 1972 to 1976) the project was reluctantly cancelled because of time, space, and monetary constraints. Fifteen hours of footage was shot for the project, yet only approximately 35 minutes of that footage has ever been released.
The group also formed Ralph Records at this time, as a small, independent label to release and promote their own work. To inaugurate the new business, the group recorded and pressed the "Santa Dog" EP (1972), their first recorded output to be released to the public. Designed to resemble a Christmas card from an insurance company, the EP consisted of two 7" singles, with four songs between them. The four songs were presented as being by four different bands (Ivory And The Brain Eaters, Delta Nudes, The College Walkers, and Arf And Omega featuring The Singing Lawn Chairs), with only a small note on the interior of the gatefold sleeve mentioning the participation of "Residents, Uninc."
They sent copies of "Santa Dog" to west coast radio stations with no response until Bill Reinhardt, program director of KBOO-FM in Portland, Oregon received a copy and played it heavily on his show. Reinhardt met the Residents at their studio at 20 Sycamore St. in the summer of 1973 with the news of his broadcasts. The Residents gave Reinhardt exclusive access to all their recordings, including copies of the original masters of "Stuffed Trigger", "Baby Sex", and The Warner Bros. Album.
Throughout this point, the group had been manipulating old tapes they had collected and regularly recording jam sessions, and these recordings eventually became the group's debut full-length album, "Meet The Residents", which was released in 1974 on Ralph. To aid in promoting the group, Reinhardt was given 50 of the first 1,000 copies of "Meet the Residents". Some were sent to friends, listeners and critics, and two dozen were left for sale on consignment at the Music Millennium record store, where they sat unsold for months. KBOO DJ Barry Schwam (Schwump, who also recorded with the Residents) promoted them on his program as well. Eventually, KBOO airplay attracted a cult following.
"The Third Reich 'n Roll", the group's second album to be released, was recorded in concentrated sessions in 1974 and 1975. The album was a pastiche on 1960s rock and roll and a commentary on similarities between the music industry and the Third Reich, as perceived by the group. This theme was represented visually on the album cover, which featured Dick Clark in an SS uniform holding a carrot (a reference to Adolf Hitler's vegetarianism), with a number of Hitlers dancing in pairs on clouds behind him. In 1976, the group created their first short music video to promote the album's release, using the sets for the recently abandoned "Vileness Fats" project. This year the group performed for the first time as The Residents at a Rather Ripped promotional event. The themes of distorted covers and parodies featured on The Third Reich 'n Roll became a theme for the group throughout the year, leading The Residents also released two further singles in a similar style to the album: "The Beatles Play The Residents and The Residents Play The Beatles", and a cover of The Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction" which got the band some attention among the punk and new wave press that had begun to appear in America and Britain.
Around this time, a group of enterprising friends and collaborators from their early days in San Mateo; Homer Flynn, Hardy Fox, Jay Clem and John Kennedy, also joined the group in San Francisco, forming what became The Cryptic Corporation to manage and represent the band. Clem became the band's spokesman, Fox edited, produced and compiled the band's increasingly prolific output, Flynn was already handling the group's cover design and promotional art under the banner of Porno-Graphics, and Kennedy took the role of "President" (admittedly a fairly empty title, as overall responsibilities were handled more or less equally by the four). The Cryptic Corporation took over the day-to-day operations of Ralph Records, and provided the band with an improved public relations platform, capitalising on the increasing attention they were receiving for their musical work.
Following "The Third Reich 'n Roll" came "Fingerprince, Fingerprince" received considerable coverage in the British Press, and was the first LP by the group to receive any critical attention when Jon Savage reviewed the album and its two predecessors favourably for the December 31st issue of Sounds Magazine. This review gained the group considerable attention, with many of their previously unsold mail order items being sold seemingly overnight. The sudden success of Fingerprince and its predecessors caused the group to briefly half production on their Avant Garde "Eskimo" album, to create something more appealing to the newer audience.
The Residents followed "Fingerprince" with their "Duck Stab!" EP – their most accessible release up to that point. This EP got the band some attention from the press (namely "NME", "Sounds" and "Melody Maker"), and was followed in 1978 by the "Duck Stab/Buster & Glen" album, which paired the EP with a similar, concurrently recorded EP which had not been released separately. The group continued work on their most ambitious recording project yet – "Eskimo", containing music composed largely of non-musical sounds, percussion, and wordless voices. Claiming inspiration from tapes of arctic wind sent to them by N. Senada, the band worked on this album between 1976 and 1979, a difficult production noted by many conflicts between management and band, which led to a number of delays in the release date.
The sudden attention afforded to them by the success of the "Duck Stab!" EP and "Satisfaction" single required an album release as soon as possible to help fund the band's spiralling recording costs. This forced the release in 1978 of the band's long-shelved "second album" "Not Available". The Residents were not bothered by this deviation from the original plan not to release this album as the 1978 release ultimately did not affect the philosophical conditions under which it was originally recorded.
"Eskimo" was finally released in 1979 to much acclaim, even making it to the final list for nominations for a Grammy award in 1980. Though the album did not end up being nominated, the group were invited to the ceremony and shared a table with Donna Summer. Rather than being songs in the orthodox sense, the compositions on "Eskimo" sounded like "live-action stories" without dialogue. Fearing that they were now taking themselves too seriously, The Residents remixed the "songs" in disco style, the results of which appeared on the EP "Diskomo". The cover art of "Eskimo" also presents the first instance of the group wearing eyeball masks and tuxedos, which was later considered by many to be the group's signature costume. The Residents had only intended to wear these costumes for the cover of Eskimo, but adopted the costumes in the longer term as it provided them with a unique and recognisable image. "Eskimo" was reissued in surround sound in 2003 and released on DVD, featuring a slideshow of still images conveying the album's narratives.
The group followed "Eskimo" with "Commercial Album" in 1980. "Commercial Album" featured 40 songs, each one minute in length and consisting of a verse and a chorus. The songs were a pastiche of the composition of advertising jingles; the album's liner notes state that the songs should each be repeated three times in a row to form a complete "pop song". To promote the album, The Residents purchased 40 one-minute advertising slots on San Francisco's most popular Top-40 radio station at the time, KFRC, such that the station played each track of their album over three days. This prompted an editorial in Billboard magazine questioning whether the act was art or advertising.
"Commercial Album" also led to the creation of "One Minute Movies", a short film by the group with collaborator Graeme Whifler consisting of music videos for four tracks from the album. Created at a time when MTV (and what later became known as "music video" in general) was its infancy, the group's videos were in heavy rotation since they were among the few music videos available to broadcasters.
"Commercial Album" received a relatively lukewarm reception from the new wave music press. Deciding that "a disaster was in order", The Residents set about composing an album which told the story of a culture driven from their homes by a storm and forced into a confrontation with another people. "Mark of the Mole" (released in 1981) was the first part of a projected trilogy of concept albums, which later developed into a tetralogy, with another three albums focusing on the music of the Mole and Chub cultures. Only three parts of The Mole Trilogy were released; parts I, II (1982's "The Tunes of Two Cities") and IV (1985's ""), in addition to releases of related material such as 1983's "" EP.
In 1983 The Residents began their first touring performance, The Mole Show, hosted by Penn Jillette. The performance featured The Residents performing behind a burlap screen, occasionally wearing disguises (such as their iconic eyeball masks), while dancers and actors appeared in front of painted backdrops used to help illustrate the story. Jillette came out between songs telling long and intentionally pointless stories. The show was designed to appear to fall apart as it progressed; Jillette pretended to grow angrier with the crowd, and lighting effects and music became increasingly chaotic, all building up to the point where Jillette was dragged off stage and returned, handcuffed to a wheelchair, to deliver his last monologue. During one performance, an audience member assaulted Jillette while he was handcuffed to the wheelchair.
The Mole Show ultimately became the band's biggest financial disaster, almost caused the break-up of the band, and ultimately led to the cancellation of the Mole Trilogy altogether after the release of "The Big Bubble" in 1985. During this period, The Residents were conspicuously less prolific than they previously had been, with only the "Residue of the Residents" outtakes compilation, a collaborative album with Ralph labelmates Renaldo and the Loaf, and a brief edited version of "Vileness Fats" with a newly recorded soundtrack being their only major releases.
After the abandonment of the unfinished Mole Trilogy, the band turned their attention to a new series of albums, each consisting of a side-long suite of covers by American composers the band admired. The group had hoped to record at least ten volumes in this series (which was projected to continue until the year 2000), but only two albums from this period saw completion and release – 1984's "George and James" (dedicated to George Gershwin and James Brown) and 1986's "" (featuring tributes to Hank Williams and John Philip Sousa). Some tracks from abandoned volumes in this series dedicated to Sun Ra, Barry White and Ray Charles have also surfaced on various compilation albums in subsequent years.
After this, their Japanese distributor approached them for a two-week run in Japan. Admittedly reluctant at first to return to the stage after the underwhelming response to the Mole Show, The Residents created the 13th Anniversary Tour. While the musical performance was more mainstream, the stage show was another over-the-top spectacle, featuring inflatable giraffes, dancers in eyeball masks illuminating the darkened stage with work lights, and a lead vocalist who changed costumes throughout the show from wearing an eyeball mask to a Richard Nixon mask, and at one point wearing only a wig and fake ears. After the two-week run in Japan, the band took the show to the US. During the US leg of the tour the band encountered a few problems, including having the tour manager having to fan a member's keyboard because of overheating, being booked in a pool hall and having someone run on stage only to be thrown back into the audience.
The Residents also toured Australia and New Zealand in August 1986 – appearing across the two countries as a five piece ensemble including two female dancers, and with Snakefinger on guitar. The European leg also ran into logistics issues, resulting the band's equipment not arriving for a performance in Tromso, Norway. According to Homer Flynn, the band "had to borrow equipment from people there in the town" including instruments and costumes to make the performance.
Backstage at the Hollywood Palace show on December 26, 1985, one member's eyeball mask (Mr. Red Eye) was stolen; so it was replaced with a giant skull mask. It was actually stolen by someone who found a backstage pass on the wall and threw it into a dumpster outside the venue through an open window. A few weeks later an avid fan in Cerritos California who attended the palace show also went to a New Year's Eve party where he overheard someone bragging about having Mr. Red Eye. He called Ralph Records and spoke to representative Sheena Timony and asked if it was true about the eye being stolen. She was inquisitive with him and proceeded to tell him that there was a curse on the eye and that there was a police report out on it. He said he wanted to get it back because he loved the band so much and it was the right thing to do. She told him the Residents were going to Georgia in a few weeks and that it needed to be retrieved as soon as possible. With her help she called the thief to tell him they knew he had it and that reps for Ralph were on their way. The thief was so rattled that he gave it back to some friends of the fan who posed as Ralph employees. The three of them immediately traveled by car to San Francisco, and went to Ralph Records in Folsom Street at that time. The Eye was returned but was in bad condition from being thrown around and the Residents decided that it was a superfluous shell of its former self. This is when they decided to replace the eye with “Mr Skull”. They continued the 13th-anniversary tour and handed out memorial black armbands with the missing eyeball on it. The Residents later were interviewed on MTV where they told the story of it being stolen.
The last show of this 13th anniversary tour was in January 1987 at The Warfield in San Francisco, with Penn & Teller as special guests.
In 1987, The Residents were in the initial stages of preparing their new concept piece "God in Three Persons", when they received the news that their friend and long-time collaborator Philip "Snakefinger" Lithman had died of a sudden heart attack. The Residents performed at his wake, and this performance was later re-recorded in the studio and released in a limited edition as "The Snakey Wake". Despite this unanticipated tragedy, the band continued to work on "God in Three Persons", despite not having been able to record Snakefinger's guitar parts for the album as planned.
"God in Three Persons", a lengthy poetic fable in a clear narrative format, tells the story of a colonel who visits a carnival and becomes entranced by a pair of mysterious and androgynous Siamese twins. Musically, it features a recurring motif based on "Double Shot (Of My Baby's Love)" by The Swinging Medallions (earlier included in "The Third Reich 'n Roll"). The album was finished and released in 1988 as their first album to be designed specifically for compact disc.
In 1989, The Residents premiered their third tour, Cube-E, a three-act performance covering the history of American music. It was a step up from previous shows, featuring more elaborate dance numbers and sets. It was also the first show composed exclusively of music written specifically for the show. The show was almost entirely backlit, with blacklights highlighting the fluorescent costumes and set design. The first part of this show was recorded in the studio and released as the "Buckaroo Blues" EP, and the third part became 1989's "The King & Eye", a surreal biography of Elvis Presley consisting entirely of covers of classic Presley singles. In a first-time departure from the usual procedure, "The King & Eye" was recorded externally from The Residents' private studio, with the band choosing instead to record at Different Ear Studios as an experiment.
In 1990, The Residents turned their attention to emerging computer technology, beginning to make the majority of their music with MIDI devices, which defined their sound during this time. With these new instruments, they recorded and released "Freak Show"; a concept album in which each track offers an insight to the character of a circus freak.
The "Freak Show" CD-ROM was released in January 1994 by the Voyager Company, in his first of several collaborations with The Residents.
1992 saw The Residents celebrate their 20th anniversary, which they celebrated with the release of "Our Finest Flowers", an album which consists of new tracks made from elements of tracks from their entire discography, intended as a novel alternative to a retrospective "greatest hits" style release.
In 1994, The Residents released "Gingerbread Man (album)", featuring their first foray into computer graphics. The "Gingerbread Man" CD was "enhanced" with additional CD-ROM content, marking the beginning of a series of experiments by the group with the potential of this new format, which also saw them revisit the "Freak Show" album for a CD-ROM by Voyager in the same year.
The Residents' CD-ROM works were primarily designed and animated by artist Jim Ludtke. In a review of the "Freak Show" CD-ROM by Ty Burr for Entertainment Weekly from the time of its release, he commented: "Designer Jim Ludtke (not a member of the band) is the star here: His renderings literally glow with colors you've never considered before. If "Xplora 1" chases you off with dutiful enlightenment. "Freak Show" sucks you in with its hypnotic sympathy for the damned."
In 1995, The Residents released their final complete experiment with the CD-ROM format, the immersive game "Bad Day on the Midway". This game was accompanied by a soundtrack album, "Have A Bad Day", the following year. At this time, The Residents were also working on an album entitled "That Slab Called Night", which was later abandoned and reconstituted into the soundtrack to the Discovery Channel series "Hunters: The World of Predators and Prey". In November 1995, Freak Show was also developed into a stage performance by a theater company at the Archa Theater in Prague. This performance differed from the band's previous tours and shows in that they did not actually perform – rather, the "Freak Show Orchestra" consisted primarily of the band Už Jsme Doma.
1997 is considered "the missing year" in Residents history, as the band worked on a number of new projects but saw no new releases. During this time, however, the band created a new live performance piece entitled "Disfigured Night", which was performed a handful of times throughout the year, culminating in their performance at the Fillmore. The Residents made one more attempt at a CD-ROM game, "I Murdered Mommy!", in 1998, but left this effort unfinished and unreleased, instead moving onto another new concept.
"" was released in 1998. "Wormwood" saw the group telling (often violent or explicit) stories from the Bible through song. Regular collaborators Molly Harvey (vocals) and Nolan Cook (guitar) featured on the album and during its associated tour, "Wormwood Live", which saw The Residents departing from pre-programmed music and once again using a live band. The Residents wore ecclesiastical robes and performed in a brightly lit fluorescent cave. Act one consisted of one-off stories about individual Bible characters. Act 2 focused on suites of songs about Bible figures such as Abraham, Moses, and King David. During a performance in Athens, Greece, Cook had to leave the stage after taking a rock to the head from an audience member.
In 2002, as a response to the September 11 attacks, The Residents recorded the album "Demons Dance Alone" and followed this with a tour of the same name. In an unusual move, the album handed almost half of the vocal duties to Harvey, who had begun as a Ralph Records employee but by this point had contributed to virtually all of the group's many projects for most of the preceding decade.
In February 2005, The Residents toured Australia as part of the What is Music? festival for their "33rd Anniversary", performing a two-hour retrospective set entitled "The Way We Were". These shows saw a fairly minimal band; three eyeball-headed Residents (one on guitar and two laptop/sample operators), a "stage hand" performer, and a male and female vocalist in costumes reminiscent of the "Wormwood" tour. Video projections and unusual flexible screens were added to the stage set, creating an unsettling ambiance. The performances on "The Way We Were" tour were recorded and were released on CD and DVD in 2005, as well as the band's album "Animal Lover", which tells a series of stories as seen from the perspective of animals.
In 2006, The Residents released a hardboiled crime fiction podcast series, The River of Crime – their first project with Warner Music Group's Cordless label. Following the success of the podcast, The Residents launched a weekly video series on YouTube featuring Timmy, the lead character from the "Bad Day On The Midway" CD-ROM. Around this time, the group were invited by a friend to record in Romania – these sessions produced the album "Tweedles!", which they released on Halloween 2006. "Tweedles!" is a concept album, telling the story of an "emotional vampire" from a first-person perspective.
In 2007 they created the soundtrack for the documentary "Strange Culture" and also released a double instrumental album, "Night of the Hunters", derived from the "That Slab Called Night" recording sessions which eventually became the soundtrack for the 1995 documentary series "Hunters". In October 2007, the new album "The Voice of Midnight" (inspired by E.T.A. Hoffmann's story "Der Sandmann"), was released on Mute Records.
In 2008, the group released "The Bunny Boy", an album with a detailed meta-fictional concept which the group elaborated upon throughout their first North American tour since "Demons Dance Alone", as well as a YouTube video series of the same name, which was later compiled and released on DVD as "Is Anybody Out There?" in 2009.
2009 saw the release of "The UGHS!" – a mostly instrumental album made up of music composed earlier in the band's career, which had then again been completely reworked as background music for "The Voice of Midnight"; and also "Ten Little Piggies" – a "futurist compilation", featuring ten songs from projects which may or may not be released in the future.
In January 2010, The Residents began a tour entitled "Talking Light", with dates in North America and Europe. During the tour, which lasted until April 2011, The Residents appeared as a trio, and adapted new identities and costumes – Randy Rose, Charles "Chuck" Bobuck and Bob, with reference to a fourth member named Carlos, who had decided prior to the tour that "the rock 'n' roll life style wasn't for him after all" and left the band for Mexico to care for his elderly mother. The singer, Randy, wore an old man mask, and the other two Residents, keyboardist Chuck and guitarist Bob, wore dreadlock wigs and illuminated optical gear over their faces. The songs were stories about various characters' obsessions with ghosts, imaginary people, and supernatural phenomena. One of these performances was featured as part of the edition of the All Tomorrow's Parties festival curated by Matt Groening in May 2010 in Minehead, England, UK. The band released several albums related to the "Talking Light" concept during this time, including the instrumental albums "Dollar General" and "Chuck's Ghost Music", live album "Bimbo's Talking Light", and studio album "Lonely Teenager".
In October 2010, Randy performed a set of thirteen Residents tracks at the Olomouc Moravian Theatre with the band Už Jsme Doma and musical arrangements by Miroslav Wanek, who had previously been involved with the "Freak Show Live" performance in 1995. In late 2011, The Residents presented a new performance piece at The Marsh in Berkeley, California, entitled "Sam's Enchanted Evening". A new version of "Sam's Enchanted Evening" was subsequently performed in March 2012 at Henry Street Settlement in at Henry Street Settlement in New York City in a production directed by Travis Chamberlain, co-starring Joshua Raoul Brody and Jibz Cameron (aka Dynasty Handbag).
In January 2012, the Residents released the album "Coochie Brake"; it focused on an ambient, slightly ethnic sound, with lyrics in Spanish performed by, apparently, a new singer. Over the course of the year the band celebrated their 40th anniversary with a new tour (the second in the "Randy, Chuck and Bob" trilogy) entitled "The Wonder of Weird". In December, the band began celebrating the upcoming 40th anniversary of their first release, the "Santa Dog" EP, and released an "infomercial" starring Randy Rose promoting the release of "The Residents' Ultimate Box Set" – a 28-cubic-foot refrigerator containing the first pressings of every Residents release to date, as well as other ephemera (such as an eyeball mask and top hat). The Cryptic Corporation advised in a press release that the intended audience for this project was the realm of fine art and, accordingly, the price of the set was set at $100,000. Only one of these "Ultimate Box Set"s was sold to a paying customer; the other was donated by the band to the Museum of Modern Art.
In 2014, the Residents began collaborating with director Don Hardy on a video series starring Randy, entitled "In My Room", as well as a feature-length documentary film covering the history of the group, entitled "Theory of Obscurity: A Film About the Residents". The production of this film involved the digital transfer of the group's many years of archived video, film and tape, including the production materials shot for "Vileness Fats" between 1972 and 1976. "Theory of Obscurity" was completed in 2015 and premiered at SXSW Film Festival.
In May 2016, the end of the "Randy, Bob, and Chuck" trilogy was announced, with the final installment being their "Shadowland" tour. During the "Shadowland" tour, the member known as Charles Bobuck announced that he would no longer be performing live with the group due to increasingly poor health, and ultimately, retired from the band altogether to release a series of solo albums. Onstage and in the studio, Bobuck was replaced by a new addition to the band, "Rico". The band signed to Cherry Red Records, and in September announced their next studio album, "The Ghost of Hope", and a related single, "Rushing Like A Banshee". In November 2016, the group released a video featuring Randy, announcing a new film project in collaboration with Don Hardy entitled "Double Trouble", which would incorporate the footage from the unfinished "Vileness Fats" into an entirely new story.
In March 2017, the group released their first studio album since "Coochie Brake", entitled "The Ghost of Hope." The album, based around historical train wrecks from the late 19th century and early 20th century, featured collaborators such as Eric Drew Feldman and Nolan Cook, as well as the final songwriting and performance contributions from the recently retired Bobuck.
In October 2017, the group's new tour, entitled "In Between Dreams", kicked off in Copenhagen, Denmark (after earlier preview shows in Japan, and cancelled dates at the Safe as Milk festival in Wales earlier in the year). "In Between Dreams" discarded the "Randy, Rico and Bob" personas which the band had been using since the beginning of the decade, and instead introduced "The Real Residents"; "Tyrone" the singer, "Eekie" the guitarist, "Erkie" the keyboardist, and a new member, percussionist "Cha Cha". The decoration of the show consisted of a blue and white checkered backdrop, dynamic lighting effects, and the same giant ball screen from the "Shadowland" tour for displaying short animated clips between songs. The videos consisted of various well-known figures recalling dreams; Richard Nixon's dream about being a blues singer, John Wayne's nightmare about a lone ballerina that disappears when he attempts to approach her, and Mother Teresa's dream about a train wreck. "In Between Dreams" ran through Europe from late October to the end of November 2017, and later in the United States, from April to early May 2018.
At the beginning of 2018, The Residents launched their "pREServed" remaster series – each original Residents studio album, completely remastered and presented with contemporary bonus tracks as well as a great deal of previously unheard and unknown material from the group's archives. The series was launched in January with the re-issue of "Meet The Residents", and "The Third Reich 'N Roll", which were followed in March with "Fingerprince" and "Duck Stab!/Buster & Glen", and as a Record Store Day limited vinyl edition in April, the debut official release of the 1970 demo tape "The Warner Bros. Album".
Around the same time, the group began taking submissions for a new project, to be entitled "I Am A Resident!", which would include fan-made covers of classic Residents tracks. The Residents were ultimately overwhelmed by the volume of submissions (which vastly exceeded their expectations) and rather than whittling the track list down to only their favorites, chose to turn the submissions into a "mashup" in the style of "The Third Reich 'N Roll". "I Am A Resident!" was completed and released in May 2018. In July, The Residents released their first novel, entitled "The Brick-Eaters", described as "an absurdist buddy movie story featuring a very tall internet content screener teaming up with an aging career criminal whose primary companions are an oxygen bottle and a .44 Magnum".
As well as continuing to examine their voluminous archives for the ongoing "pREServed" series, the group have also been working on album releases – "Intruders" was released in October 2018, and "Metal, Meat & Bone", the "blues" album previewed during the "In Between Dreams" tour, is due for release in July 2020.
In the early days of the group, many rumors circulated about the membership of the band. Due to the cover art of "Meet the Residents" being a parody of The Beatles' 1964 North American release, "Meet the Beatles!" there were some rumors that The Residents were actually The Beatles, even specifically naming George Harrison. Many other rumors have come and gone over the years, one being that 60s experimental band Cromagnon shared members with the band. Les Claypool, frontman of rock band Primus, and Gerald Casale of new wave band Devo claimed to have been accused of being members of the band; and Mark Mothersbaugh is alleged to have played keyboards during the band's 13th-anniversary tour.
Since the late 1970s, much of the speculation about the members' true identities has involved the group's management team, known as The Cryptic Corporation. Cryptic was formed in 1976 as a corporation in California by Jay Clem, Homer Flynn, Hardy W. Fox, and John Kennedy, all of whom denied having been band members. Clem and Kennedy left the Corporation in 1982, much to the chagrin of some fans. The Residents members do not grant interviews, although Flynn, Fox, and Clem have conducted interviews with the media on behalf of the group.
Nolan Cook, a prominent collaborator with the group in both the band's live and studio work (as well as being a live member of I Am Spoonbender), denied in an interview that Fox and Flynn are the Residents, saying that he has come across such rumors, and they are completely false. However, Cook himself is considered a member of the band by some, as he is known to wear the same head coverings as the rest of the group during live shows, even wearing the trademark eyeball mask during the Wormwood Tour. He also played the part of "Bob" during the "Randy", "Chuck", and "Bob" trilogy of shows.
William Poundstone, author of the Big Secrets books, compared voice prints of a Flynn lecture with those of spoken word segments from the Residents discography in his book "Biggest Secrets". After noting similar patterns in both, he concluded "the similarities in the spectograms second the convincing subjective impression that the voices are identical." He posited that "It is possible that the creative core of the Residents is the duo of Flynn and Fox." A subset of that belief is that Flynn is the lyricist and that Fox writes the music. The online database of the performance rights organization BMI (of which The Residents and their publishing company, Pale Pachyderm Publishing (Warner-Chappell), have been members for their entire careers), lists Flynn and Fox as the composers of all original Residents songs. This includes those songs written pre-1974, the "Residents Unincorporated" years, the year Cryptic formed.
Simon Reynolds wrote in his book "Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978–1984" that "the Residents and their representatives were one and the same," and elaborated further on one of his blogs, stating that "this was something that anybody who had any direct dealings with Ralph figured out sooner rather than later." Reynolds quotes Helios Creed, who identifies the Residents as a keyboardist named "H," a singer named "Homer," and "this other guy called John." Peter Principle of Tuxedomoon claimed that he and others "eventually figured out that the guy doing the graphics and the engineer in the studio were, in fact, the Residents."
Cryptic openly admits the group's artwork is done by Flynn (among others), under various names that, put together, become "Pornographics", but the pseudonym is rarely spelled the same way twice (examples: Porno Graphics, Pore No Graphix, Pore-Know Graphics); and that Fox is the sound engineer – meaning that he is the main producer, engineer, master, and editor of all their recordings. (Since 1976, the Residents' recordings have all listed their producer as the Cryptic Corporation, presumably meaning Fox in particular.)
More recently, the group's official Facebook page listed the members of the Residents as "Randy", "Chuck", and "Bob", with further reference to a former member of the band named "Carlos" who left the group permanently following a disagreement with "Randy". There is speculation that "Carlos" is Carlos Cadona. Better known by his stage name, "6025," Cadona was in the original lineup of the Dead Kennedys and appears on a live album by Snakefinger. "Bob" is guitarist and long time collaborator Nolan Cook.
A synopsis for the Residents' 2012-stage production "Sam's Enchanted Evening" provides the name "Randy Rose" as that of the Residents' lead singer. "Chuck", or "Charles Bobuck" was the primary songwriter for the group and released a series of solo albums (or "contraptions") under this name during the "Randy, Chuck and Bob" era. The member known as Chuck later retired from live performance due to ill health in 2015, and ultimately retired from The Residents altogether following the release of the Theory of Obscurity documentary film. A replacement, Eric Drew Feldman, was chosen for Chuck who continues to perform with the band under the name "Rico".
In October 2017, Hardy Fox (born Hardy Winfred Fox Jr., March 29, 1945 – October 30, 2018) identified himself as both the anonymous primary composer and producer for the Residents as well as the pseudonymous Charles Bobuck. Fox was born in Longview, Texas, where his father worked in the oil industry; his mother was a nurse. The family moved several times, and Fox graduated from Rayville High School in Louisiana in 1963. He then studied art and business at Louisiana Tech University, where he met Homer Flynn, and graduated in 1967.
In September 2018 Fox added to his website the dates "1945–2018", although he was known to be alive (but unwell) after the dates were published. Fox died on October 30, 2018, from brain cancer, aged 73. He was identified in obituaries as the co-founder and primary composer of the Residents. On December 14, 2018, the official the Residents mailing list acknowledged Fox as "engineer, producer and sometime composer of much of the Residents’ best-loved work". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30629 |
Tacitus on Christ
The Roman historian and senator Tacitus referred to Christ, his execution by Pontius Pilate, and the existence of early Christians in Rome in his final work, "Annals" (written "ca." AD 116), .
The context of the passage is the six-day Great Fire of Rome that burned much of the city in AD 64 during the reign of Roman Emperor Nero. The passage is one of the earliest non-Christian references to the origins of Christianity, the execution of Christ described in the canonical gospels, and the presence and persecution of Christians in 1st-century Rome.
The scholarly consensus is that Tacitus' reference to the execution of Jesus by Pontius Pilate is both authentic, and of historical value as an independent Roman source. Paul Eddy and Gregory Boyd argue that it is "firmly established" that Tacitus provides a non-Christian confirmation of the crucifixion of Jesus. Scholars view it as establishing three separate facts about Rome around AD 60: (i) that there were a sizable number of Christians in Rome at the time, (ii) that it was possible to distinguish between Christians and Jews in Rome, and (iii) that at the time pagans made a connection between Christianity in Rome and its origin in Roman Judea.
The "Annals" passage (), which has been subjected to much scholarly analysis, follows a description of the six-day Great Fire of Rome that burned much of Rome in July 64 AD.
The key part of the passage (translation from Latin by A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb, 1876):
Tacitus then describes the torture of Christians:
The exact cause of the fire remains uncertain, but much of the population of Rome suspected that Emperor Nero had started the fire himself. To divert attention from himself, Nero accused the Christians of starting the fire and persecuted them, making this the first documented confrontation between Christians and the authorities in Rome. Tacitus never accused Nero of playing the lyre while Rome burned – that statement came from Cassius Dio, who died in the 3rd century. But Tacitus did suggest that Nero used the Christians as scapegoats.
No original manuscripts of the "Annals" exist and the surviving copies of Tacitus' works derive from two principal manuscripts, known as the "Medicean manuscripts", written in Latin, which are held in the Laurentian Library in Florence, Italy. It is the "second Medicean manuscript", 11th century and from the Benedictine abbey at Monte Cassino, which is the oldest surviving copy of the passage describing Christians. Scholars generally agree that these copies were written at Monte Cassino and the end of the document refers to "Abbas Raynaldus cu..." who was most probably one of the two abbots of that name at the abbey during that period.
The passage states:
In 1902 Georg Andresen commented on the appearance of the first 'i' and subsequent gap in the earliest extant, 11th century, copy of the "Annals" in Florence, suggesting that the text had been altered, and an 'e' had originally been in the text, rather than this 'i'. "With ultra-violet examination of the MS the alteration was conclusively shown. It is impossible today to say who altered the letter "e" into an "i". In Suetonius' "Nero 16.2", ", however, seems to be the original reading". Since the alteration became known it has given rise to debates among scholars as to whether Tacitus deliberately used the term "Chrestians", or if a scribe made an error during the Middle Ages. It has been stated that both the terms Christians and Chrestians had at times been used by the general population in Rome to refer to early Christians. Robert E. Van Voorst states that many sources indicate that the term Chrestians was also used among the early followers of Jesus by the second century. The term Christians appears only three times in the New Testament, the first usage () giving the origin of the term. In all three cases the uncorrected Codex Sinaiticus in Greek reads "Chrestianoi". In Phrygia a number of funerary stone inscriptions use the term Chrestians, with one stone inscription using both terms together, reading: ""Chrestians for Christians"".
Adolf von Harnack argued that Chrestians was the original wording, and that Tacitus deliberately used "Christus" immediately after it to show his own superior knowledge compared to the population at large. Robert Renehan has stated that it was natural for a Roman to mix the two words that sounded the same, that Chrestianos was the original word in the Annals and not an error by a scribe. Van Voorst has stated that it was unlikely for Tacitus himself to refer to Christians as Chrestianos i.e. "useful ones" given that he also referred to them as "hated for their shameful acts". Eddy and Boyd see no major impact on the authenticity of the passage or its meaning regardless of the use of either term by Tacitus.
Pilate's rank while he was governor of Judaea appeared in a Latin inscription on the Pilate Stone which called him a prefect, while this Tacitean passage calls him a procurator. Josephus refers to Pilate with the generic Greek term (), or governor. Tacitus records that Claudius was the ruler who gave procurators governing power. After Herod Agrippa's death in AD 44, when Judea reverted to direct Roman rule, Claudius gave procurators control over Judea.
Various theories have been put forward to explain why Tacitus should use the term "procurator" when the archaeological evidence indicates that Pilate was a prefect. Jerry Vardaman theorizes that Pilate's title was changed during his stay in Judea and that the Pilate Stone dates from the early years of his administration. Baruch Lifshitz postulates that the inscription would originally have mentioned the title of "procurator" along with "prefect". L.A. Yelnitsky argues that the use of "procurator" in Annals 15.44.3 is a Christian interpolation. S.G.F. Brandon suggests that there is no real difference between the two ranks. John Dominic Crossan states that Tacitus "retrojected" the title procurator which was in use at the time of Claudius back onto Pilate who was called prefect in his own time. Bruce Chilton and Craig Evans as well as Van Voorst state that Tacitus apparently used the title "procurator" because it was more common at the time of his writing and that this variation in the use of the title should not be taken as evidence to doubt the correctness of the information Tacitus provides. Warren Carter states that, as the term "prefect" has a military connotation, while "procurator" is civilian, the use of either term may be appropriate for governors who have a range of military, administrative and fiscal responsibilities.
Louis Feldman says that Philo (who died AD 50) and Josephus also use the term procurator for Pilate. As both Philo and Josephus wrote in Greek, neither of them actually used the term "procurator", but the Greek word (), which is regularly translated as "procurator". Philo also uses this Greek term for the governors of Egypt (a prefect), of Asia (a proconsul) and Syria (a legate). Werner Eck, in his list of terms for governors of Judea found in the works of Josephus, shows that, while in the early work, "The Jewish War", Josephus uses "epitropos" less consistently, the first governor to be referred to by the term in "Antiquities of the Jews" was Cuspius Fadus, (who was in office AD 44–46). Feldman notes that Philo, Josephus and Tacitus may have anachronistically confused the timing of the titles—prefect later changing to procurator. Feldman also notes that the use of the titles may not have been rigid, for Josephus refers to Cuspius Fadus both as "prefect" and "procurator".
Although its authenticity has sometimes been questioned, most scholars hold the passage to be authentic while acknowledging some textual problems. William L. Portier has stated that the consistency in the references by Tacitus, Josephus and the letters to Emperor Trajan by Pliny the Younger reaffirm the validity of all three accounts. Scholars generally consider Tacitus's reference to be of historical value as an independent Roman source about early Christianity that is in unison with other historical records.
Tacitus was a patriotic Roman senator. His writings show no sympathy towards Christians, or knowledge of who their leader was. His characterization of "Christian abominations" may have been based on the rumors in Rome that during the Eucharist rituals Christians ate the body and drank the blood of their God, interpreting the ritual as cannibalism by Christians. Andreas Köstenberger states that the tone of the passage towards Christians is far too negative to have been authored by a Christian scribe. Van Voorst also states that the passage is unlikely to be a Christian forgery because of the pejorative language used to describe Christianity.
Tacitus was about seven years old at the time of the Great Fire of Rome, and like other Romans as he grew up he would have most likely heard about the fire that destroyed most of the city, and Nero's accusations against Christians. When he wrote his account, Tacitus was the governor of the province of Asia, and as a member of the inner circle in Rome he would have known of the official position with respect to the fire and the Christians.
In 1885 P. Hochart had proposed that the passage was a pious fraud, but the editor of the 1907 Oxford edition dismissed his suggestion and treated the passage as genuine. Scholars such as Bruce Chilton, Craig Evans, Paul Eddy and Gregory Boyd agree with John Meier's statement that "Despite some feeble attempts to show that this text is a Christian interpolation in Tacitus, the passage is obviously genuine.”
Suggestions that the whole of "Annals" may have been a forgery have also been generally rejected by scholars. John P. Meier states that there is no historical or archaeological evidence to support the argument that a scribe may have introduced the passage into the text.
Van Voorst states that "of all Roman writers, Tacitus gives us the most precise information about Christ". Crossan considers the passage important in establishing that Jesus existed and was crucified, and states: "That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be, since both Josephus and Tacitus... agree with the Christian accounts on at least that basic fact." Eddy and Boyd state that it is now "firmly established" that Tacitus provides a non-Christian confirmation of the crucifixion of Jesus. Biblical scholar Bart D. Ehrman wrote: "Tacitus's report confirms what we know from other sources, that Jesus was executed by order of the Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, sometime during Tiberius's reign."
James D. G. Dunn considers the passage as useful in establishing facts about early Christians, e.g. that there was a sizable number of Christians in Rome around AD 60. Dunn states that Tacitus seems to be under the impression that Christians were some form of Judaism, although distinguished from them. Raymond E. Brown and John P. Meier state that in addition to establishing that there was a large body of Christians in Rome, the Tacitus passage provides two other important pieces of historical information, namely that by around AD 60 it was possible to distinguish between Christians and Jews in Rome and that even pagans made a connection between Christianity in Rome and its origin in Judea.
Although the majority of scholars consider it to be genuine, some scholars question the value of the passage given that Tacitus was born 25 years after Jesus' death.
Some scholars have debated the historical value of the passage given that Tacitus does not reveal the source of his information. Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz argue that Tacitus at times had drawn on earlier historical works now lost to us, and he may have used official sources from a Roman archive in this case; however, if Tacitus had been copying from an official source, some scholars would expect him to have labeled Pilate correctly as a "prefect" rather than a "procurator". Theissen and Merz state that Tacitus gives us a description of widespread prejudices about Christianity and a few precise details about "Christus" and Christianity, the source of which remains unclear. However, Paul Eddy has stated that given his position as a senator Tacitus was also likely to have had access to official Roman documents of the time and did not need other sources.
Michael Martin states that the authenticity of this passage of the "Annals" has also been disputed on the grounds that Tacitus would not have used the name "Christos", derived from "messiah", while others have questioned if the passage represents "some modernizing or up-dating of the facts" to reflect the Christian world at the time the text was written.
Weaver notes that Tacitus spoke of the persecution of Christians, but no other Christian author wrote of this persecution for a hundred years. Brent Shaw has argued that Tacitus was relying on Christian and Jewish legendary sources that portrayed Nero as the Antichrist for the information that Nero persecuted Christians and that in fact no persecution under Nero took place.
Scholars have also debated the issue of hearsay in the reference by Tacitus. Charles Guignebert argued that "So long as there is that possibility [that Tacitus is merely echoing what Christians themselves were saying], the passage remains quite worthless". R. T. France states that the Tacitus passage is at best just Tacitus repeating what he had heard through Christians. However, Paul Eddy has stated that as Rome's preeminent historian, Tacitus was generally known for checking his sources and was not in the habit of reporting gossip. Tacitus was a member of the "Quindecimviri sacris faciundis", a council of priests whose duty it was to supervise foreign religious cults in Rome, which as Van Voorst points out, makes it reasonable to suppose that he would have acquired knowledge of Christian origins through his work with that body.
The earliest known references to Christianity are found in "Antiquities of the Jews", a 20-volume work written by the Jewish historian Titus Flavius Josephus around 93–94 AD, during the reign of emperor Domitian. This work includes two references to Jesus and Christians (in and ), and also a reference to John the Baptist (in ).
The next known reference to Christianity was written by Pliny the Younger, who was the Roman governor of Bithynia and Pontus during the reign of emperor Trajan. Around 111 AD, Pliny wrote a letter to emperor Trajan, requesting guidance on how to deal with suspected Christians who appeared before him in trials he was holding at that time. Tacitus' references to Nero's persecution of Christians in the Annals were written around 115 AD, a few years after Pliny's letter but also during the reign of emperor Trajan.
Another notable early author was Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, who wrote the "Lives of the Twelve Caesars" around 122 AD, during the reign of emperor Hadrian. In this work, Suetonius described why Jewish Christians were by emperor Claudius, and also the by Nero, who was the heir and successor of Claudius. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30632 |
The Fantasy Trip
The Fantasy Trip (TFT) is a role-playing game designed by Steve Jackson and originally published by Metagaming Concepts. In 2019, "TFT" was revived by Steve Jackson Games.
"TFT" was developed from Metagaming's tactical combat MicroGames "Melee" and "Wizard", also designed by Jackson, which provided the basic combat and magic rules. These games could be played on their own, or, using the gamemaster's module "In the Labyrinth", expanded into a full-fledged role-playing game. The basic combat and magic rules presented in "Melee" and "Wizard" were greatly expanded for purposes of role-playing in "Advanced Melee" and "Advanced Wizard". "TFT" was the first published role-playing game to use a point-buy system for character generation, instead of the random dice roll method routinely used in the 1970s.
Metagaming also published a total of eight "MicroQuests" adventures for "The Fantasy Trip". These inexpensive adventures allowed for group or solitary play. More traditional RPG modules were also released, including "Tollenkar's Lair", a traditional dungeon crawl adventure published in 1980, and "Warrior Lords of Darok" and "Forest Lords of Dihad", published in 1982 for the campaign setting "The Land Beyond the Mountains".
Two Metagaming-published magazines, "The Space Gamer" and "Interplay" featured "TFT" material, including designer notes, setting expansions, and alternate rules.
Jackson left Metagaming in 1980. By that time, Howard M. Thompson, the owner of Metagaming, was not happy with the "TFT" work done by Steve Jackson, stating that it was too complex and had taken too long. To address some of these concerns, Thompson partially revised the "TFT" mechanics for "Dragons of the Underearth", a compact set of fantasy role-playing rules derived from "Melee", "Wizard" and "ITL", with simplified rules for combat and magic, and the related "The Lords of Underearth" mass combat system.
In 1983, Thompson closed down Metagaming and sold most of its assets. Jackson tried to purchase the rights to "The Fantasy Trip", but Thompson's asking price of $250,000 was much too high, and "TFT" went out of print. This led Jackson to begin work on a new "third generation" role-playing system that eventually became "GURPS" (the Generic Universal Role-Playing System), which was strongly influenced by "The Fantasy Trip".
In December 2017, Jackson announced he had exercised an option under U.S. law for an author to unilaterally terminate a grant of publication rights between 35 and 40 years after publication, which allowed him to regain rights to "The Fantasy Trip". In July 2018, Steve Jackson Games launched a Kickstarter campaign to reissue "Melee", "Wizard", and a "TFT Legacy Edition" boxed set with the expanded "In the Labyrinth" rules, among other materials. The revived "TFT" proved a success for Steve Jackson Games, raising more than $450,000 in 2018, and the company has committed to expanding and continued support for "TFT".
Metagaming released "Melee" in 1977 as MicroGame #3. It was designed to be a simple, fast-playing, man-to-man tactical combat boardgame. The game came with a small empty hex map, a counter sheet of men, monsters, and weapons (for any weapons dropped in combat), as well as a 17-page rulebook.
Every figure had a Strength and Dexterity attribute. Strength governed how much damage a figure could take and the size of weapons which could be used; heavier weapons increased the damage one inflicted in combat. Dexterity determined how likely one was to hit one's opponent. Armor could be worn, which would reduce the amount of damage taken in combat while lowering one's Dexterity.
Metagaming released "Wizard" in 1978 as MicroGame #6, a pocket board game of individual magical combat. Its 32-page rulebook included most of the "Melee" combat system with the addition of a magic system.
"Wizard" added Intelligence (IQ) as a third attribute that determined magical ability. A player could improve his character by adding points to the character's attribute scores. A high IQ score allowed the use of more varied and powerful spells. Casting a spell would temporarily drain a character's strength score, limiting the number of spells one could cast before requiring rest to regain strength.
Released in 1980 as an 80-page, 8 × 11 saddle-stitched book, "In the Labyrinth: Game Masters' Campaign and Adventure Guide" added a role-playing system and fantasy-world background to "The Fantasy Trip". Released simultaneously and in the same format were "Advanced Melee" and "Advanced Wizard", which greatly expanded and revised the physical and magical combat systems. Character creation, which had been part of the original "Melee" and "Wizard", was incorporated into "In the Labyrinth".
The three books together formed the complete "Fantasy Trip" game system. As in the original MicroGames, each character had Strength, Dexterity and IQ attributes, each calibrated to 10 for an average human. New (human) characters began with 8 points of each trait, with 8 extra points for the player to add to any of the abilities as they desired.
"In the Labyrinth" introduced a point-buy skill system, an extension and generalization of the magic system inherited from "Wizard". Each character had one talent or skill point per point of IQ, and each skill had a skill point cost as well as a minimum IQ to learn it. The range of abilities provided by character classes in a first-generation game like "Dungeons & Dragons" was replaced with talents. For example, the "Thief" talent would allow a player to roll against his Dexterity to pick a pocket or open a lock. Other talents included standard fantasy skills such as Literacy, Alertness, or Weapon Proficiency. It was possible for a wizard to learn mundane skills and for a hero to learn a spell or two (with great difficulty).
Ronald Pehr reviewed "The Fantasy Trip" in "The Space Gamer" No. 31. Pehr commented that ""The Fantasy Trip" is an excellent FRP game system. I'd have liked it to be better organized and a few dollars cheaper. Those who purchase it anyway will be very glad they did."
At least three different fanzines dedicated to "The Fantasy Trip" are known to have existed (but are difficult to find today). "Fantasy Forum" ran from 1987 to 1992 with a total of ten issues. "Inept Adept" and "Goblin Keep" published two issues each. A fourth fanzine, "Vindicator", was devoted to MicroGames in general but did have some material specific to "The Fantasy Trip". "Vindicator" published at least fourteen issues from 1995 to 1998.
Online fan activity includes a fan tribute site at http://meleewizards.com (last updated 2012) and a E-mail discussion list archived at http://tft.brainiac.com. In addition, Dark City Games has been creating and selling "MicroQuest"-style adventures since 2005.
On December 26, 2017, Steve Jackson announced he had re-acquired the rights for the "TFT" products he authored for Metagaming, specifically "Melee", "Wizard", "Death Test", "Death Test 2", "Advanced Melee", "Advanced Wizard", "In the Labyrinth", and "Tollenkar's Lair". This was accomplished through the provisions of 17 U.S. Code § 203, which allows authors to reclaim works after 35 years. The process "took well over a year" and "was also not cheap", according to Jackson, but it allowed for the revival of "TFT" by Steve Jackson Games.
On July 23, 2018, Steve Jackson Games opened a Kickstarter campaign for a "Legacy Edition" of "The Fantasy Trip" including updated versions of "Melee," "Wizard," and "In the Labyrinth" (incorporating "Advanced Melee" and "Advanced Wizard" as originally envisioned by Jackson). The Kickstarter campaign was funded the same day. The game was released for retail sale on April 17, 2019.
Subsequently, Steve Jackson Games has kickstarted a group of "TFT" accessories, "Decks of Destiny", as well as a new "TFT" zine, "Hexagram". Additional supporting materials, including adventures, solo adventures, and beastiaries are also planned. The company also announced a licensing structure allowing other companies to produce material for "TFT"; the first such licensed project was a series of five adventures published by Gaming Ballistic in 2019.
Reviews on RPGnet: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30633 |
Taliban
The Taliban (, ' "students") or Taleban, who refer to themselves as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), are a Sunni Islamic fundamentalist political movement and military organization in Afghanistan currently waging war (an insurgency, or jihad) within that country. Since 2016, the Taliban's leader is Mawlawi Hibatullah Akhundzada.
From 1996 to 2001, the Taliban held power over roughly three quarters of Afghanistan, and enforced there a strict interpretation of "Sharia", or Islamic law. The Taliban emerged in 1994 as one of the prominent factions in the Afghan Civil War and largely consisted of students ("talib") from the Pashtun areas of eastern and southern Afghanistan who had been educated in traditional Islamic schools, and fought during the Soviet–Afghan War. Under the leadership of Mohammed Omar, the movement spread throughout most of Afghanistan, sequestering power from the Mujahideen warlords. The totalitarian Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan was established in 1996 and the Afghan capital was transferred to Kandahar. It held control of most of the country until being overthrown after the American-led invasion of Afghanistan in December 2001 following the September 11 attacks. At its peak, formal diplomatic recognition of the Taliban's government was acknowledged by only three nations: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The group later regrouped as an insurgency movement to fight the American-backed Karzai administration and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in the War in Afghanistan.
The Taliban have been condemned internationally for the harsh enforcement of their interpretation of Islamic Sharia law, which has resulted in the brutal treatment of many Afghans, especially women. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30635 |
Terrorism
Terrorism is, in the broadest sense, the use of intentional violence for political or religious purposes. It is used in this regard primarily to refer to violence during peacetime or in the context of war against non-combatants (mostly civilians and neutral military personnel). The terms "terrorist" and "terrorism" originated during the French Revolution of the late 18th century but gained mainstream popularity in the 1970s during the conflicts of Northern Ireland, the Basque Country and Palestine. The increased use of suicide attacks from the 1980s onwards was typified by the September 11 attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C. in 2001.
There are various different definitions of terrorism, with no universal agreement about it. Terrorism is a charged term. It is often used with the connotation of something that is "morally wrong". Governments and non-state groups use the term to abuse or denounce opposing groups. Varied political organizations have been accused of using terrorism to achieve their objectives. These include right-wing and left-wing political organizations, nationalist groups, religious groups, revolutionaries and ruling governments. Legislation declaring terrorism a crime has been adopted in many states. When terrorism is perpetrated by nation states, it is not considered terrorism by the state conducting it, making legality a largely grey-area issue. There is no consensus as to whether or not terrorism should be regarded as a war crime.
The Global Terrorism Database, maintained by the University of Maryland, College Park, has recorded more than 61,000 incidents of non-state terrorism, resulting in at least 140,000 deaths, between 2000 and 2014.
Etymologically, the word terror is derived from the Latin verb "Tersere", which later becomes "Terrere". The latter form appears in European languages as early as the 12th century; its first known use in French is the word "terrible" in 1160. By 1356 the word "terreur" is in use. "Terreur" is the origin of the Middle English term "terrour", which later becomes the modern word "terror".
The term "terroriste", meaning "terrorist", is first used in 1794 by the French philosopher François-Noël Babeuf, who denounces Maximilien Robespierres Jacobin regime as a dictatorship. In the years leading up to the Reign of Terror, the Brunswick Manifesto threatened Paris with an "exemplary, never to be forgotten vengeance: the city would be subjected to military punishment and total destruction" if the royal family was harmed, but this only increased the Revolution's will to abolish the monarchy. Some writers attitudes about French Revolution grew less favorable after the French monarchy was abolished in 1792. During the Reign of Terror, which began in July 1793 and lasted thirteen months, Paris was governed by the Committee of Public safety who oversaw a regime of mass executions and public purges.
Prior to the French Revolution, ancient philosophers wrote about tyrannicide, as tyranny was seen as the greatest political threat to Greco-Roman civilization. Medieval philosophers were similarly occupied with the concept of tyranny, though the analysis of some theologians like Thomas Aquinas drew a distinction between usurpers, who could be killed by anyone, and legitimate rulers who abused their power – the latter, in Aquinas' view, could only be punished by a public authority. John of Salisbury was the first medieval Christian scholar to defend tyrannicide.
Most scholars today trace the origins of the modern tactic of terrorism to the Jewish Sicarii Zealots who attacked Romans and Jews in 1st century Palestine. They follow its development from the Persian Order of Assassins through to 19th-century anarchists. The "Reign of Terror" is usually regarded as an issue of etymology. The term terrorism has generally been used to describe violence by non-state actors rather than government violence since the 19th-century Anarchist Movement.
In December 1795, Edmund Burke used the word "Terrorists" in a description of the new French government called 'Directory':
At length, after a terrible struggle, the [Directory] Troops prevailed over the Citizens ... To secure them further, they have a strong corps of irregulars, ready armed. Thousands of those Hell-hounds called Terrorists, whom they had shut up in Prison on their last Revolution, as the Satellites of Tyranny, are let loose on the people.(emphasis added)
The terms "terrorism" and "terrorist" gained renewed currency in the 1970s as a result of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the Northern Ireland conflict, the Basque conflict, and the operations of groups such as the Red Army Faction. Leila Khaled was described as a terrorist in a 1970 issue of "Life" magazine. A number of books on terrorism were published in the 1970s. The topic came further to the fore after the 1983 Beirut barracks bombings and again after the 2001 September 11 attacks and the 2002 Bali bombings.
There are over 109 different definitions of terrorism. American political philosopher Michael Walzer in 2002 wrote: "Terrorism is the deliberate killing of innocent people, at random, to spread fear through a whole population and force the hand of its political leaders". Bruce Hoffman, an American scholar, has noted that
It is not only individual agencies within the same governmental apparatus that cannot agree on a single definition of terrorism. Experts and other long-established scholars in the field are equally incapable of reaching a consensus.
C. A. J. Coady has written that the question of how to define terrorism is "irresolvable" because "its natural home is in polemical, ideological and propagandist contexts".
Experts disagree about "whether terrorism is wrong by definition or just wrong as a matter of fact; they disagree about whether terrorism should be defined in terms of its aims, or its methods, or both, or neither; they disagree about whether or not states can perpetrate terrorism; they even disagree about the importance or otherwise of "terror" for a definition of "terrorism"."
State terrorism refers to acts of terrorism conducted by a state against its own citizens or against another state.
In November 2004, a Secretary-General of the United Nations report described terrorism as any act "intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or non-combatants with the purpose of intimidating a population or compelling a government or an international organization to do or abstain from doing any act". The international community has been slow to formulate a universally agreed, legally binding definition of this crime. These difficulties arise from the fact that the term "terrorism" is politically and emotionally charged. In this regard, Angus Martyn, briefing the Australian parliament, stated,
The international community has never succeeded in developing an accepted comprehensive definition of terrorism. During the 1970s and 1980s, the United Nations attempts to define the term floundered mainly due to differences of opinion between various members about the use of violence in the context of conflicts over national liberation and self-determination.
These divergences have made it impossible for the United Nations to conclude a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism that incorporates a single, all-encompassing, legally binding, criminal law definition of terrorism. The international community has adopted a series of sectoral conventions that define and criminalize various types of terrorist activities.
Since 1994, the United Nations General Assembly has repeatedly condemned terrorist acts using the following political description of terrorism:
Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them.
Various legal systems and government agencies use different definitions of terrorism in their national legislation.
U.S. Code Title 22 Chapter 38, Section 2656f(d) defines terrorism as:
"Premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience".
18 U.S.C. § 2331 defines "international terrorism" and "domestic terrorism" for purposes of Chapter 113B of the Code, entitled "Terrorism":
"International terrorism" means activities with the following three characteristics:
A definition proposed by Carsten Bockstette at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, underlines the psychological and tactical aspects of terrorism:
Terrorists attack national symbols, which may negatively affect a government, while increasing the prestige of the given terrorist group or its ideology.
Terrorist acts frequently have a political purpose. Some official, governmental definitions of terrorism use the criterion of the illegitimacy or unlawfulness of the act. to distinguish between actions authorized by a government (and thus "lawful") and those of other actors, including individuals and small groups. For example, carrying out a strategic bombing on an enemy city, which is designed to affect civilian support for a cause, would not be considered terrorism if it were authorized by a government. This criterion is inherently problematic and is not universally accepted, because: it denies the existence of state terrorism. An associated term is violent non-state actor.
According to Ali Khan, the distinction lies ultimately in a political judgment.
Having the moral charge in our vocabulary of 'something morally wrong', the term 'terrorism' is often used to abuse or denounce opposite parties, either governments or non-state-groups.
Those labeled "terrorists" by their opponents rarely identify themselves as such, and typically use other terms or terms specific to their situation, such as separatist, freedom fighter, liberator, revolutionary, vigilante, militant, paramilitary, guerrilla, rebel, patriot, or any similar-meaning word in other languages and cultures. Jihadi, mujaheddin, and fedayeen are similar Arabic words that have entered the English lexicon. It is common for both parties in a conflict to describe each other as terrorists.
On whether particular terrorist acts, such as killing non-combatants, can be justified as the lesser evil in a particular circumstance, philosophers have expressed different views: while, according to David Rodin, utilitarian philosophers can (in theory) conceive of cases in which the evil of terrorism is outweighed by the good that could not be achieved in a less morally costly way, in practice the "harmful effects of undermining the convention of non-combatant immunity is thought to outweigh the goods that may be achieved by particular acts of terrorism". Among the non-utilitarian philosophers, Michael Walzer argued that terrorism can be morally justified in only one specific case: when "a nation or community faces the extreme threat of complete destruction and the only way it can preserve itself is by intentionally targeting non-combatants, then it is morally entitled to do so".
In his book "Inside Terrorism" Bruce Hoffman offered an explanation of why the term "terrorism" becomes distorted:
The pejorative connotations of the word can be summed up in the aphorism, "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter". This is exemplified when a group using irregular military methods is an ally of a state against a mutual enemy, but later falls out with the state and starts to use those methods against its former ally. During World War II, the Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army was allied with the British, but during the Malayan Emergency, members of its successor (the Malayan Races Liberation Army), were branded "terrorists" by the British. More recently, Ronald Reagan and others in the American administration frequently called the mujaheddin "freedom fighters" during the Soviet–Afghan War yet twenty years later, when a new generation of Afghan men were fighting against what they perceive to be a regime installed by foreign powers, their attacks were labelled "terrorism" by George W. Bush. Groups accused of terrorism understandably prefer terms reflecting legitimate military or ideological action. Leading terrorism researcher Professor Martin Rudner, director of the Canadian Centre of Intelligence and Security Studies at Ottawa's Carleton University, defines "terrorist acts" as unlawful attacks for political or other ideological goals, and said:
Some groups, when involved in a "liberation" struggle, have been called "terrorists" by the Western governments or media. Later, these same persons, as leaders of the liberated nations, are called "statesmen" by similar organizations. Two examples of this phenomenon are the Nobel Peace Prize laureates Menachem Begin and Nelson Mandela. WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange has been called a "terrorist" by Sarah Palin and Joe Biden.
Sometimes, states that are close allies, for reasons of history, culture and politics, can disagree over whether or not members of a certain organization are terrorists. For instance, for many years, some branches of the United States government refused to label members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) as terrorists while the IRA was using methods against one of the United States' closest allies (the United Kingdom) that the UK branded as terrorism. This was highlighted by the "Quinn v. Robinson" case.
Media outlets who wish to convey impartiality may limit their usage of "terrorist" and "terrorism" because they are loosely defined, potentially controversial in nature, and subjective terms.
Depending on how broadly the term is defined, the roots and practice of terrorism can be traced at least to the 1st-century AD. Sicarii Zealots, though some dispute whether the group, a radical offshoot of the Zealots which was active in Judaea Province at the beginning of the 1st century AD, was in fact terrorist. According to the contemporary Jewish-Roman historian Josephus, after the Zealotry rebellion against Roman rule in Judea, when some prominent Jewish collaborators with Roman rule were killed, Judas of Galilee formed a small and more extreme offshoot of the Zealots, the Sicarii, in 6 AD. Their terror was directed against Jewish "collaborators", including temple priests, Sadducees, Herodians, and other wealthy elites.
The term "terrorism" itself was originally used to describe the actions of the Jacobin Club during the "Reign of Terror" in the French Revolution. "Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible", said Jacobin leader Maximilien Robespierre. In 1795, Edmund Burke denounced the Jacobins for letting "thousands of those hell-hounds called Terrorists ... loose on the people" of France.
In January 1858, Italian patriot Felice Orsini threw three bombs in an attempt to assassinate French Emperor Napoleon III. Eight bystanders were killed and 142 injured. The incident played a crucial role as an inspiration for the development of the early terrorist groups.
Arguably the first organization to utilize modern terrorist techniques was the Irish Republican Brotherhood, founded in 1858 as a revolutionary Irish nationalist group that carried out attacks in England. The group initiated the Fenian dynamite campaign in 1881, one of the first modern terror campaigns. Instead of earlier forms of terrorism based on political assassination, this campaign used modern, timed explosives with the express aim of sowing fear in the very heart of metropolitan Britain, in order to achieve political gains.
Another early terrorist group was Narodnaya Volya, founded in Russia in 1878 as a revolutionary anarchist group inspired by Sergei Nechayev and "propaganda by the deed" theorist Carlo Pisacane. The group developed ideas – such as targeted killing of the 'leaders of oppression' – that were to become the hallmark of subsequent violence by small non-state groups, and they were convinced that the developing technologies of the age – such as the invention of dynamite, which they were the first anarchist group to make widespread use of – enabled them to strike directly and with discrimination.
Scholars of terrorism refer to four major waves of global terrorism: "the Anarchist, the Anti-Colonial, the New Left, and the Religious. The first three have been completed and lasted around 40 years; the fourth is now in its third decade."
Depending on the country, the political system, and the time in history, the types of terrorism are varying.
In early 1975, the Law Enforcement Assistant Administration in the United States formed the National Advisory Committee on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals. One of the five volumes that the committee wrote was titled "Disorders and Terrorism", produced by the Task Force on Disorders and Terrorism under the direction of H. H. A. Cooper, Director of the Task Force staff.
The Task Force defines terrorism as "a tactic or technique by means of which a violent act or the threat thereof is used for the prime purpose of creating overwhelming fear for coercive purposes". It classified disorders and terrorism into six categories:
Other sources have defined the typology of terrorism in different ways, for example, broadly classifying it into domestic terrorism and international terrorism, or using categories such as vigilante terrorism or insurgent terrorism. One way the typology of terrorism may be defined:
Individuals and groups choose terrorism as a tactic because it can:
Attacks on "collaborators" are used to intimidate people from cooperating with the state in order to undermine state control. This strategy was used in Ireland, in Kenya, in Algeria and in Cyprus during their independence struggles.
Stated motives for the September 11 attacks included inspiring more fighters to join the cause of repelling the United States from Muslim countries with a successful high-profile attack. The attacks prompted some criticism from domestic and international observers regarding perceived injustices in U.S. foreign policy that provoked the attacks, but the larger practical effect was that the United States government declared a War on Terror that resulted in substantial military engagements in several Muslim-majority countries. Various commentators have inferred that al-Qaeda expected a military response, and welcomed it as a provocation that would result in more Muslims fight the United States. Some commentators believe that the resulting anger and suspicion directed toward innocent Muslims living in Western countries and the indignities inflicted upon them by security forces and the general public also contributes to radicalization of new recruits. Despite criticism that the Iraqi government had no involvement with the September 11 attacks, Bush declared the 2003 invasion of Iraq to be part of the War on Terror. The resulting backlash and instability enabled the rise of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and the temporary creation of an Islamic caliphate holding territory in Iraq and Syria, until ISIL lost its territory through military defeats.
Attacks used to draw international attention to struggles that are otherwise unreported have included the Palestinian airplane hijackings in 1970 and the 1975 Dutch train hostage crisis.
Specific political or social causes have included:
Causes for right-wing terrorism have included white nationalism, ethnonationalism, fascism, anti-socialism, the anti-abortion movement, and tax resistance.
Sometimes terrorists on the same side fight for different reasons. For example, in the Chechen–Russian conflict secular Chechens using terrorist tactics fighting for national independence are allied with radical Islamist terrorists who have arrived from other countries.
Various personal and social factors may influence the personal choice of whether or not to join a terrorist group or attempt an act of terror, including:
A report conducted by Paul Gill, John Horgan and Paige Deckert found that for "lone wolf" terrorists:
Ariel Merari, a psychologist who has studied the psychological profiles of suicide terrorists since 1983 through media reports that contained biographical details, interviews with the suicides’ families, and interviews with jailed would-be suicide attackers, concluded that they were unlikely to be psychologically abnormal. In comparison to economic theories of criminal behaviour, Scott Atran found that suicide terrorists exhibit none of the socially dysfunctional attributes – such as fatherless, friendless, jobless situations – or suicidal symptoms. By which he means, they do not kill themselves simply out of hopelessness or a sense of 'having nothing to lose'.
Abrahm suggests that terrorist organizations do not select terrorism for its political effectiveness. Individual terrorists tend to be motivated more by a desire for social solidarity with other members of their organization than by political platforms or strategic objectives, which are often murky and undefined.
Michael Mousseau shows possible relationships between the type of economy within a country and ideology associated with terrorism. Many terrorists have a history of domestic violence.
Terrorism is most common in nations with intermediate political freedom, and it is least common in the most democratic nations.
Some examples of "terrorism" in non-democratic nations include ETA in Spain under Francisco Franco (although the group's terrorist activities increased sharply after Franco's death), the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists in pre-war Poland, the Shining Path in Peru under Alberto Fujimori, the Kurdistan Workers Party when Turkey was ruled by military leaders and the ANC in South Africa. Democracies, such as Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, Israel, Indonesia, India, Spain, Germany, Italy and the Philippines, have experienced domestic terrorism.
While a democratic nation espousing civil liberties may claim a sense of higher moral ground than other regimes, an act of terrorism within such a state may cause a dilemma: whether to maintain its civil liberties and thus risk being perceived as ineffective in dealing with the problem; or alternatively to restrict its civil liberties and thus risk delegitimizing its claim of supporting civil liberties. For this reason, homegrown terrorism has started to be seen as a greater threat, as stated by former CIA Director Michael Hayden. This dilemma, some social theorists would conclude, may very well play into the initial plans of the acting terrorist(s); namely, to delegitimize the state and cause a systematic shift towards anarchy via the accumulation of negative sentiments towards the state system.
Terrorist acts throughout history have been performed on religious grounds with the goal to either spread or enforce a system of belief, viewpoint or opinion. The validity and scope of religious terrorism is limited to an individual's view or a group's view or interpretation of that belief system's teachings.
According to the Global Terrorism Index by the University of Maryland, College Park, religious extremism has overtaken national separatism and become the main driver of terrorist attacks around the world. Since 9/11 there has been a five-fold increase in deaths from terrorist attacks. The majority of incidents over the past several years can be tied to groups with a religious agenda. Before 2000, it was nationalist separatist terrorist organizations such as the IRA and Chechen rebels who were behind the most attacks. The number of incidents from nationalist separatist groups has remained relatively stable in the years since while religious extremism has grown. The prevalence of Islamist groups in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria is the main driver behind these trends.
Four of the terrorist groups that have been most active since 2001 are Boko Haram, Al Qaeda, the Taliban and ISIL. These groups have been most active in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria and Syria. 80 percent of all deaths from terrorism occurred in one of these five countries.
Terrorism in Pakistan has become a great problem. From the summer of 2007 until late 2009, more than 1,500 people were killed in suicide and other attacks on civilians for reasons attributed to a number of causes – sectarian violence between Sunni and Shia Muslims; easy availability of guns and explosives; the existence of a "Kalashnikov culture"; an influx of ideologically driven Muslims based in or near Pakistan, who originated from various nations around the world and the subsequent war against the pro-Soviet Afghans in the 1980s which blew back into Pakistan; the presence of Islamist insurgent groups and forces such as the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba. On July 2, 2013 in Lahore, 50 Muslim scholars of the Sunni Ittehad Council (SIC) issued a collective fatwa against suicide bombings, the killing of innocent people, bomb attacks, and targeted killings declaring them as Haraam or forbidden.
In 2015, the Southern Poverty Law Center released a report on terrorism in the United States. The report (titled "The Age of the Wolf") found that during that period, "more people have been killed in America by non-Islamic domestic terrorists than jihadists." The "virulent racist and anti-semitic" ideology of the ultra-right wing Christian Identity movement is usually accompanied by anti-government sentiments. Adherents of Christian Identity believe that whites of European descent can be traced back to the "Lost Tribes of Israel" and many consider Jews to be the Satanic offspring of Eve and the Serpent. This group has committed hate crimes, bombings and other acts of terrorism. Its influence ranges from the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi groups to the anti-government militia and sovereign citizen movements. Christian Identity's origins can be traced back to Anglo-Israelism, which held the view that British people were descendants of ancient Israelites. By the 1930s, the movement had been infected with anti-Semitism, and eventually Christian Identity theology diverged from traditional Anglo-Israelism, and developed what is known as the "two seed" theory. According to the two-seed theory, the Jewish people are descended from Cain and the serpent (not from Shem). The white European seedline is descended from the "lost tribes" of Israel. They hold themselves to "God's laws", not to "man's laws", and they do not feel bound to a government that they consider run by Jews and the New World Order.
Israel has had problems with Jewish religious terrorism. During British Mandate occupation, Irgun is among Zionist groups labelled as terrorist organization by British government and United Nations, for violent terror attacks against Britons and Arabs. Another extremist group Lehi openly declared its members as 'terrorists.' Historian William Cleveland stated many Jews justified any action, even terrorism, taken in the cause of the creation of a Jewish state. In 1995, Yigal Amir assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. For Amir, killing Rabin was an exemplary act that symbolized the fight against an illegitimate government that was prepared to cede Jewish Holy Land to the Palestinians.
The perpetrators of acts of terrorism can be individuals, groups, or states. According to some definitions, clandestine or semi-clandestine state actors may carry out terrorist acts outside the framework of a state of war. The most common image of terrorism is that it is carried out by small and secretive cells, highly motivated to serve a particular cause and many of the most deadly operations in recent times, such as the September 11 attacks, the London underground bombing, 2008 Mumbai attacks and the 2002 Bali bombing were planned and carried out by a close clique, composed of close friends, family members and other strong social networks. These groups benefited from the free flow of information and efficient telecommunications to succeed where others had failed.
Over the years, much research has been conducted to distill a terrorist profile to explain these individuals' actions through their psychology and socio-economic circumstances. Others, like Roderick Hindery, have sought to discern profiles in the propaganda tactics used by terrorists. Some security organizations designate these groups as "violent non-state actors". A 2007 study by economist Alan B. Krueger found that terrorists were less likely to come from an impoverished background (28 percent vs. 33 percent) and more likely to have at least a high-school education (47 percent vs. 38 percent). Another analysis found only 16 percent of terrorists came from impoverished families, vs. 30 percent of male Palestinians, and over 60 percent had gone beyond high school, vs. 15 percent of the populace.A study into the poverty-stricken conditions and whether or not,terrorists are more likely to come from here,show that people who grew up in these situations tend to show aggression and frustration towards others. This theory is largely debated for the simple fact that just because one is frustrated,does not make them a potential terrorist.
To avoid detection, a terrorist will look, dress, and behave normally until executing the assigned mission. Some claim that attempts to profile terrorists based on personality, physical, or sociological traits are not useful. The physical and behavioral description of the terrorist could describe almost any normal person. the majority of terrorist attacks are carried out by military age men, aged 16–40.
Groups not part of the state apparatus of in opposition to the state are most commonly referred to as a "terrorist" in the media.
According to the Global Terrorism Database, the most active terrorist group in the period 1970 to 2010 was Shining Path (with 4,517 attacks), followed by Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN), Irish Republican Army (IRA), Basque Fatherland and Freedom (ETA), Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), Taliban, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, New People's Army, National Liberation Army of Colombia (ELN), and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
A state can sponsor terrorism by funding or harboring a terrorist group. Opinions as to which acts of violence by states consist of state-sponsored terrorism vary widely. When states provide funding for groups considered by some to be terrorist, they rarely acknowledge them as such.
As with "terrorism" the concept of "state terrorism" is controversial. The Chairman of the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee has stated that the Committee was conscious of 12 international Conventions on the subject, and none of them referred to State terrorism, which was not an international legal concept. If States abused their power, they should be judged against international conventions dealing with war crimes, international human rights law, and international humanitarian law. Former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said that it is "time to set aside debates on so-called 'state terrorism'. The use of force by states is already thoroughly regulated under international law". he made clear that, "regardless of the differences between governments on the question of the definition of terrorism, what is clear and what we can all agree on is that any deliberate attack on innocent civilians [or non-combatants], regardless of one's cause, is unacceptable and fits into the definition of terrorism."
State terrorism has been used to refer to terrorist acts committed by governmental agents or forces. This involves the use of state resources employed by a state's foreign policies, such as using its military to directly perform acts of terrorism. Professor of Political Science Michael Stohl cites the examples that include the German bombing of London, the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, the British firebombing of Dresden, and the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. He argues that "the use of terror tactics is common in international relations and the state has been and remains a more likely employer of terrorism within the international system than insurgents." He cites the first strike option as an example of the "terror of coercive diplomacy" as a form of this, which holds the world hostage with the implied threat of using nuclear weapons in "crisis management" and he argues that the institutionalized form of terrorism has occurred as a result of changes that took place following World War II. In this analysis, state terrorism exhibited as a form of foreign policy was shaped by the presence and use of weapons of mass destruction, and the legitimizing of such violent behavior led to an increasingly accepted form of this behavior by the state.
The connection between terrorism and tourism has been widely studied since the Luxor massacre in Egypt. In the 1970s, the targets of terrorists were politicians and chiefs of police while now, international tourists and visitors are selected as the main targets of attacks. The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, were the symbolic center, which marked a new epoch in the use of civil transport against the main power of the planet. From this event onwards, the spaces of leisure that characterized the pride of West, were conceived as dangerous and frightful.
State sponsors have constituted a major form of funding; for example, Palestine Liberation Organization, Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and other groups considered to be terrorist organizations, were funded by the Soviet Union. The Stern Gang received funding from Italian Fascist officers in Beirut to undermine the British Mandate for Palestine.
"Revolutionary tax" is another major form of funding, and essentially a euphemism for "protection money". Revolutionary taxes "play a secondary role as one other means of intimidating the target population".
Other major sources of funding include kidnapping for ransoms, smuggling (including wildlife smuggling), fraud, and robbery. The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant has reportedly received funding "via private donations from the Gulf states".
The Financial Action Task Force is an inter-governmental body whose mandate, since October 2001, has included combating terrorist financing.
Terrorist attacks are often targeted to maximize fear and publicity, usually using explosives or poison.
Terrorist groups usually methodically plan attacks in advance, and may train participants, plant undercover agents, and raise money from supporters or through organized crime. Communications occur through modern telecommunications, or through old-fashioned methods such as couriers. There is concern about terrorist attacks employing weapons of mass destruction.
Terrorism is a form of asymmetric warfare, and is more common when direct conventional warfare will not be effective because opposing forces vary greatly in power.
The context in which terrorist tactics are used is often a large-scale, unresolved political conflict. The type of conflict varies widely; historical examples include:
Responses to terrorism are broad in scope. They can include re-alignments of the political spectrum and reassessments of fundamental values.
Specific types of responses include:
The term "counter-terrorism" has a narrower connotation, implying that it is directed at terrorist actors.
According to a report by Dana Priest and William M. Arkin in The Washington Post, "Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States."
America's thinking on how to defeat radical Islamists is split along two very different schools of thought. Republicans, typically follow what is known as the Bush Doctrine, advocate the military model of taking the fight to the enemy and seeking to democratize the Middle East. Democrats, by contrast, generally propose the law enforcement model of better cooperation with nations and more security at home. In the introduction of the "U.S. Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual", Sarah Sewall states the need for "U.S. forces to make securing the civilian, rather than destroying the enemy, their top priority. The civilian population is the center of gravity – the deciding factor in the struggle... Civilian deaths create an extended family of enemies – new insurgent recruits or informants – and erode support of the host nation." Sewall sums up the book's key points on how to win this battle: "Sometimes, the more you protect your force, the less secure you may be... Sometimes, the more force is used, the less effective it is... The more successful the counterinsurgency is, the less force can be used and the more risk must be accepted... Sometimes, doing nothing is the best reaction." This strategy, often termed "courageous restraint", has certainly led to some success on the Middle East battlefield. However, it does not address the fact that terrorists are mostly homegrown.
Terrorism research, called terrorism and counter-terrorism research, is an interdisciplinary academic field which seeks to understand the causes of terrorism, how to prevent it as well as its impact in the broadest sense. Terrorism research can be carried out in both military and civilian contexts, for example by research centres such as the British Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, the Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies, and the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT). There are several academic journals devoted to the field.
One of the agreements that promote the international legal anti-terror framework is the Code of Conduct Towards Achieving a World Free of Terrorism that was adopted at the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly in 2018. The Code of Conduct was initiated by Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev. Its main goal is to implement a wide range of international commitments to counter terrorism and establish a broad global coalition towards achieving a world free of terrorism by 2045. The Code was signed by more than 70 countries.
Mass media exposure may be a primary goal of those carrying out terrorism, to expose issues that would otherwise be ignored by the media. Some consider this to be manipulation and exploitation of the media.
The Internet has created a new channel for groups to spread their messages. This has created a cycle of measures and counter measures by groups in support of and in opposition to terrorist movements. The United Nations has created its own online counter-terrorism resource.
The mass media will, on occasion, censor organizations involved in terrorism (through self-restraint or regulation) to discourage further terrorism. This may encourage organizations to perform more extreme acts of terrorism to be shown in the mass media. Conversely James F. Pastor explains the significant relationship between terrorism and the media, and the underlying benefit each receives from the other.
Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher famously spoke of the close connection between terrorism and the media, calling publicity 'the oxygen of terrorism'.
Jones and Libicki (2008) created a list of all the terrorist groups they could find that were active between 1968 and 2006. They found 648. Of those, 136 splintered and 244 were still active in 2006. Of the ones that ended, 43 percent converted to nonviolent political actions, like the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland. Law enforcement took out 40 percent. Ten percent won. Only 20 groups, 7 percent, were destroyed by military force.
Forty-two groups became large enough to be labeled an insurgency; 38 of those had ended by 2006. Of those, 47 percent converted to nonviolent political actors. Only 5 percent were taken out by law enforcement. 26 percent won. 21 percent succumbed to military force. Jones and Libicki concluded that military force may be necessary to deal with large insurgencies but are only occasionally decisive, because the military is too often seen as a bigger threat to civilians than the terrorists. To avoid that, the rules of engagement must be conscious of collateral damage and work to minimize it.
Another researcher, Audrey Cronin, lists six primary ways that terrorist groups end:
The following terrorism databases are or were made publicly available for research purposes, and track specific acts of terrorism:
The following public report and index provides a summary of key global trends and patterns in terrorism around the world
The following publicly available resources index electronic and bibliographic resources on the subject of terrorism
The following terrorism databases are maintained in secrecy by the United States Government for intelligence and counter-terrorism purposes:
Jones and Libicki (2008) includes a table of 268 terrorist groups active between 1968 and 2006 with their status as of 2006: still active, splintered, converted to nonviolence, removed by law enforcement or military, or won. (These data are not in a convenient machine-readable format but are available.) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30636 |
Thomas Malory
Sir Thomas Malory (c. 1415 – 14 March 1471) was an English writer, the author or compiler of "Le Morte d'Arthur", the classic English-language chronicle of the Arthurian legend, published by William Caxton in 1485. Malory’s identity has never been confirmed, but the likeliest candidate is Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel in Warwickshire. Much of his life history is obscure, but Caxton classifies him as a ‘knight prisoner’, apparently reflecting a criminal career, for which there is ample evidence, though he was also a prisoner-of-war during the Wars of the Roses, in which he supported both sides at different times.
Most of what is known about Malory stems from the accounts describing him in the prayers found in the Winchester Manuscript of "Le Morte d'Arthur". He is described as a "", distinguishing him from the other six individuals also bearing the name Thomas Malory in the 15th century when "Le Morte d'Arthur" was written.
At the end of the "Tale of King Arthur" (Books I–IV in the printing by William Caxton) is written: "For this was written by a knight prisoner Thomas Malleorre, that God send him good recovery." At the end of "The Tale of Sir Gareth" (Caxton's Book VII): "And I pray you all that readeth this tale to pray for him that this wrote, that God send him good deliverance soon and hastily." At the conclusion of the "Tale of Sir Tristram" (Caxton's VIII–XII): "Here endeth the second book of Sir Tristram de Lyones, which was drawn out of the French by Sir Thomas Malleorre, knight, as Jesu be his help." Finally, at the conclusion of the whole book: "The Most Piteous Tale of the Morte Arthure Sanz Gwerdon par le shyvalere Sir Thomas Malleorre, knight, Jesu aide ly pur votre bon mercy."
However, all these are replaced by Caxton with a final colophon reading: "I pray you all gentlemen and gentlewomen that readeth this book of Arthur and his knights, from the beginning to the ending, pray for me while I am alive, that God send me good deliverance and when I am dead, I pray you all pray for my soul. For this book was ended the ninth year of the reign of King Edward the Fourth by Sir Thomas Maleore, knight, as Jesu help him for his great might, as he is the servant of Jesu both day and night."
With the exception of the first sentence of the final colophon, all the above references to Thomas Malory as a knight are, grammatically speaking, in the third person singular, which leaves open the possibility that they were added by a copyist, either in Caxton's workshop or elsewhere. However, scholarly consensus, as has been previously mentioned in this article, is that these references to knighthood refer to a real person and that that person is the author of "Le Morte d'Arthur".
The author was educated, as some of his material "was drawn out of the French," which suggests a degree of French fluency indicating that he might have been from a wealthy family. A claimant's age must also fit the time of writing.
By far the likeliest candidate for the authorship is Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel in Warwickshire. H. Oskar Sommer first proposed this identification in his edition of "Le Morte d'Arthur" published in 1890, and George Lyman Kittredge, a professor at Harvard, provided the evidence in 1896. Kittredge showed Malory as a soldier and a Member of Parliament, who fought at Calais with Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. However, a biography by Edward Hicks published in 1928 revealed that Malory had been imprisoned as a thief, bandit, kidnapper, and rapist, which hardly seemed in keeping with the high chivalric standards of his book. Helen Cooper referred to his life as one that "reads more like an account of exemplary thuggery than chivalry".
Malory was born to Sir John Malory of Winwick, Northamptonshire, who had served as a Justice of the Peace in Warwickshire and as a Member of Parliament, and Lady Phillipa Malory, heiress of Newbold. He was born after 1415 and before 1418, judging by the fact that he attained his majority (at the age of 21) between 1434 and 1439. He was knighted before 8 October 1441, became a professional soldier, and served under Henry Beauchamp, 1st Duke of Warwick—but all dates are vague, and it is not known how he became distinguished. He acted as an elector in Northamptonshire but, in 1443, he and accomplice Eustace Barnaby were accused of attacking, kidnapping, and stealing 40 pounds' worth of goods from Thomas Smythe, though nothing came of this charge. He married a woman named Elizabeth Walsh, with whom he had at least one son, named Robert, and possibly one or two other children. The same year, Malory was elected to Parliament, serving as a knight of the shire for Warwickshire for the rest of 1443, and being appointed to a royal commission charged with the distribution of money to impoverished towns in Warwickshire. Despite the criminal charges against him, he seems to have remained in good standing with his peers. In 1449, he was elected as member of Parliament for the Duke of Buckingham's safe seat of Great Bedwyn.
Malory's status changed abruptly in 1451 when he was accused of ambushing the Duke of Buckingham, Humphrey Stafford, a prominent Lancastrian in the Wars of the Roses, along with 26 other men sometime in 1450. The accusation was never proved. Later in 1451, he was accused of extorting 100 shillings from Margaret King and William Hales of Monks Kirby, and then of committing the same crime against John Mylner for 20 shillings. He was also accused of breaking into the house of Hugh Smyth of Monks Kirby in 1450, stealing 40 pounds' worth of goods and raping Smyth's wife, and with attacking her again in Coventry eight weeks later. At this period, however, a charge of rape could also apply to consensual sex with a married woman whose husband had not agreed to the liaison. On 15 March 1451, Malory and 19 others were ordered to be arrested. Nothing came of this and, in the following months, Malory and his cohorts allegedly committed a series of crimes, especially violent robberies, rising past 100. At one point, he was arrested and imprisoned in Maxstoke Castle, but he escaped, swam the moat, and returned to Newbold Revel. Most of these crimes, if they occurred, seem to have been targeted at the property and followers of the Duke of Buckingham. Malory was a supporter of the family of Buckingham's former rival, the Duke of Warwick, so there may have been a political motive behind either Malory's attacks (assuming that he committed them) or Buckingham and others bringing charges against him. It is possible that Malory's enemies tried to slander him, and there is evidence that the Duke of Buckingham was Malory's long-time enemy.
Malory finally came to trial on 23 August 1451, in Nuneaton, a town in the heartland of Buckingham's power and a place where Malory found little support as a supporter of the Beauchamps. Those accused included Malory and several others; there were numerous charges. Malory was convicted and sent to the Marshalsea Prison in London, where he remained for a year. He demanded a retrial with a jury of men from his own county. Although this never took place, he was released. By March 1452, he was back in the Marshalsea, from which he escaped two months later, possibly by bribing the guards and gaolers. After a month, he was back in prison yet again, and this time he was held until the following May, when he was released on bail of 200 pounds, paid by a number of his fellow magnates from Warwickshire. Malory later ended up in custody in Colchester, accused of still more crimes, involving robbery and the stealing of horses. Once again, he escaped and once again was apprehended and returned to Marshalsea Prison. He was pardoned at the accession of King Edward IV in 1461. He was never actually tried on any of the charges brought against him, except at Nuneaton in 1451. In 1462, Malory settled his estate on his son Robert and, in 1466 or 1467, Robert fathered a son named Nicholas, who was Malory's ultimate heir.
Malory appears to have changed his allegiance by 1468. He had previously been a Yorkist, but he now entered into a conspiracy with Richard Neville, the new Earl of Warwick, to overthrow King Edward IV. The plot was discovered and Malory was imprisoned in June 1468. Uniquely in English history, so far as is known, he was excluded by name from two general pardons, in July 1468 and February 1470. In October 1470, the collapse of the Yorkist regime and the temporary return to the throne of Henry VI was followed by Malory's final release from prison.
Malory died on 14 March 1471 and was buried in Christ Church Greyfriars, near Newgate Prison. His interment there suggests that his misdeeds (whatever they really amounted to) had been forgiven and that he possessed some wealth. However, it was certified at the granting of probate that he owned little wealth of his own, having settled his estate on his son in 1462. The inscription on Malory's tomb read: "HIC JACET DOMINUS THOMAS MALLERE, VALENS MILES OB 14 MAR 1470 DE PAROCHIA DE MONKENKIRBY IN COM WARICINI," meaning: "Here lies Lord Thomas Mallere, Valiant Soldier. Died 14 March 1470 [new calendar 1471], in the parish of Monkenkirby in the county of Warwick." The tomb was lost when Greyfriars was dissolved in 1538 by King Henry VIII. Malory's grandson Nicholas eventually inherited his lands and was appointed High Sheriff of Warwickshire in 1502.
There has been a great deal of scholarly research on the subject, but no candidate for authorship has ever been found to continuously command widespread support, other than Malory of Newbold Revel. This is based on the assumption that neither Winchester Manuscript nor Caxton's first edition references to the author reflect confusion in identity by an early copyist. If the hypothesis is accepted that the real Malory was, indeed, both a knight and a prisoner, then Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel becomes the only possible candidate, as no other Malory family contained a Thomas who was knighted or who spent many years in a prison with a good library (the Tower of London in the case of Malory of Newbold Revel). In the entry on Malory in the "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", P.J.C. Field stresses that recent scholarship has focused firmly on Malory of Newbold Revel, especially because "he was the only knight of the right name alive at the right time".
Nevertheless, over the centuries, many alternative identities have been proposed for Malory, in part because of the perceived gap between the crimes charged against Malory of Newbold Revel and the chivalric ideals espoused in "Le Morte d'Arthur". The supporting evidence for these claim has been described as "no more than circumstantial" by Cooper, however. Some of the more popular alternatives are listed below.
The earliest identification was made by John Bale, a 16th-century antiquarian, who declared that Malory was Welsh, hailing from Maloria on the River Dee. This theory received further support from Sir John Rhys, who proclaimed in 1893 that the alternative spelling indicated an area straddling the border between England and North Wales border, Maleore in Flintshire and Maleor in Denbighshire. On this theory, Malory may have been related to Edward Rhys Maelor, a 15th-century Welsh poet. It was also suggested by antiquary John Leland that he was Welsh, identifying "Malory" with "Maelor".
A second candidate was presented by A.T. Martin, another antiquarian, in an article in the Athenaeum in September 1897, who proposed that the author was Thomas Malory of Papworth St Agnes in Huntingdonshire. Martin's argument was based on a will made at Papworth on 16 September 1469 and proved at Lambeth on 27 October the same year. This identification was taken seriously for some time by editors of Malory, including Alfred W. Pollard, the noted bibliographer, who included it in his edition of Malory published in 1903.
This Thomas Malory was born on 6 December 1425 at Moreton Corbet Castle, Shropshire, the eldest son of Sir William Mallory, member of Parliament for Cambridgeshire, who had married Margaret, the widow of Robert Corbet of Moreton Corbet. Thomas inherited his father's estates in 1425 and was placed in the wardship of the King, initially as a minor, but later (for reasons unknown) remaining there until within four months of his death in 1469. Nothing else is known of him, apart from one peculiar incident discovered by William Matthews. A collection of Chancery proceedings includes a petition brought against Malory by Richard Kyd, parson of Papworth, claiming that Malory ambushed him on a November evening and took him from Papworth to Huntingdon, and then to Bedford and on to Northampton, all the while threatening his life and demanding that he either forfeit his church to Malory or give him 100 pounds. The outcome of this case is unknown, but it seems to indicate that this Malory was something other than an ordinary country gentleman. However, there is no evidence that this Malory was ever actually knighted and the very specific use of the word "knight" in respect of the author Malory tells against him.
The third contender is the little-known Thomas Malory of Hutton Conyers in Yorkshire. This claim was put forward in "The Ill-Framed Knight: A Skeptical Inquiry Into the Identity of Sir Thomas Malory" by William Matthews, a British professor who taught at UCLA (and also transcribed the diary of Samuel Pepys). Matthews's claim was met with little enthusiasm, despite evidence that the author spoke a regional dialect that matches the language of "Le Morte d'Arthur". This Malory is not known to have been knighted.
Malory was most probably confined at Newgate prison from 1460 until his release. He likely wrote "Le Morte d'Arthur" ("The Death of Arthur") based on Arthurian mythology, the first major work of English language prose. Richard Whittington, mayor of London, was responsible for philanthropic work that allowed prisoners access to a library in the Greyfriars monastery adjacent to Newgate. This, coupled with the probability that Malory had at least some wealth, allowed a certain level of comfort and leisure within the prison. His main sources for his work included Arthurian French prose romances, Geoffrey of Monmouth's "History of the Kings of Britain", and two anonymous English works called the Alliterative "Morte Arthure" and the Stanzaic "Morte Arthur".
The entire work is eight romances that span twenty-one books with 507 chapters, which was said to be considerably shorter than the original French sources, despite its vast size. Malory was responsible for organizing these diverse sources and consolidating them into a cohesive whole. The work was originally titled "The Book of King Arthur and His Noble Knights of the Round Table", but printer William Caxton changed it to "Le Morte d'Arthur" before he printed it in 1485, as well as making several other editorial changes. According to one theory, the eight romances were originally intended to be separate, but Caxton altered them to be more unified.
There has been some argument among critics that Malory's "Le Morte d'Arthur" was primarily intended as a political commentary of Malory's own era. Malory portrays an initially idyllic past under the strong leadership of King Arthur and his knights, but as intrigue and infighting develop, the utopic kingdom collapses, which may have been intended as a parallel and a warning against the infighting taking place during the Wars of the Roses. The seemingly contradictory changes in King Arthur's character throughout the work has been argued to support the theory that Arthur represents different eras and reigns throughout the tales. This argument has also been used to attempt to reconcile Malory's doubtful reputation as a person who continually changed sides with the unexpected idealism of "Le Morte d'Arthur". It remains a matter of some debate whether this was a deliberate commentary or an imaginative fiction influenced by the political climate.
The sources of the romances that make up "Le Morte d'Arthur", and Malory's treatment of those sources, correspond to some degree with those of a poem called "The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle"; they also both end with a similarly worded prayer to be released from imprisonment. This has led some scholars in recent years to believe that Malory may have been the author of the poem.
A young Malory appears as a character at the end of T. H. White's book "The Once and Future King" (1958), which was based on "Le Morte d'Arthur". This cameo is included in the Broadway musical "Camelot" (1960), and in its film adaptation (1967), where his name is given as "Tom of Warwick".
In addition to White's treatment, many other modern versions of the Arthurian legend have their roots in Malory, including John Boorman's film "Excalibur" (1981). The discovery of Malory's book and its acquisition by William Caxton form key elements in "The Load of Unicorn" (1959), a novel for children by Cynthia Harnett. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30638 |
Golden Brown
"Golden Brown" is a song by the English rock band the Stranglers. It was released as a 7" single, on Liberty, in December 1981 in the United States and in January 1982 in the United Kingdom. It was the second single released from the band's sixth album "La folie". It peaked at No. 2 in the UK Singles Chart, the band's highest ever placing in that chart.
In January 2014, "NME" ranked the song as No. 488 on its list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time". It has also been recorded by many other artists.
Originally featured on the group's album "La folie", which was released in November 1981, and later on the USA pressings of "Feline", "Golden Brown" was released as a single in December 1981, and was accompanied by a video. It reached No. 2 in the official UK Singles Chart in February 1982, remaining there for two weeks behind double A-sided record "Town Called Malice/Precious" by the Jam.
David Hamilton, disc jockey on the comparatively conservative BBC Radio 2, which was a middle-of-the-road (MOR) music radio station at that time, made the record his single of the week.
The single was a top 10 hit around the world, including Australia. It was also featured in the film "Snatch" and is included on its soundtrack album.
There has been much controversy surrounding the lyrics. In his book "The Stranglers Song By Song" (2001), Hugh Cornwell states "'Golden Brown' works on two levels. It's about heroin and also about a girl." Essentially the lyrics describe how "both provided me with pleasurable times."
The main body of the song has a 6/8 feel and is pitched halfway between the keys of E minor and E-flat minor, possibly to accommodate the tuning of the harpsichord. The instrumental introduction, in (a very flat) B minor, is unconventional. The keyboard and harpsichord vamp in 3/4, and in the head every fourth bar is in 4/4. The music was largely written by keyboardist Dave Greenfield and drummer Jet Black, with lyrics by singer/guitarist Hugh Cornwell.
The BBC newsreader Bill Turnbull attempted to waltz to the song in the 2005 series of "Strictly Come Dancing". In February 2012, when interviewing Stranglers bassist Jean-Jacques Burnel on "BBC Breakfast", Turnbull described the attempted dance as "a disaster", Burnel responded that the alternating time signatures made "Golden Brown" impossible to dance to; in contrast, a song written entirely in 6/8 is not unusual in waltzing.
The video for "Golden Brown" was directed by Lindsey Clennell. It depicts the band members both as explorers in an Arabian country and non-Arab Muslim countries (sequences include images of the Pyramids as well as the explorers studying a map of Egypt) in the 1920s and performers for a fictional "Radio Cairo".
In addition to the Pyramids, the video is intercut with stock footage of the Mir-i-Arab Madrasah in Bukhara, the Shah Mosque in Isfahan, and Great Sphinx, Feluccas sailing, Bedouins riding and camel racing in the United Arab Emirates. The performance scenes were filmed in the Leighton House Museum in Holland Park, London, which was also used in the filming of the video for "Gold" by Spandau Ballet.
1Remix
In a BBC Radio 2 listener poll of the nation's favourite singles to have peaked at number two, conducted in late 2012, "Golden Brown" ranked fifth behind "Vienna", "Fairytale of New York", "Sit Down" and "American Pie", and just ahead of "Waterloo Sunset" and "Penny Lane"/"Strawberry Fields Forever". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30644 |
Buzzcocks
Buzzcocks are an English punk rock band formed in Bolton, England in 1976 by singer-songwriter-guitarist Pete Shelley and singer-songwriter Howard Devoto. They are regarded as a seminal influence on the Manchester music scene, the independent record label movement, punk rock, power pop, and pop punk. They achieved commercial success with singles that fused pop craftsmanship with rapid-fire punk energy. These singles were collected on "Singles Going Steady", described by critic Ned Raggett as a "punk masterpiece".
Devoto and Shelley chose the name "Buzzcocks" after reading the headline, "It's the Buzz, Cock!", in a review of the TV series "Rock Follies" in "Time Out" magazine. The "buzz" is the excitement of playing on stage; "cock" is northern English slang meaning "friend". They thought it captured the excitement of the nascent punk scene, as well as having humorous sexual connotations following Peter Shelley's time working in a Bolton adult shop. Per the band, there is no "the" in Buzzcocks.
Devoto left the band in 1977, after which Pete Shelley became the principal singer-songwriter. Shelley died on 6 December 2018, but the band has remained active with guitarist and co-founding member Steve Diggle assuming lead vocal duties. They added a new guitarist Mani Perazzoli. They are still touring and draw in large crowds from around the world.
Howard Trafford, a student at Bolton Institute of Technology, placed a notice in the college looking for musicians sharing a liking for The Velvet Underground's song "Sister Ray". Peter McNeish, a fellow student at the Institute, responded to the notice. Trafford had previously been involved in electronic music, while McNeish had played rock.
By late 1975, Trafford and McNeish had recruited a drummer and formed, in effect, an embryonic version of Buzzcocks. The band formed, officially, in February 1976; McNeish assumed the stage name Pete Shelley and Trafford named himself Howard Devoto. They performed live for the first time on 1 April 1976 at their college. Garth Davies played bass guitar and Mick Singleton played drums. Singleton also played in local band Black Cat Bone.
After reading an "NME" review of the Sex Pistols' first performance, Shelley and Devoto travelled to London together to see the Sex Pistols in February 1976. Shelley and Devoto were impressed by what they saw and arranged for the Sex Pistols to come and perform at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester, in June 1976. Buzzcocks intended to play at this concert, but the other musicians dropped out, and Shelley and Devoto were unable to recruit other musicians in time for the gig. Once they had recruited bass guitarist Steve Diggle and drummer John Maher, they made their debut opening for the Sex Pistols' second Manchester concert in July 1976. A brief clip of Devoto-era Buzzcocks performing The Troggs' "I Can't Control Myself" appears in the "Punk: Attitude" documentary directed by Don Letts. In September 1976 the band travelled to London to perform at the two-day 100 Club Punk Festival, organised by Malcolm McLaren. Other performers included: the Sex Pistols, Subway Sect, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Clash, The Vibrators, The Damned and the French band Stinky Toys.
By the end of the year, Buzzcocks had recorded and released a four-track EP, "Spiral Scratch", on their own "New Hormones" label, making them one of the first punk groups to establish an independent record label, trailing only The Saints' "(I'm) Stranded". Produced by Martin Hannett, the music was roughly recorded, insistently repetitive, and energetic. "Boredom" announced punk's rebellion against the status quo while templating a strident musical minimalism (the guitar solo consisting of two repeated notes). The demos recorded while Devoto was in the band were later issued officially as "Time's Up". Long available as a bootleg, this album includes the alternative takes of all the tracks from the "Spiral Scratch" EP as well as early version of tracks that later appeared on the official debut "Another Music in a Different Kitchen".
After a few months, Devoto left the group, expressing his dissatisfaction at the direction that punk was taking in his statement "what was once unhealthily fresh is now a clean old hat". He returned to college for a year, then formed Magazine. Pete Shelley took on the vocal duties; his high-pitched, melodic singing stood in stark contrast to the gruff pub rock vocal stylings of many punk contemporaries. Steve Diggle switched from bass to guitar, and Garth Davies (a.k.a. Garth Smith) rejoined on bass. While Davies appeared on the band's first Radio 1 Peel Session, in September 1977, his alleged unreliability led to his expulsion from the band. (He later joined New York band Dirty Looks.) Davies was replaced by Steve Garvey. This new line-up signed with United Artists Records – the signing itself was undertaken at Manchester's Electric Circus on 16 August 1977, the day Elvis Presley died.
Their first UA Buzzcocks single, "Orgasm Addict", was a playful examination of compulsive sexuality that was (and remains) uncommonly bold. The BBC refused to play the song, and the single did not sell well. Later, more ambiguous songs staked out a territory defined by Shelley's bisexuality and punk's aversion to serious examination of human sexuality. The next single, "What Do I Get?" reached the UK top 50 chart. "Lipstick", the B-side to "Promises," shared the same ascending progression of notes in its chorus as Magazine's first single, "Shot By Both Sides," also released in 1978.
Their original career produced three LPs: "Another Music in a Different Kitchen", "Love Bites", and "A Different Kind of Tension", each supported by extensive touring in Europe and the U.S.A. Their trademark sound was a marriage of catchy pop melodies with punk guitar energy, backed by an unusually tight and skilled rhythm section. They advanced drastically in musical and lyrical sophistication: by the end they were quoting USA writer William S. Burroughs ("A Different Kind of Tension"), declaiming their catechism in the anthem "I Believe", and tuning in to a fantasy radio station on which their songs could be heard ("Radio Nine"). In 1980, Liberty Records signed the band, and released three singles. The double 'A' side "Why She's A Girl From The Chainstore/Are Everything" made the Top 75.
In parallel with Buzzcocks, Pete Shelley formed a more experimental and post-punk band, The Tiller Boys, along with Eric Random and Francis Cookson, while Steve Garvey joined The Teardrops in 1978, along with The Fall's Tony Friel and Karl Burns; both bands were releasing material in late 1970s and broke up at the same time as Buzzcocks.
After recording demos for a fourth album the group disbanded in 1981, when Shelley took up a solo career. Diggle and Maher formed Flag of Convenience, who released several singles between 1982 and 1989. Garvey formed Motivation and joined Blue Orchids, moving to New York, shortly afterwards, to continue with the first band. Maher had joined Wah! by the time Buzzcocks broke up. Shelley and Devoto teamed up in 2002 for the first time since 1976, producing the album "Buzzkunst", 'Kunst' being the German word for 'Art'. The album was a mix of electronic music and punk.
John Maher now owns and runs John Maher Racing, a vintage Volkswagen performance tuning workshop located on the Isle of Harris, Scotland. He has built and raced several Volkswagen Beetles. In 2005, Shelley re-recorded "Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)" with an all-star group, including Roger Daltrey, David Gilmour, Peter Hook, Elton John, Robert Plant and several contemporary bands, as a tribute to John Peel. Proceeds went to Amnesty International. Shelley also performed the song live, with Plant, Daltrey, Gilmour, Hook and Jeff Beck at the 2005 UK Music Hall of Fame.
Buzzcocks have reformed several times since 1989, featuring Shelley and Diggle with other musicians; initially with Maher and Garvey for a world tour, then briefly replacing Maher with Smiths drummer Mike Joyce. In 1992, Tony Barber joined on bass and Phil Barker on drums. This line-up toured on one of Nirvana's last-ever tours in 1994. Buzzcocks toured as support for Pearl Jam in 2003. In April 2006, Barker left and was replaced by Danny Farrant. In March 2006, the band released their eighth studio album, "Flat-Pack Philosophy", on Cooking Vinyl Records, the supporting tour found them playing on a leg of the mid-2006 Vans Warped Tour.
They made an appearance for Maxïmo Park's homecoming gig in Newcastle upon Tyne on 15 December 2007.
In April 2008, Barber left and was replaced by Chris Remington.
In January 2009 the band embarked on a UK and European tour, the "Another Bites Tour", in which they played their first two albums in full, as well as an encore of their other hits.
In July 2009, Buzzcocks played in Serbia for the second time, at the EXIT festival in Novi Sad. Their song, "Why Can't I Touch It" was played in the second episode of the sixth season of TV series "Entourage".
On 9 November 2009, Buzzcocks gave a very rare performance on a small balcony overlooking Dame Street in Dublin, for the music viral show BalconyTV.
In December 2009, they played as the main support act for The Courteeners. In August 2011, they headlined the first night of The Rhythm Festival in Bedfordshire.
In November 2011, it was announced they would be playing two shows in 2012 that would feature the original line-up, as well as the classic line-up of the band reunited for the first time in many years; these shows took place on 25 May 2012 in Manchester at the O2 Apollo and on 26 May in Brixton at the O2 Academy. It was announced on 26 May 2012 that, for the first time, they would headline Thursday night in the Empress Ballroom at the Rebellion Festival in Blackpool, sharing the stage with Rancid, Public Image Limited and Social Distortion.
On 1 May 2014, Buzzcocks released the album "The Way" via PledgeMusic. On 13 September 2014 Buzzcocks played "a brief but triumphant set" at Riot Fest 2014 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. In October 2014 Buzzcocks toured the U.K. for three weeks with The Dollyrots as main support.
In 2016, the band embarked on their 40th-anniversary tour (dubbed "Buzzcocks 40"). In 2017, "Why Can't I Touch It" was featured in the opening segment of the Telltale game "'".
Pete Shelley died on 6 December 2018 from a suspected heart attack at his home in Tallinn, Estonia.
In June 2019, Buzzcocks performed with a number of guest vocalists as a tribute to Shelley. The concert had been planned before Shelley's passing.
Steve Diggle has said that Buzzcocks will continue with the post-Shelley Buzzcocks being a 'new era'.
Current
Former
Timeline
Buzzcocks' name was combined with the title of the Sex Pistols album "Never Mind the Bollocks" to create the title of the long-running UK comedy TV panel game show "Never Mind the Buzzcocks". Diggle claimed in his autobiography that he and Shelley had only granted the BBC use of their name under the impression that it would be a one-off, probably unsuccessful pilot, and that they are now mildly disgruntled that the name is more readily associated in Britain with the TV series than with their band. Shelley himself appeared on the programme in 2000, where host Mark Lamarr introduced Shelley by saying that without Buzzcocks 'there'd be no Smiths or Radiohead, and this show would be called "Never Mind Joan Armatrading!'"" | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30645 |
Tidal acceleration
Tidal acceleration is an effect of the tidal forces between an orbiting natural satellite (e.g. the Moon), and the primary planet that it orbits (e.g. Earth). The acceleration causes a gradual recession of a satellite in a prograde orbit away from the primary, and a corresponding slowdown of the primary's rotation. The process eventually leads to tidal locking, usually of the smaller first, and later the larger body. The Earth–Moon system is the best-studied case.
The similar process of tidal deceleration occurs for satellites that have an orbital period that is shorter than the primary's rotational period, or that orbit in a retrograde direction.
The naming is somewhat confusing, because the speed of the satellite relative to the body it orbits is "decreased" as a result of tidal acceleration, and "increased" as a result of tidal deceleration.
Edmond Halley was the first to suggest, in 1695, that the mean motion of the Moon was apparently getting faster, by comparison with ancient eclipse observations, but he gave no data. (It was not yet known in Halley's time that what is actually occurring includes a slowing-down of Earth's rate of rotation: see also Ephemeris time – History. When measured as a function of mean solar time rather than uniform time, the effect appears as a positive acceleration.) In 1749 Richard Dunthorne confirmed Halley's suspicion after re-examining ancient records, and produced the first quantitative estimate for the size of this apparent effect: a centurial rate of +10″ (arcseconds) in lunar longitude, which is a surprisingly accurate result for its time, not differing greatly from values assessed later, "e.g." in 1786 by de Lalande, and to compare with values from about 10″ to nearly 13″ being derived about a century later.
Pierre-Simon Laplace produced in 1786 a theoretical analysis giving a basis on which the Moon's mean motion should accelerate in response to perturbational changes in the eccentricity of the orbit of Earth around the Sun. Laplace's initial computation accounted for the whole effect, thus seeming to tie up the theory neatly with both modern and ancient observations.
However, in 1854, John Couch Adams caused the question to be re-opened by finding an error in Laplace's computations: it turned out that only about half of the Moon's apparent acceleration could be accounted for on Laplace's basis by the change in Earth's orbital eccentricity. Adams' finding provoked a sharp astronomical controversy that lasted some years, but the correctness of his result, agreed upon by other mathematical astronomers including C. E. Delaunay, was eventually accepted. The question depended on correct analysis of the lunar motions, and received a further complication with another discovery, around the same time, that another significant long-term perturbation that had been calculated for the Moon (supposedly due to the action of Venus) was also in error, was found on re-examination to be almost negligible, and practically had to disappear from the theory. A part of the answer was suggested independently in the 1860s by Delaunay and by William Ferrel: tidal retardation of Earth's rotation rate was lengthening the unit of time and causing a lunar acceleration that was only apparent.
It took some time for the astronomical community to accept the reality and the scale of tidal effects. But eventually it became clear that three effects are involved, when measured in terms of mean solar time. Beside the effects of perturbational changes in Earth's orbital eccentricity, as found by Laplace and corrected by Adams, there are two tidal effects (a combination first suggested by Emmanuel Liais). First there is a real retardation of the Moon's angular rate of orbital motion, due to tidal exchange of angular momentum between Earth and Moon. This increases the Moon's angular momentum around Earth (and moves the Moon to a higher orbit with a lower orbital speed). Secondly, there is an apparent increase in the Moon's angular rate of orbital motion (when measured in terms of mean solar time). This arises from Earth's loss of angular momentum and the consequent increase in length of day.
Because the Moon's mass is a considerable fraction of that of Earth (about 1:81), the two bodies can be regarded as a double planet system, rather than as a planet with a satellite. The plane of the Moon's orbit around Earth lies close to the plane of Earth's orbit around the Sun (the ecliptic), rather than in the plane perpendicular to the axis of rotation of Earth (the equator) as is usually the case with planetary satellites. The mass of the Moon is sufficiently large, and it is sufficiently close, to raise tides in the matter of Earth. In particular, the water of the oceans bulges out towards and away from the Moon. The average tidal bulge is synchronized with the Moon's orbit, and Earth rotates under this tidal bulge in just over a day. However, Earth's rotation drags the position of the tidal bulge ahead of the position directly under the Moon. As a consequence, there exists a substantial amount of mass in the bulge that is offset from the line through the centers of Earth and the Moon. Because of this offset, a portion of the gravitational pull between Earth's tidal bulges and the Moon is not parallel to the Earth–Moon line, i.e. there exists a torque between Earth and the Moon. Since the bulge nearer the Moon pulls more strongly on it than the bulge further away, this torque boosts the Moon in its orbit and slows the rotation of Earth.
As a result of this process, the mean solar day, which is nominally 86,400 seconds long, is actually getting longer when measured in SI seconds with stable atomic clocks. (The SI second, when adopted, was already a little shorter than the current value of the second of mean solar time.) The small difference accumulates over time, which leads to an increasing difference between our clock time (Universal Time) on the one hand, and Atomic Time and Ephemeris Time on the other hand: see ΔT. This led to the introduction of the leap second in 1972 to compensate for differences in the bases for time standardization.
In addition to the effect of the ocean tides, there is also a tidal acceleration due to flexing of Earth's crust, but this accounts for only about 4% of the total effect when expressed in terms of heat dissipation.
If other effects were ignored, tidal acceleration would continue until the rotational period of Earth matched the orbital period of the Moon. At that time, the Moon would always be overhead of a single fixed place on Earth. Such a situation already exists in the Pluto–Charon system. However, the slowdown of Earth's rotation is not occurring fast enough for the rotation to lengthen to a month before other effects make this irrelevant: About 1 to 1.5 billion years from now, the continual increase of the Sun's radiation will likely cause Earth's oceans to vaporize, removing the bulk of the tidal friction and acceleration. Even without this, the slowdown to a month-long day would still not have been completed by 4.5 billion years from now when the Sun will probably evolve into a red giant and likely destroy both Earth and the Moon.
Tidal acceleration is one of the few examples in the dynamics of the Solar System of a so-called secular perturbation of an orbit, i.e. a perturbation that continuously increases with time and is not periodic. Up to a high order of approximation, mutual gravitational perturbations between major or minor planets only cause periodic variations in their orbits, that is, parameters oscillate between maximum and minimum values. The tidal effect gives rise to a quadratic term in the equations, which leads to unbounded growth. In the mathematical theories of the planetary orbits that form the basis of ephemerides, quadratic and higher order secular terms do occur, but these are mostly Taylor expansions of very long time periodic terms. The reason that tidal effects are different is that unlike distant gravitational perturbations, friction is an essential part of tidal acceleration, and leads to permanent loss of energy from the dynamic system in the form of heat. In other words, we do not have a Hamiltonian system here.
The gravitational torque between the Moon and the tidal bulge of Earth causes the Moon to be constantly promoted to a slightly higher orbit and Earth to be decelerated in its rotation. As in any physical process within an isolated system, total energy and angular momentum are conserved. Effectively, energy and angular momentum are transferred from the rotation of Earth to the orbital motion of the Moon (however, most of the energy lost by Earth (−3.321 TW) is converted to heat by frictional losses in the oceans and their interaction with the solid Earth, and only about 1/30th (+0.121 TW) is transferred to the Moon). The Moon moves farther away from Earth (+38.247±0.004 mm/y), so its potential energy, which is still negative (in Earth's gravity well), increases, i. e. becomes less negative. It stays in orbit, and from Kepler's 3rd law it follows that its angular velocity actually decreases, so the tidal action on the Moon actually causes an angular deceleration, i.e. a negative acceleration (−25.858±0.003"/century2) of its rotation around Earth. The actual speed of the Moon also decreases. Although its kinetic energy decreases, its potential energy increases by a larger amount, i. e. Ep = -2Ec (Virial Theorem).
The rotational angular momentum of Earth decreases and consequently the length of the day increases. The "net" tide raised on Earth by the Moon is dragged ahead of the Moon by Earth's much faster rotation. Tidal friction is required to drag and maintain the bulge ahead of the Moon, and it dissipates the excess energy of the exchange of rotational and orbital energy between Earth and the Moon as heat. If the friction and heat dissipation were not present, the Moon's gravitational force on the tidal bulge would rapidly (within two days) bring the tide back into synchronization with the Moon, and the Moon would no longer recede. Most of the dissipation occurs in a turbulent bottom boundary layer in shallow seas such as the European Shelf around the British Isles, the Patagonian Shelf off Argentina, and the Bering Sea.
The dissipation of energy by tidal friction averages about 3.75 terawatts, of which 2.5 terawatts are from the principal M lunar component and the remainder from other components, both lunar and solar.
An "equilibrium tidal bulge" does not really exist on Earth because the continents do not allow this mathematical solution to take place. Oceanic tides actually rotate around the ocean basins as vast "gyres" around several "amphidromic points" where no tide exists. The Moon pulls on each individual undulation as Earth rotates—some undulations are ahead of the Moon, others are behind it, whereas still others are on either side. The "bulges" that actually do exist for the Moon to pull on (and which pull on the Moon) are the net result of integrating the actual undulations over all the world's oceans. Earth's "net" (or "equivalent") equilibrium tide has an amplitude of only 3.23 cm, which is totally swamped by oceanic tides that can exceed one metre.
This mechanism has been working for 4.5 billion years, since oceans first formed on Earth. There is geological and paleontological evidence that Earth rotated faster and that the Moon was closer to Earth in the remote past. "Tidal rhythmites" are alternating layers of sand and silt laid down offshore from estuaries having great tidal flows. Daily, monthly and seasonal cycles can be found in the deposits. This geological record is consistent with these conditions 620 million years ago: the day was 21.9±0.4 hours, and there were 13.1±0.1 synodic months/year and 400±7 solar days/year. The average recession rate of the Moon between then and now has been 2.17±0.31 cm/year, which is about half the present rate. The present high rate may be due to near resonance between natural ocean frequencies and tidal frequencies.
Analysis of layering in fossil mollusc shells from 70 million years ago, in the Late Cretaceous period, shows that there were 372 days a year, and thus that the day was about 23.5 hours long then.
The motion of the Moon can be followed with an accuracy of a few centimeters by lunar laser ranging (LLR). Laser pulses are bounced off mirrors on the surface of the Moon, emplaced during the Apollo missions of 1969 to 1972 and by Lunokhod 2 in 1973. Measuring the return time of the pulse yields a very accurate measure of the distance. These measurements are fitted to the equations of motion. This yields numerical values for the Moon's secular deceleration, i.e. negative acceleration, in longitude and the rate of change of the semimajor axis of the Earth–Moon ellipse. From the period 1970–2012, the results are:
This is consistent with results from satellite laser ranging (SLR), a similar technique applied to artificial satellites orbiting Earth, which yields a model for the gravitational field of Earth, including that of the tides. The model accurately predicts the changes in the motion of the Moon.
Finally, ancient observations of solar eclipses give fairly accurate positions for the Moon at those moments. Studies of these observations give results consistent with the value quoted above.
The other consequence of tidal acceleration is the deceleration of the rotation of Earth. The rotation of Earth is somewhat erratic on all time scales (from hours to centuries) due to various causes. The small tidal effect cannot be observed in a short period, but the cumulative effect on Earth's rotation as measured with a stable clock (ephemeris time, atomic time) of a shortfall of even a few milliseconds every day becomes readily noticeable in a few centuries. Since some event in the remote past, more days and hours have passed (as measured in full rotations of Earth) (Universal Time) than would be measured by stable clocks calibrated to the present, longer length of the day (ephemeris time). This is known as ΔT. Recent values can be obtained from the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS). A table of the actual length of the day in the past few centuries is also available.
From the observed change in the Moon's orbit, the corresponding change in the length of the day can be computed:
However, from historical records over the past 2700 years the following average value is found:
By twice integrating over the time, the corresponding cumulative value is a parabola having a coefficient of T2 (time in centuries squared) of (1/2) 62 s/cy2 :
Opposing the tidal deceleration of Earth is a mechanism that is in fact accelerating the rotation. Earth is not a sphere, but rather an ellipsoid that is flattened at the poles. SLR has shown that this flattening is decreasing. The explanation is that during the ice age large masses of ice collected at the poles, and depressed the underlying rocks. The ice mass started disappearing over 10000 years ago, but Earth's crust is still not in hydrostatic equilibrium and is still rebounding (the relaxation time is estimated to be about 4000 years). As a consequence, the polar diameter of Earth increases, and the equatorial diameter decreases (Earth's volume must remain the same). This means that mass moves closer to the rotation axis of Earth, and that Earth's moment of inertia decreases. This process alone leads to an increase of the rotation rate (phenomenon of a spinning figure skater who spins ever faster as they retract their arms). From the observed change in the moment of inertia the acceleration of rotation can be computed: the average value over the historical period must have been about −0.6 ms/century. This largely explains the historical observations.
Most natural satellites of the planets undergo tidal acceleration to some degree (usually small), except for the two classes of tidally decelerated bodies. In most cases, however, the effect is small enough that even after billions of years most satellites will not actually be lost. The effect is probably most pronounced for Mars's second moon Deimos, which may become an Earth-crossing asteroid after it leaks out of Mars's grip.
The effect also arises between different components in a binary star.
This comes in two varieties:
Mercury and Venus are believed to have no satellites chiefly because any hypothetical satellite would have suffered deceleration long ago and crashed into the planets due to the very slow rotation speeds of both planets; in addition, Venus also has retrograde rotation.
Neglecting axial tilt, the tidal force a satellite (such as the Moon) exerts on a planet (such as Earth) can be described by the variation of its gravitational force over the distance from it, when this force is considered as applied to a unit mass formula_1:
where "G" is the universal gravitational constant, "m" is the satellite mass and "r" is the distance between the satellite and the planet.
Thus the satellite creates a disturbing potential on the planet, whose difference between the planet center and the closest (or farthest) point to the satellite is:
where "A" is the planet radius.
The size of the tidal bulge created on the planet can be estimated as roughly the ratio between this disturbing potential and the planet surface gravity:
A more exact calculation gives:
assuming we neglect a second order effect due to rigidity of the planet material.
For the Moon-Earth system ("m" = 7.3 x 1022 kg, "M" = 6×1024 kg, "A" = 6.4 × 106 m, "r" = 3.8 × 108), this gives 0.7 meters, close to the true value for ocean tides height (roughly one meter).
Note that two bulges are formed, one centered roughly around the point nearest to the satellite and the other centered roughly around the point farthest from it.
Due to planet rotation, the bulges lags somewhat behind (?, is ahead of) the planet-satellite axis, which creates an angle formula_6 between the two. The size of this lag angle depends on inertia and (much more importantly) on dissipation forces (e.g. friction) exerted on the bulge.
The satellite applies different forces on the close and far bulges. The difference is roughly formula_7 times the planet diameter, where we replace the unit mass in the calculation above with the approximate mass of each bulge, formula_8 (where "ρ" is the mass density of the bulge):
where we took into consideration the effect of the lag angle formula_6.
In order to get a rough estimation for the torque exerted by the satellite on the planet, we need to multiply this difference with the lever length (which is the planet diameter), and with the sine of the lag angle, giving:
A more exact calculation adds a 2/5 factor due to the planet spherical form and gives:
Inserting the value of "H" found above this is:
This can be written as:
Where "k" is a factor related that can be expressed by Love numbers, taking into considerations non-uniformity in the planet mass density; corrections due to planet rigidity, neglected above, also enter here. For Earth, most of the bulge is made of sea water and has no correction for rigidity, but its mass density is 0.18 the average Earth mass density (1 g/cm3 vs. 5.5 g/cm3), so formula_15. The literature uses a close value of 0.2 (formula_16 )
A similar calculation can be done for the tides created on the planet by the Sun. Here, "m" should be replaced by the mass of the Sun, and "r" by the distance to the Sun. Since "α" depends on the dissipation properties of Earth, it is expected to be the same for both. The resulting torque is 20% that exerted by the Moon.
The work exerted by the satellite over the planet is created by a force "F" acting along the path of movement of a mass units moving in velocity "u" in the planet (in fact, in the bulge).
Forces and locations depend on the relative angle to the planet-satellite axis "θ", that changes periodically with the angular momentum "Ω". Since the force in the planet spherical coordinate system is symmetrical in the direction towards the satellite and in the opposite direction (it is outwards in both), the dependence is approximated as sinusoidal in 2"θ". Thus the force exerted on a unit mass is of the form:
and the translation projected on the same direction is of the form:
due to the lag angle.
The velocity component in the direction of the force is therefore:
And so the total work exerted over a unit mass during one cycle is:
In fact, almost all of this is dissipated (e.g. as friction), as explained below.
Looking now at the total energy from the satellite potential in one of the bulges, this is equal to the total work performed on this in a quarter of the total angular range, i.e. from zero to maximal displacement:
where we have defined formula_22, and approximated for small "α" in the last equality, thus neglecting it.
The fraction of energy dissipated in each cycle is represented by the effective specific dissipation function, denoted by formula_23 and defined as the total dissipation in one cycle divided by formula_24. This gives:
The value of this is estimated as 1/13 for Earth, where the bulge is mainly liquid, 10−1-10−2 for the other inner planets and the Moon, where the bulge is mainly solid, and as 10−3–10−5 for the outer, mostly gaseous planets.
With this value for Earth at hand, the torque can be calculated to be 4.4×1016 N m, only 13% above the measured value of 3.9×1016 N m.
Note that in the distant past, the value of formula_26 for the Earth–Moon system was probably somewhat smaller.
Again neglecting axial tilt, The change over time in the planet angular momentum "L" is equal to the torque. "L" in turn is the product of the angular velocity Ω with the moment of inertia "I".
For a spherical planet of approximately uniform mass density, formula_27, where "f" is a factor depending on the planet structure; a spherical planet of uniform density has "f" = 2/5 = 0.4. Since the angular momentum This gives:
Since the Earth density is larger at depth, its moment of inertia is somewhat smaller, with "f" = 0.33.
For the Earth-Moon system, taking formula_29 of 1/13 and "k" = 0.2, we get the deceleration of the Earth's rotation d"Ω"/d"t" = -4.5×10−22 radian sec−2 = -924.37 " cy-2 which corresponds to the acceleration of the length of the day (LOD) of 61 s/cy2 or 1.7 ms/d/cy or 46 ns/d2. For a 24-hour day, this is equivalent to an increase of 17 seconds in 1 million years for the LOD, or 1 hour (i.e. lengthening of the day by 1 hour) in 210 million years. Due to the additional 20% effect of the Sun, the day lengthens by 1 hour in approximately 180 million years.
A similar calculation shows that the Earth had exerted angular momentum through tidal friction on the Moon self-rotation, before this became tidally locked. At that period, one calculates the change in the Moon angular momentum "ω" in the same manner as for "Ω" above, except that "m" and "M" should be is switched, and "A" should be replaced by the Moon radius "a" = 1.7×106 meter. Taking formula_29 of 10−1 — 10−2 as for the solid planets and "k" = 1, this gives the deceleration of the Moon's rotation d"ω"/d"t" = -3×10−17 — −3×10−18 radian sec-2. For a 29.5-day long rotation period, this is equivalent to 1.5 — 15 minutes in 1 year, or 1 day in 102 — 103 years. Thus in astronomical timescales, the Moon became tidally locked very fast.
Due to conservation of angular momentum, a torque of the same size as the one exerted by the satellite and of opposite direction is exerted by the planet on the satellite motion around the planet. Another effect, which will not be dealt with here, is the changes in the eccentricity and inclination of the orbit.
The moment of inertia of this motion is "m" "r"2. However now "r" itself depends on the angular velocity which we denote here "n": according to Newtonian analysis of orbital motion:
Thus the satellite orbit angular momentum, "ℓ", satisfies (neglecting eccentricity):
Additionally, since formula_33, we have:
Note that assuming all rotations are on the same direction and "Ω" > "ω", as time passes, the angular momentum of the planet decreases and hence that of the satellite orbit increases. Due to its relation with the planet-satellite distance, the latter increases, so the angular velocity of the satellite orbit decreases.
For the Earth-Moon system, d"r"/d"t" gives 1.212×10−9 meter per second (or nm/s), or 3.8247 cm per year (or also m/cy)[24]. This is a 1% increase in the Earth-Moon distance in 100 million years. The deceleration of the Moon d"n"/d"t" is -1.2588×10−23 radian sec−2 or -25.858 "/cy2, and for a period of 29.5 days (a synodic month) is equivalent to an increase of 38 ms/cy, or 7 minutes in 1 million years, or 1 day (i.e. lengthening of the lunar period in 1 day) in 210 million years.
The Sun-planet system has two tidal friction effects. One effect is that the Sun creates a tidal friction in the planet, which decreases its spinning angular momentum and hence also increases its orbital angular momentum around the Sun, hence increasing its distance and reducing its angular velocity (assuming the orbital angular velocity of the Sun is smaller than that of the planet spinning; otherwise directions of change are opposite).
If "M"S is the Sun mass and "D" is the distance to it, then the rate of change of "D" is given, similar to the above calculation, by:
The planet orbital angular velocity, "Ω"S, then changes as:
For the Earth-Sun system, this gives 1×10−13 meters per second, or 3 meters in 1 million years. This is a 1% increase in the Earth-Sun distance in half a billion years. The deceleration of the Earth's orbital angular velocity is -2×10−31 radian sec2 or -410×10-9 "/cy2, or equivalently for a 1-year period, 1 second in 1 billion years.
Another, relatively negligible, effect is that the planet creates tidal friction in the Sun. This creates a change in the distance to the Sun and the orbital angular velocity around it, as it does for the satellite in the satellite-planet system. Using the same equations but now for the planet-Sun system, with "A"S standing for the Sun radius (7×108 meters), we have:
where "k"S is a factor, presumably very small, due to the non-uniformity of mass densities of the Sun. Assuming this factor times "sin"(2"α"S) to be not larger than what is found in the outer planets, i.e. 10−3 — 10−5, we have a negligible contribution from this effect.
The potential per mass unit that the Moon creates on Earth, whose center is located at distance "r"0 from the Moon along the "z"-axis,
in the Earth–Moon rotating frame of reference, and in coordinates centered at the Earth center, is:
where formula_40 is the distance from the Moon to the center of mass of the Earth–Moon system, "ω" is the angular velocity of the Earth around this point (the same as the lunar orbital angular velocity). The second term is the effective potential due to the centrifugal force of the Earth.
We expand the potential in Taylor series around the point. The linear term must vanish (at least on average in time) since otherwise the force on the Earth center would be non vanishing. Thus:
Moving to spherical coordinates this gives:
where formula_43 are the Legendre polynomials.
The constant term has no mechanical importance, while the formula_44 causes a fixed dilation, and is not directly involved in creating a torque.
Thus we focus on the other terms, whose sum we denote formula_45, and mainly on the formula_46 term which is the largest,
as formula_47 is at most the ratio of the Earth radius to its distance from the Moon, which is less than 2%.
We treat the potential created by the Moon as a perturbation to the Earth's gravitational potential. Thus the height on Earth at angles formula_48, formula_49 is:
where formula_51, and the amplitude of "δ" is proportional to the perturbation. We expand "δ" in Legendre polynomials, where the constant term (which stands for dilation) will be ignored as we are not interested in it. Thus:
where "δ"n are unknown constants we would like to find.
We assume for the moment total equilibrium, as well as no rigidity on Earth (e.g. as in a liquid Earth). Therefore, its surface is equipotential, and so formula_53 is constant, where formula_54 is the Earth potential per unit mass. Since "δ" is proportional to formula_55, which is much smaller than "V"E, This can be expanded in "δ". Dropping non-linear terms we have:
Note that formula_58 is the force per unit mass from Earth's gravity, i.e. formula_59 is just the gravitational acceleration "g".
Since the Legendre polynomials are orthogonal, we may equate their coefficients n both sides of the equation, giving:
Thus the height is the ratio between the perturbation potential and the force from the perturbated potential.
So far we have neglected the fact that the deformation itself creates a perturbative potential. In order to account for this, we may calculate this perturbative potential, re-calculate the deformation and continue so iteratively.
Let us assume the mass density is uniform. Since "δ" is much smaller than "A", the deformation can be treated as a thin shell added to the mass of the Earth, where the shell has a surface mass density "ρ" "δ" (and can also be negative), with "ρ" being the mass density (if mass density is not uniform, then the change of shape of the planet creates differences in mass distribution in all depth, and this has to be taken into account as well). Since the gravitation potential has the same form as the electric potential, this is a simple problem in electrostatics. For the analogous electrostatic problem, the potential created by the shell has the form:
where the surface charge density is proportional to the discontinuity in the gradient of the potential:
formula_65 is the vacuum permittivity, a constant relevant to electrostatics, related to the equation formula_66. The analogous equation in gravity is formula_67, so if charge density is replaced with mass density, formula_65 should be replaced with formula_69.
Thus in the gravitational problem we have:
So that, again due to the orthogonality of Legendre polynomials:
Thus the perturbative potential per mass unit for formula_72 is:
Note that since Earth's mass density is in fact not uniform, this result must be multiplied by a factor that is roughly the ratio of the bulge mass density and the average Earth mass, approximately 0.18. The actual factor is somewhat larger, since there is some deformation in the deeper solid layers of Earth as well. Let us denote this factor by "x". Rigidity also lowers "x", though this is less relevant for most of the bulge, made of sea water.
The deformation was created by the a perturbative potential of size formula_74. Thus for each coefficient of formula_75, the ratio of the original perturbative potential to that secondarily created by the deformation is:
with "x" = 1 for perfectly a non-rigid uniform planet.
This secondary perturbative potential creates another deformation which again creates a perturbative potential and so on ad infinitum, so that the total deformation is of the size:
For each mode, the ratio to "δ""n", the naive estimation of the deformation, is formula_78 and is denoted as Love number formula_79. For a perfectly a non-rigid uniform planet (e.g. a liquid Earth of non-compressible liquid), this is equal to formula_80, and for the main mode of "n" = 2, it is 5/2.
Similarly, "n"-th mode of the tidal perturbative potential per unit mass created by Earth at "r" = "A" is the Love number kn times the corresponding term in the original lunar tidal perturbative potential, where for a uniform mass density, zero rigidity planet "k""n" is:
For a perfectly a non-rigid uniform planet (e.g. a liquid Earth of non-compressible liquid), this is equal to 3/2. In fact, for the main mode of "n" 2, the real value for Earth is a fifth of it, namely "k"2 = 0.3 (which fits "c"2 = 0.23 or "x" = 0.38, roughly twice the density ratios of 0.18).
Instead of calculating the torque exerted by the Moon on the Earth deformation, we calculate the reciprocal torque exerted by the Earth deformation on the Moon; both must be equal.
The potential created by the Earth bulge is the perturbative potential we have discussed above. Per unit mass, for "r" = "A", this is the same as the lunar perturbative potential creating the bulge, with each mode multiplied by "k""n", with the "n" = 2 mode far dominating the potential. Thus at "r" = "A" the bulge perturbative potential per unit mass is:
since the "n"-the mode it drops off as "r"−("n"+1) for "r" > "A", we have outside Earth:
However, the bulge actually lags at an angle "α" with respect to the direction to the Moon due to Earth's rotation. Thus we have:
The Moon is at "r" = "r"0, "θ" = 0. Thus the potential per unit mass at the Moon is:
Neglecting eccentricity and axial tilt, We get the torque exerted by the bulge on the Moon by multiplying :formula_86 with the Moon's mass "m", and differentiating with respect to "θ" at the Moon location. This is equivalent to differentiating formula_87 with respect to "α", and gives:
This is the same formula used above, with "r" = "r"0 and "k" there defined as 2"k"2/3. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30647 |
Timor
Timor is an island at the southern end of Maritime Southeast Asia, north of the Timor Sea. The island is divided between the sovereign states of East Timor on the eastern part and Indonesia on the western part. The Indonesian part, also known as West Timor, constitutes part of the province of East Nusa Tenggara. Within West Timor lies an exclave of East Timor called Oecusse District. The island covers an area of . The name is a variant of "timur", Malay for "east"; it is so called because it lies at the eastern end of the Lesser Sunda Islands. Mainland Australia is less than 500 km away, separated by the mentioned Timor Sea.
Anthropologists identify eleven distinct ethno-linguistic groups in Timor. The largest are the Atoni of western Timor, and the Tetum of central and eastern Timor. Most indigenous Timorese languages belong to the Timor–Babar branch of the Austronesian languages spoken throughout the Indonesian archipelago. Although lexical evidence is lacking, the non-Austronesian languages of Timor are thought to be related to languages spoken on Halmahera and in Western New Guinea. Some are so mixed it is difficult to tell which family they descend from.
The official languages of East Timor are Tetum and Portuguese, while in West Timor it is Indonesian. Indonesian is also widely spoken and understood in East Timor.
Christianity is the dominant religion throughout the island of Timor, at about 90% of the population, but unequally distributed as West Timor is 58% Protestant and 37% Catholic, and East Timor is 98% Catholic and 1% Protestant. Islam and animism make up most of the remainder at about 5% each across the island.
Timor is located north of Australia, and is one of the easternmost Sunda Islands. Together with Sumba, Babar and associated smaller islands, Timor forms the southern outer archipelago of the Lesser Sunda Islands with the inner islands of Flores, Alor and Wetar to the north, and beyond them Sulawesi.
Timor is the principal island of the Outer Banda Arc, which has been upthrust by collision with the Australian continent. Timor has older geology and lacks the volcanic nature of the northern Lesser Sunda Islands. The orientation of the main axis of the island also differs from its neighbors. These features have been explained as the result of being on the northern edge of the Indo-Australian Plate as it meets the Eurasian Plate and pushes into South East Asia. The climate includes a long dry season with hot winds blowing over from Australia. Rivers on the island include the Southern and Northern Laclo Rivers in East Timor.
The largest towns on the island are the provincial capital of Kupang in West Timor, Indonesia and the Portuguese colonial towns of Dili the capital, and Baucau in East Timor. Poor roads make transport to inland areas difficult, in East Timor especially. East Timor is a poor country, with health issues including malaria and dengue fever. Sources of revenue include gas and oil in the Timor Sea, coffee growing and tourism.
Timor and its offshore islands such as Atauro, a former place of exile increasingly known for its beaches and coral, as well as Jaco along with Wetar and the other Barat Daya Islands to the northeast constitute the Timor and Wetar deciduous forests ecoregion. The natural vegetation was tropical dry broadleaf forests with an undergrowth of shrubs and grasses supporting a rich wildlife. However much of the original forest has been cleared for farming, especially on the coasts of Timor and on the smaller islands like Atauro. Apart from one large block in the centre of Timor only patches remain. This ecoregion is part of the Wallacea area with a mixture of plants and animals of Asian and Australasian origin; it lies in the western part of Wallacea, in which Asian species predominate.
Many trees are deciduous or partly deciduous, dropping their leaves during the dry season, there are also evergreen and thorn trees in the woodland. Typical trees of the lowland slopes include "Sterculia foetida", "Calophyllum teysmannii" and "Aleurites moluccanus".
During the Pleistocene epoch, Timor was the abode of extinct giant monitor lizards similar to the Komodo dragon. Like Flores, Sumba and Sulawesi, Timor was also once a habitat of extinct dwarf stegodonts, relatives of elephants.
Fauna of today includes a number of endemic species such as the distinctive Timor shrew and Timor rat. The northern common cuscus, a marsupial of Australasian origin occurs as well, but is thought to be introduced. The island have a great number of birds, mainly of Asian origin with some of Australasian origin. There is a total of 250 species of which twenty four are endemic, due to the relative isolation of Timor, including five threatened species; the slaty cuckoo-dove, Wetar ground dove, Timor green pigeon, Timor imperial pigeon, and iris lorikeet.
Saltwater crocodiles are found in the wetlands whereas reticulated pythons can be found in forests and grasslands of Timor. However, the population sizes and status are unknown.
Frog species in Timor include "Duttaphrynus melanostictus", "Hoplobatrachus tigerinus", "Limnonectes timorensis", "Litoria everetti", and "Polypedates leucomystax". A new species of microlyhid frog belonging to the genus "Kaloula" has also recently been discovered in Timor.
Late Cretaceous fossils of marine vertebrates are known from East Timor deposits. These include mosasaurs such as "Globidens timorensis", lamniforme sharks, coelacanths and the choristodere "Champsosaurus".
The earliest historical record about Timor island is the 14th-century Nagarakretagama, Canto 14, that identifies "Timur" as an island within Majapahit's realm. Timor was incorporated into ancient Javanese, Chinese and Indian trading networks of the 14th century as an exporter of aromatic sandalwood, slaves, honey and wax, and was settled by both the Portuguese, in the end of the 16th century, and the Dutch, based in Kupang, in the mid-17th century.
As the nearest island with a European settlement at the time, Timor was the destination of William Bligh and seamen loyal to him following the infamous Mutiny on the "Bounty" in 1789. It was also where survivors of the wrecked , sent to arrest the "Bounty" mutineers, landed in 1791 after that ship sank in the Great Barrier Reef.
The island has been politically divided in two parts for centuries. The Dutch and Portuguese fought for control of the island until it was divided by treaty in 1859, but they still did not formally resolve the matter of the boundary until 1912. West Timor, was known as Dutch Timor until 1949 when it became Indonesian Timor, a part of the nation of Indonesia which was formed from the old Netherlands East Indies; while East Timor was known as Portuguese Timor, a Portuguese colony until 1975. It includes the exclave of Oecussi-Ambeno in West Timor.
Japanese forces occupied the whole island from 1942 to 1945. They were resisted in a guerrilla campaign led initially by Australian commandos.
Following the military coup in Portugal in 1974 the Portuguese began to withdraw from Timor, the subsequent internal unrest and fear of the communist Fretilin party led to an invasion by Indonesia, who opposed the concept of an independent East Timor. In 1975, East Timor was annexed by Indonesia and became known as "Timor Timur" or 'Tim-Tim' for short. It was regarded by Indonesia as the country's 27th province, but this was never recognised by the United Nations (UN) or Portugal.
The people of East Timor, through Falintil the military wing of Fretilin, resisted 35,000 Indonesian troops in a prolonged guerrilla campaign, but the whole island remained under Indonesian control until a referendum held in 1999 under a UN-sponsored agreement between Indonesia and Portugal in which its people rejected the offer of autonomy within Indonesia. The UN then temporarily governed East Timor until it became independent as Timor-Leste in 2002 under the presidency of Falintil leader Xanana Gusmão. Although political strife continued as the new nation coped with poverty the UN presence was much reduced.
A group of people on the Indonesian side of Timor have been reported active since 2001 trying to establish a Great Timor State. However, there is no real evidence whatsoever that the people of West Timor, most of whom are from Atoni ethnicity who are the traditional enemy of the East Timorese, have any interest in joining their tribal enemies. Additionally, East Timor's independence movement never laid claim to West Timor at any time, before the Indonesian invasion or thereafter. Similarly, the government of East Timor fully recognizes Indonesia's existing boundaries as inherited from the Netherlands East Indies. This is similar to the position taken by Papua New Guinea in relation to Western New Guinea, when the former became independent of Australia. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30648 |
Tetracycline
Tetracycline, sold under the brand name Sumycin among others, is an antibiotic used to treat a number of infections. This includes acne, cholera, brucellosis, plague, malaria, and syphilis. It is taken by mouth.
Common side effects include vomiting, diarrhea, rash, and loss of appetite. Other side effects include poor tooth development if used by children less than eight years of age, kidney problems, and sunburning easily. Use during pregnancy may harm the baby. Tetracycline is in the tetracyclines family of medications. It works by blocking the ability of bacteria to make proteins.
Tetracycline was patented in 1953 and came into commercial use in 1978. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines, the safest and most effective medicines needed in a health system. Tetracycline is available as a generic medication. The wholesale cost in the developing world is about 0.35 to 1.78 USD for a course of treatment. In the United States a course of treatment typically costs less than 25 USD. Tetracycline was originally made from bacteria of the "Streptomyces" type.
Tetracyclines have a broad spectrum of antibiotic action. Originally, they possessed some level of bacteriostatic activity against almost all medically relevant aerobic and anaerobic bacterial genera, both Gram-positive and Gram-negative, with a few exceptions, such as "Pseudomonas aeruginosa" and "Proteus" spp., which display intrinsic resistance. However, acquired (as opposed to inherent) resistance has proliferated in many pathogenic organisms and greatly eroded the formerly vast versatility of this group of antibiotics. Resistance amongst "Staphylococcus" spp., "Streptococcus" spp., "Neisseria gonorrhoeae", anaerobes, members of the Enterobacteriaceae, and several other previously sensitive organisms is now quite common. Tetracyclines remain especially useful in the management of infections by certain obligately intracellular bacterial pathogens such as "Chlamydia", "Mycoplasma", and "Rickettsia". They are also of value in spirochaetal infections, such as syphilis, leptospirosis, and Lyme disease. Certain rare or exotic infections, including anthrax, plague, and brucellosis, are also susceptible to tetracyclines. Tetracycline tablets were used in the plague outbreak in India in 1994. Tetracycline is first-line therapy for Rocky Mountain spotted fever ("Rickettsia"), Lyme disease ("B. burgdorferi"), Q fever ("Coxiella"), psittacosis, "Mycoplasma pneumoniae", and nasal carriage of meningococci.
It is also one of a group of antibiotics which together may be used to treat peptic ulcers caused by bacterial infections. The mechanism of action for the antibacterial effect of tetracyclines relies on disrupting protein translation in bacteria, thereby damaging the ability of microbes to grow and repair; however, protein translation is also disrupted in eukaryotic mitochondria leading to effects that may confound experimental results.
The following list presents MIC susceptibility data for some medically significant microorganisms:
The tetracyclines also have activity against certain eukaryotic parasites, including those responsible for diseases such as dysentery caused by an amoeba, malaria (a plasmodium), and balantidiasis (a ciliate).
Since tetracycline is absorbed into bone, it is used as a marker of bone growth for biopsies in humans. Tetracycline labeling is used to determine the amount of bone growth within a certain period of time, usually a period around 21 days. Tetracycline is incorporated into mineralizing bone and can be detected by its fluorescence. In "double tetracycline labeling", a second dose is given 11–14 days after the first dose, and the amount of bone formed during that interval can be calculated by measuring the distance between the two fluorescent labels.
Tetracycline is also used as a biomarker in wildlife to detect consumption of medicine- or vaccine-containing baits.
Use of tetracycline antibiotics can:
Caution should be exercised in long-term use when breastfeeding. Short-term use is safe; bioavailability in milk is low to nil. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), cases of Stevens–Johnson syndrome, toxic epidermal necrolysis, and erythema multiforme associated with doxycycline use have been reported, but a causative role has not been established.
Tetracycline inhibits protein synthesis by blocking the attachment of charged aminoacyl-tRNA to the A site on the ribosome. Tetracycline binds to the 30S and 50S subunit of microbial ribosomes. Thus, it prevents introduction of new amino acids to the nascent peptide chain. The action is usually inhibitory and reversible upon withdrawal of the drug. Mammalian cells are less vulnerable to the effect of tetracyclines, despite the fact that tetracycline binds to the small ribosomal subunit of both prokaryotes and eukaryotes (30S and 40S, respectively). This is because bacteria actively pump tetracycline into their cytoplasm, even against a concentration gradient, whereas mammalian cells do not. This accounts for the relatively small off-site effect of tetracycline on human cells.
Bacteria usually acquire resistance to tetracycline from horizontal transfer of a gene that either encodes an efflux pump or a ribosomal protection protein. Efflux pumps actively eject tetracycline from the cell, preventing the buildup of an inhibitory concentration of tetracycline in the cytoplasm. Ribosomal protection proteins interact with the ribosome and dislodge tetracycline from the ribosome, allowing for translation to continue.
The tetracyclines, a large family of antibiotics, were discovered by Benjamin Minge Duggar in 1948 as natural products, and first prescribed in 1948. Benjamin Duggar, working under Yellapragada Subbarow at Lederle Laboratories, discovered the first tetracycline antibiotic, chlortetracycline (Aureomycin), in 1945.
In 1950, Harvard University professor R.B. Woodward determined the chemical structure of the related substance, oxytetracycline (Terramycin); the patent protection for its fermentation and production was also first issued in that year. Chemist Lloyd Conover, in a research team of eight scientists at Pfizer, collaborated with Woodward over a two-year period, leading to tetracycline's discovery.
Pfizer was of the view that it deserved the right to a patent on tetracycline and filed its Conover application in October 1952. Cyanamid filed its Boothe-Morton application for similar rights in March 1953, while Heyden Chemicals filed its Minieri application in September 1953, named after scientist P. Paul Minieri, to obtain a patent on tetracycline and its fermentation process. This resulted in tetracycline litigation in which the winner would have to prove beyond reasonable doubt of priority invention and tetracycline's natural state.
Nubian mummies studied in the 1990s were found to contain significant levels of tetracycline; the beer brewed at the time was conjectured to have been the source.
According to data from EvaluatePharma and published in the "Boston Globe", the price of tetracycline rose from $0.06 per 250-mg pill in 2013 to $4.06 a pill in 2015. The "Globe" described the "big price hikes of some generic drugs" as a "relatively new phenomenon" which has left most pharmacists "grappling" with large upswings" in the "costs of generics, with 'overnight' price changes sometimes exceeding 1,000%."
It is marketed under the brand names Sumycin, Tetracyn, and Panmycin, among others. Actisite is a thread-like fiber formulation used in dental applications.
It is also used to produce several semisynthetic derivatives, which together are known as the tetracycline antibiotics. The term "tetracycline" is also used to denote the four-ring system of this compound; "tetracyclines" are related substances that contain the same four-ring system.
Due to the drug's association with fighting infections, it serves as the main "commodity" in the science fiction series Aftermath, with the search for tetracycline becoming a major preoccupation in later episodes.
In genetic engineering, tetracycline is used in transcriptional activation. It has been used as an engineered "control switch" in chronic myelogenous leukemia models in mice. Engineers were able to develop a retrovirus that induced a particular type of leukemia in mice, and could then "switch" the cancer on and off through tetracycline administration. This could be used to grow the cancer in mice and then halt it at a particular stage to allow for further experimentation or study.
A technique being developed for the control of the mosquito species "Aedes aegypti" (the infection vector for yellow fever, dengue fever, Zika fever, and several other diseases) uses a strain that is genetically modified to require tetracycline to develop beyond the larval stage. Modified males raised in a laboratory develop normally as they are supplied with this chemical and can be released into the wild. Their subsequent offspring inherit this trait, but find no tetracycline in their environments, so never develop into adults. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30649 |
Transposable element
A transposable element (TE, transposon, or jumping gene) is a DNA sequence that can change its position within a genome, sometimes creating or reversing mutations and altering the cell's genetic identity and genome size. Transposition often results in duplication of the same genetic material. Barbara McClintock's discovery of them earned her a Nobel Prize in 1983.
Transposable elements make up a large fraction of the genome and are responsible for much of the mass of DNA in a eukaryotic cell. Although TEs are selfish genetic elements, many are important in genome function and evolution. Transposons are also very useful to researchers as a means to alter DNA inside a living organism.
There are at least two classes of TEs: Class I TEs or retrotransposons generally function via reverse transcription, while Class II TEs or DNA transposons encode the protein transposase, which they require for insertion and excision, and some of these TEs also encode other proteins.
Barbara McClintock discovered the first TEs in maize ("Zea mays") at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. McClintock was experimenting with maize plants that had broken chromosomes.
In the winter of 1944–1945, McClintock planted corn kernels that were self-pollinated, meaning that the silk (style) of the flower received pollen from its own anther. These kernels came from a long line of plants that had been self-pollinated, causing broken arms on the end of their ninth chromosomes. As the maize plants began to grow, McClintock noted unusual color patterns on the leaves. For example, one leaf had two albino patches of almost identical size, located side by side on the leaf. McClintock hypothesized that during cell division certain cells lost genetic material, while others gained what they had lost. However, when comparing the chromosomes of the current generation of plants with the parent generation, she found certain parts of the chromosome had switched position. This refuted the popular genetic theory of the time that genes were fixed in their position on a chromosome. McClintock found that genes could not only move, but they could also be turned on or off due to certain environmental conditions or during different stages of cell development.
McClintock also showed that gene mutations could be reversed. She presented her report on her findings in 1951, and published an article on her discoveries in "Genetics" in November 1953 entitled "Induction of Instability at Selected Loci in Maize".
Her work was largely dismissed and ignored until the late 1960s–1970s when, after TEs were found in bacteria, it was rediscovered. She was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1983 for her discovery of TEs, more than thirty years after her initial research.
Approximately 90% of the maize genome is made up of TEs, as is 44% of the human genome.
Transposable elements represent one of several types of mobile genetic elements. TEs are assigned to one of two classes according to their mechanism of transposition, which can be described as either "copy and paste" (Class I TEs) or "cut and paste" (Class II TEs).
Class I TEs are copied in two stages: first, they are transcribed from DNA to RNA, and the RNA produced is then reverse transcribed to DNA. This copied DNA is then inserted back into the genome at a new position. The reverse transcription step is catalyzed by a reverse transcriptase, which is often encoded by the TE itself. The characteristics of retrotransposons are similar to retroviruses, such as HIV.
Retrotransposons are commonly grouped into three main orders:
The cut-and-paste transposition mechanism of class II TEs does not involve an RNA intermediate. The transpositions are catalyzed by several transposase enzymes. Some transposases non-specifically bind to any target site in DNA, whereas others bind to specific target sequences. The transposase makes a staggered cut at the target site producing sticky ends, cuts out the DNA transposon and ligates it into the target site. A DNA polymerase fills in the resulting gaps from the sticky ends and DNA ligase closes the sugar-phosphate backbone. This results in target site duplication and the insertion sites of DNA transposons may be identified by short direct repeats (a staggered cut in the target DNA filled by DNA polymerase) followed by inverted repeats (which are important for the TE excision by transposase).
Cut-and-paste TEs may be duplicated if their transposition takes place during S phase of the cell cycle, when a donor site has already been replicated but a target site has not yet been replicated. Such duplications at the target site can result in gene duplication, which plays an important role in genomic evolution.
Not all DNA transposons transpose through the cut-and-paste mechanism. In some cases, a replicative transposition is observed in which a transposon replicates itself to a new target site (e.g. helitron).
Class II TEs comprise less than 2% of the human genome, making the rest Class I.
Transposition can be classified as either "autonomous" or "non-autonomous" in both Class I and Class II TEs. Autonomous TEs can move by themselves, whereas non-autonomous TEs require the presence of another TE to move. This is often because dependent TEs lack transposase (for Class II) or reverse transcriptase (for Class I).
Activator element ("Ac") is an example of an autonomous TE, and dissociation elements ("Ds") is an example of a non-autonomous TE. Without "Ac," "Ds" is not able to transpose.
Transposons have coexisted with eukaryotes for thousands of years and through their coexistence have become integrated in many organisms' genomes. Colloquially known as 'jumping genes', transposons can move within and between genomes allowing for this integration.
While there are many positive effects of transposons in their host eukaryotic genomes, there are some instances of mutagenic effects that TEs have on genomes leading to disease and malignant genetic alterations.
TEs are mutagens and their movements are often the causes of genetic disease. They can damage the genome of their host cell in different ways:
TEs use a number of different mechanisms to cause genetic instability and disease in their host genomes.
Diseases often caused by TEs include
One study estimated the rate of transposition of a particular retrotransposon, the Ty1 element in "Saccharomyces cerevisiae". Using several assumptions, the rate of successful transposition event per single Ty1 element came out to be about once every few months to once every few years. Some TEs contain heat-shock like promoters and their rate of transposition increases if the cell is subjected to stress, thus increasing the mutation rate under these conditions, which might be beneficial to the cell.
Cells defend against the proliferation of TEs in a number of ways. These include piRNAs and siRNAs, which silence TEs after they have been transcribed.
If organisms are mostly composed of TEs, one might assume that disease caused by misplaced TEs is very common, but in most cases TEs are silenced through epigenetic mechanisms like DNA methylation, chromatin remodeling and piRNA, such that little to no phenotypic effects nor movements of TEs occur as in some wild-type plant TEs. Certain mutated plants have been found to have defects in methylation-related enzymes (methyl transferase) which cause the transcription of TEs, thus affecting the phenotype.
One hypothesis suggests that only approximately 100 LINE1 related sequences are active, despite their sequences making up 17% of the human genome. In human cells, silencing of LINE1 sequences is triggered by an RNA interference (RNAi) mechanism. Surprisingly, the RNAi sequences are derived from the 5' untranslated region (UTR) of the LINE1, a long terminal which repeats itself. Supposedly, the 5' LINE1 UTR that codes for the sense promoter for LINE1 transcription also encodes the antisense promoter for the miRNA that becomes the substrate for siRNA production. Inhibition of the RNAi silencing mechanism in this region showed an increase in LINE1 transcription.
TEs are found in almost all life forms, and the scientific community is still exploring their evolution and their effect on genome evolution. It is unclear whether TEs originated in the last universal common ancestor, arose independently multiple times, or arose once and then spread to other kingdoms by horizontal gene transfer. While some TEs confer benefits on their hosts, most are regarded as selfish DNA parasites. In this way, they are similar to viruses. Various viruses and TEs also share features in their genome structures and biochemical abilities, leading to speculation that they share a common ancestor.
Because excessive TE activity can damage exons, many organisms have acquired mechanisms to inhibit their activity. Bacteria may undergo high rates of gene deletion as part of a mechanism to remove TEs and viruses from their genomes, while eukaryotic organisms typically use RNA interference to inhibit TE activity. Nevertheless, some TEs generate large families often associated with speciation events. Evolution often deactivates DNA transposons, leaving them as introns (inactive gene sequences). In vertebrate animal cells, nearly all 100,000+ DNA transposons per genome have genes that encode inactive transposase polypeptides. The first synthetic transposon designed for use in vertebrate (including human) cells, the Sleeping Beauty transposon system, is a Tc1/mariner-like transposon. Its dead ("fossil") versions are spread widely in the salmonid genome and a functional version was engineered by comparing those versions. Human Tc1-like transposons are divided into Hsmar1 and Hsmar2 subfamilies. Although both types are inactive, one copy of Hsmar1 found in the SETMAR gene is under selection as it provides DNA-binding for the histone-modifying protein. Many other human genes are similarly derived from transposons. Hsmar2 has been reconstructed multiple times from the fossil sequences.
Large quantities of TEs within genomes may still present evolutionary advantages, however. Interspersed repeats within genomes are created by transposition events accumulating over evolutionary time. Because interspersed repeats block gene conversion, they protect novel gene sequences from being overwritten by similar gene sequences and thereby facilitate the development of new genes. TEs may also have been co-opted by the vertebrate immune system as a means of producing antibody diversity. The V(D)J recombination system operates by a mechanism similar to that of some TEs.
TEs can contain many types of genes, including those conferring antibiotic resistance and ability to transpose to conjugative plasmids. Some TEs also contain integrons, genetic elements that can capture and express genes from other sources. These contain integrase, which can integrate gene cassettes. There are over 40 antibiotic resistance genes identified on cassettes, as well as virulence genes.
Transposons do not always excise their elements precisely, sometimes removing the adjacent base pairs; this phenomenon is called exon shuffling. Shuffling two unrelated exons can create a novel gene product or, more likely, an intron.
Transposable elements can be harnessed in laboratory and research settings to study genomes of organisms and even engineer genetic sequences. Use of transposable elements can be split into two categories: as a genetic tool and for genetic engineering.
"De novo" repeat identification is an initial scan of sequence data that seeks to find the repetitive regions of the genome, and to classify these repeats. Many computer programs exist to perform "de novo" repeat identification, all operating under the same general principles. As short tandem repeats are generally 1–6 base pairs in length and are often consecutive, their identification is relatively simple. Dispersed repetitive elements, on the other hand, are more challenging to identify, due to the fact that they are longer and have often acquired mutations. However, it is important to identify these repeats as they are often found to be transposable elements (TEs).
"De novo" identification of transposons involves three steps: 1) find all repeats within the genome, 2) build a consensus of each family of sequences, and 3) classify these repeats. There are three groups of algorithms for the first step. One group is referred to as the k-mer approach, where a k-mer is a sequence of length k. In this approach, the genome is scanned for overrepresented k-mers; that is, k-mers that occur more often than is likely based on probability alone. The length k is determined by the type of transposon being searched for. The k-mer approach also allows mismatches, the number of which is determined by the analyst. Some k-mer approach programs use the k-mer as a base, and extend both ends of each repeated k-mer until there is no more similarity between them, indicating the ends of the repeats. Another group of algorithms employs a method called sequence self-comparison. Sequence self-comparison programs use databases such as AB-BLAST to conduct an initial sequence alignment. As these programs find groups of elements that partially overlap, they are useful for finding highly diverged transposons, or transposons with only a small region copied into other parts of the genome. Another group of algorithms follows the periodicity approach. These algorithms perform a Fourier transformation on the sequence data, identifying periodicities, regions that are repeated periodically, and are able to use peaks in the resultant spectrum to find candidate repetitive elements. This method works best for tandem repeats, but can be used for dispersed repeats as well. However, it is a slow process, making it an unlikely choice for genome scale analysis.
The second step of "de novo" repeat identification involves building a consensus of each family of sequences. A consensus sequence is a sequence that is created based on the repeats that comprise a TE family. A base pair in a consensus is the one that occurred most often in the sequences being compared to make the consensus. For example, in a family of 50 repeats where 42 have a T base pair in the same position, the consensus sequence would have a T at this position as well, as the base pair is representative of the family as a whole at that particular position, and is most likely the base pair found in the family's ancestor at that position. Once a consensus sequence has been made for each family, it is then possible to move on to further analysis, such as TE classification and genome masking in order to quantify the overall TE content of the genome.
Transposable elements have been recognized as good candidates for stimulating gene adaptation, through their ability to regulate the expression levels of nearby genes. Combined with their "mobility", transposable elements can be relocated adjacent to their targeted genes, and control the expression levels of the gene, dependent upon the circumstances.
The study conducted in 2008, "High Rate of Recent Transposable Element–Induced Adaptation in Drosophila melanogaster", used "D. melanogaster" that had recently migrated from Africa to other parts of the world, as a basis for studying adaptations caused by transposable elements. Although most of the TEs were located on introns, the experiment showed the significant difference on gene expressions between the population in Africa and other parts of the world. The four TEs that caused the selective sweep were more prevalent in "D. melanogaster" from temperate climates, leading the researchers to conclude that the selective pressures of the climate prompted genetic adaptation. From this experiment, it has been confirmed that adaptive TEs are prevalent in nature, by enabling organisms to adapt gene expression as a result of new selective pressures.
However, not all effects of adaptive TEs are beneficial to the population. In the research conducted in 2009, "A Recent Adaptive Transposable Element Insertion Near Highly Conserved Developmental Loci in Drosophila melanogaster", a TE, inserted between Jheh 2 and Jheh 3, revealed a downgrade in the expression level of both of the genes. Down regulation of such genes has caused "Drosophila" to exhibit extended developmental time and reduced egg to adult viability. Although this adaptation was observed in high frequency in all non-African populations, it was not fixed in any of them. This is not hard to believe, since it is logical for a population to favor higher egg to adult viability, therefore trying to purge the trait caused by this specific TE adaptation.
At the same time, there have been several reports showing the advantageous adaptation caused by TEs. In the research done with silkworms, "An Adaptive Transposable Element insertion in the Regulatory Region of the EO Gene in the Domesticated Silkworm", a TE insertion was observed in the cis-regulatory region of the EO gene, which regulates molting hormone 20E, and enhanced expression was recorded. While populations without the TE insert are often unable to effectively regulate hormone 20E under starvation conditions, those with the insert had a more stable development, which resulted in higher developmental uniformity.
These three experiments all demonstrated different ways in which TE insertions can be advantageous or disadvantageous, through means of regulating the expression level of adjacent genes. The field of adaptive TE research is still under development and more findings can be expected in the future. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30651 |
Trypsin
Trypsin () is a serine protease from the PA clan superfamily, found in the digestive system of many vertebrates, where it hydrolyzes proteins. Trypsin is formed in the small intestine when its proenzyme form, the trypsinogen produced by the pancreas, is activated. Trypsin cleaves peptide chains mainly at the carboxyl side of the amino acids lysine or arginine. It is used for numerous biotechnological processes. The process is commonly referred to as trypsin proteolysis or trypsinisation, and proteins that have been digested/treated with trypsin are said to have been trypsinized. Trypsin was discovered in 1876 by Wilhelm Kühne and was named from the Ancient Greek word for rubbing since it was first isolated by rubbing the pancreas with glycerin.
In the duodenum, trypsin catalyzes the hydrolysis of peptide bonds, breaking down proteins into smaller peptides. The peptide products are then further hydrolyzed into amino acids via other proteases, rendering them available for absorption into the blood stream. Tryptic digestion is a necessary step in protein absorption, as proteins are generally too large to be absorbed through the lining of the small intestine.
Trypsin is produced as the inactive zymogen trypsinogen in the pancreas. When the pancreas is stimulated by cholecystokinin, it is then secreted into the first part of the small intestine (the duodenum) via the pancreatic duct. Once in the small intestine, the enzyme enteropeptidase activates trypsinogen into trypsin by proteolytic cleavage.
The enzymatic mechanism is similar to that of other serine proteases. These enzymes contain a catalytic triad consisting of histidine-57, aspartate-102, and serine-195. This catalytic triad was formerly called a charge relay system, implying the abstraction of protons from serine to histidine and from histidine to aspartate, but owing to evidence provided by NMR that the resultant alkoxide form of serine would have a much stronger pull on the proton than does the imidazole ring of histidine, current thinking holds instead that serine and histidine each have effectively equal share of the proton, forming short low-barrier hydrogen bonds therewith. By these means, the nucleophilicity of the active site serine is increased, facilitating its attack on the amide carbon during proteolysis. The enzymatic reaction that trypsin catalyzes is thermodynamically favorable, but requires significant activation energy (it is "kinetically unfavorable"). In addition, trypsin contains an "oxyanion hole" formed by the backbone amide hydrogen atoms of Gly-193 and Ser-195, which through hydrogen bonding stabilize the negative charge which accumulates on the amide oxygen after nucleophilic attack on the planar amide carbon by the serine oxygen causes that carbon to assume a tetrahedral geometry. Such stabilisation of this tetrahedral intermediate helps to reduce the energy barrier of its formation and is concomitant with a lowering of the free energy of the transition state. Preferential binding of the transition state is a key feature of enzyme chemistry.
The negative aspartate residue (Asp 189) located in the catalytic pocket (S1) of trypsin is responsible for attracting and stabilizing positively charged lysine and/or arginine, and is, thus, responsible for the specificity of the enzyme. This means that trypsin predominantly cleaves proteins at the carboxyl side (or "C-terminal side") of the amino acids lysine and arginine except when either is bound to a C-terminal proline, although large-scale mass spectrometry data suggest cleavage occurs even with proline. Trypsin is considered an endopeptidase, i.e., the cleavage occurs within the polypeptide chain rather than at the terminal amino acids located at the ends of polypeptides.
Human trypsin has an optimal operating temperature of about 37 °C. In contrast, the Atlantic cod has several types of trypsins for the poikilotherm fish to survive at different body temperatures. Cod trypsins include trypsin I with an activity range of 4 to 65 °C (40 to 150 °F) and maximal activity at 55 °C (130 °F), as well as trypsin Y with a range of 2 to 30 °C (36 to 86 °F) and a maximal activity at 21 °C (70 °F).
As a protein, trypsin has various molecular weights depending on the source. For example, a molecular weight of 23.3 kDa is reported for trypsin from bovine and porcine sources.
The activity of trypsin is not affected by the enzyme inhibitor tosyl phenylalanyl chloromethyl ketone, TPCK, which deactivates chymotrypsin.
Trypsin should be stored at very cold temperatures (between −20 and −80 °C) to prevent autolysis, which may also be impeded by storage of trypsin at pH 3 or by using trypsin modified by reductive methylation. When the pH is adjusted back to pH 8, activity returns.
These human genes encode proteins with trypsin enzymatic activity:
Other isoforms of trypsin may also be found in other organisms.
Activation of trypsin from proteolytic cleavage of trypsinogen in the pancreas can lead to a series of events that cause pancreatic self-digestion, resulting in pancreatitis. One consequence of the autosomal recessive disease cystic fibrosis is a deficiency in transport of trypsin and other digestive enzymes from the pancreas. This leads to the disorder termed meconium ileus, which involves intestinal obstruction (ileus) due to overly thick meconium, which is normally broken down by trypsin and other proteases, then passed in feces.
Trypsin is available in high quantity in pancreases, and can be purified rather easily. Hence, it has been used widely in various biotechnological processes.
In a tissue culture lab, trypsin is used to resuspend cells adherent to the cell culture dish wall during the process of harvesting cells. Some cell types adhere to the sides and bottom of a dish when cultivated "in vitro". Trypsin is used to cleave proteins holding the cultured cells to the dish, so that the cells can be removed from the plates.
Trypsin can also be used to dissociate dissected cells (for example, prior to cell fixing and sorting).
Trypsin can be used to break down casein in breast milk. If trypsin is added to a solution of milk powder, the breakdown of casein causes the milk to become translucent. The rate of reaction can be measured by using the amount of time needed for the milk to turn translucent.
Trypsin is commonly used in biological research during proteomics experiments to digest proteins into peptides for mass spectrometry analysis, e.g. in-gel digestion. Trypsin is particularly suited for this, since it has a very well defined specificity, as it hydrolyzes only the peptide bonds in which the carbonyl group is contributed either by an arginine or lysine residue.
Trypsin can also be used to dissolve blood clots in its microbial form and treat inflammation in its pancreatic form.
In veterinary medicine, trypsin is an ingredient in wound spray products, such as Debrisol, to dissolve dead tissue and pus in wounds in horses, cattle, dogs, and cats.
Commercial protease preparations usually consist of a mixture of various protease enzymes that often includes trypsin. These preparations are widely used in food processing:
To prevent the action of active trypsin in the pancreas, which can be highly damaging, inhibitors such as BPTI and SPINK1 in the pancreas and α1-antitrypsin in the serum are present as part of the defense against its inappropriate activation. Any trypsin prematurely formed from the inactive trypsinogen is then bound by the inhibitor. The protein-protein interaction between trypsin and its inhibitors is one of the tightest bound, and trypsin is bound by some of its pancreatic inhibitors nearly irreversibly. In contrast with nearly all known protein assemblies, some complexes of trypsin bound by its inhibitors do not readily dissociate after treatment with 8M urea. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30652 |
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by "Mycobacterium tuberculosis" (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in which case it is known as latent tuberculosis. About 10% of latent infections progress to active disease which, if left untreated, kills about half of those affected. The classic symptoms of active TB are a chronic cough with blood-containing mucus, fever, night sweats, and weight loss. It was historically called "consumption" due to the weight loss. Infection of other organs can cause a wide range of symptoms.
Tuberculosis is spread from one person to the next through the air when people who have active TB in their lungs cough, spit, speak, or sneeze. People with latent TB do not spread the disease. Active infection occurs more often in people with HIV/AIDS and in those who smoke. Diagnosis of active TB is based on chest X-rays, as well as microscopic examination and culture of body fluids. Diagnosis of latent TB relies on the tuberculin skin test (TST) or blood tests.
Prevention of TB involves screening those at high risk, early detection and treatment of cases, and vaccination with the bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine. Those at high risk include household, workplace, and social contacts of people with active TB. Treatment requires the use of multiple antibiotics over a long period of time. Antibiotic resistance is a growing problem with increasing rates of multiple drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB).
As of 2018 one quarter of the world's population is thought to have latent infection with TB. New infections occur in about 1% of the population each year. In 2018, there were more than 10 million cases of active TB which resulted in 1.5 million deaths. This makes it the number one cause of death from an infectious disease. As of 2018, most TB cases occurred in the regions of South-East Asia (44%), Africa (24%) and the Western Pacific (18%), with more than 50% of cases being diagnosed in eight countries: India (27%), China (9%), Indonesia (8%), the Philippines (6%), Pakistan (6%), Nigeria (4%) and Bangladesh (4%). The number of new cases each year has decreased since 2000. About 80% of people in many Asian and African countries test positive while 5–10% of people in the United States population test positive by the tuberculin test. Tuberculosis has been present in humans since ancient times.
Tuberculosis may infect any part of the body, but most commonly occurs in the lungs (known as pulmonary tuberculosis). Extrapulmonary TB occurs when tuberculosis develops outside of the lungs, although extrapulmonary TB may coexist with pulmonary TB.
General signs and symptoms include fever, chills, night sweats, loss of appetite, weight loss, and fatigue. Significant nail clubbing may also occur.
If a tuberculosis infection does become active, it most commonly involves the lungs (in about 90% of cases). Symptoms may include chest pain and a prolonged cough producing sputum. About 25% of people may not have any symptoms (i.e. they remain "asymptomatic"). Occasionally, people may cough up blood in small amounts, and in very rare cases, the infection may erode into the pulmonary artery or a Rasmussen's aneurysm, resulting in massive bleeding. Tuberculosis may become a chronic illness and cause extensive scarring in the upper lobes of the lungs. The upper lung lobes are more frequently affected by tuberculosis than the lower ones. The reason for this difference is not clear. It may be due to either better air flow, or poor lymph drainage within the upper lungs.
In 15–20% of active cases, the infection spreads outside the lungs, causing other kinds of TB. These are collectively denoted as "extrapulmonary tuberculosis". Extrapulmonary TB occurs more commonly in people with a weakened immune system and young children. In those with HIV, this occurs in more than 50% of cases. Notable extrapulmonary infection sites include the pleura (in tuberculous pleurisy), the central nervous system (in tuberculous meningitis), the lymphatic system (in scrofula of the neck), the genitourinary system (in urogenital tuberculosis), and the bones and joints (in Pott disease of the spine), among others. A potentially more serious, widespread form of TB is called "disseminated tuberculosis", it is also known as miliary tuberculosis. Miliary TB currently makes up about 10% of extrapulmonary cases.
The main cause of TB is "Mycobacterium tuberculosis" (MTB), a small, aerobic, nonmotile bacillus. The high lipid content of this pathogen accounts for many of its unique clinical characteristics. It divides every 16 to 20 hours, which is an extremely slow rate compared with other bacteria, which usually divide in less than an hour. Mycobacteria have an outer membrane lipid bilayer. If a Gram stain is performed, MTB either stains very weakly "Gram-positive" or does not retain dye as a result of the high lipid and mycolic acid content of its cell wall. MTB can withstand weak disinfectants and survive in a dry state for weeks. In nature, the bacterium can grow only within the cells of a host organism, but "M. tuberculosis" can be cultured in the laboratory.
Using histological stains on expectorated samples from phlegm (also called "sputum"), scientists can identify MTB under a microscope. Since MTB retains certain stains even after being treated with acidic solution, it is classified as an acid-fast bacillus. The most common acid-fast staining techniques are the Ziehl–Neelsen stain and the Kinyoun stain, which dye acid-fast bacilli a bright red that stands out against a blue background. Auramine-rhodamine staining and fluorescence microscopy are also used.
The "M. tuberculosis" complex (MTBC) includes four other TB-causing mycobacteria: "M. bovis", "M. africanum", "M. canetti", and "M. microti". "M. africanum" is not widespread, but it is a significant cause of tuberculosis in parts of Africa. "M. bovis" was once a common cause of tuberculosis, but the introduction of pasteurized milk has almost completely eliminated this as a public health problem in developed countries. "M. canetti" is rare and seems to be limited to the Horn of Africa, although a few cases have been seen in African emigrants. "M. microti" is also rare and is seen almost only in immunodeficient people, although its prevalence may be significantly underestimated.
Other known pathogenic mycobacteria include "M. leprae", "M. avium", and "M. kansasii". The latter two species are classified as "nontuberculous mycobacteria" (NTM). NTM cause neither TB nor leprosy, but they do cause lung diseases that resemble TB.
A number of factors make people more susceptible to TB infections. The most important risk factor globally is HIV; 13% of all people with TB are infected by the virus. This is a particular problem in sub-Saharan Africa, where rates of HIV are high. Of people without HIV who are infected with tuberculosis, about 5–10% develop active disease during their lifetimes; in contrast, 30% of those coinfected with HIV develop the active disease.
Tuberculosis is closely linked to both overcrowding and malnutrition, making it one of the principal diseases of poverty. Those at high risk thus include: people who inject illicit drugs, inhabitants and employees of locales where vulnerable people gather (e.g. prisons and homeless shelters), medically underprivileged and resource-poor communities, high-risk ethnic minorities, children in close contact with high-risk category patients, and health-care providers serving these patients.
Chronic lung disease is another significant risk factor. Silicosis increases the risk about 30-fold. Those who smoke cigarettes have nearly twice the risk of TB compared to nonsmokers.
Other disease states can also increase the risk of developing tuberculosis. These include alcoholism and diabetes mellitus (three-fold increase).
Certain medications, such as corticosteroids and infliximab (an anti-αTNF monoclonal antibody), are other important risk factors, especially in the developed world.
Genetic susceptibility also exists, for which the overall importance remains undefined.
When people with active pulmonary TB cough, sneeze, speak, sing, or spit, they expel infectious aerosol droplets 0.5 to 5.0 µm in diameter. A single sneeze can release up to 40,000 droplets. Each one of these droplets may transmit the disease, since the infectious dose of tuberculosis is very small (the inhalation of fewer than 10 bacteria may cause an infection).
People with prolonged, frequent, or close contact with people with TB are at particularly high risk of becoming infected, with an estimated 22% infection rate. A person with active but untreated tuberculosis may infect 10–15 (or more) other people per year. Transmission should occur from only people with active TB – those with latent infection are not thought to be contagious. The probability of transmission from one person to another depends upon several factors, including the number of infectious droplets expelled by the carrier, the effectiveness of ventilation, the duration of exposure, the virulence of the "M. tuberculosis" strain, the level of immunity in the uninfected person, and others. The cascade of person-to-person spread can be circumvented by segregating those with active ("overt") TB and putting them on anti-TB drug regimens. After about two weeks of effective treatment, subjects with nonresistant active infections generally do not remain contagious to others. If someone does become infected, it typically takes three to four weeks before the newly infected person becomes infectious enough to transmit the disease to others.
About 90% of those infected with "M. tuberculosis" have asymptomatic, latent TB infections (sometimes called LTBI), with only a 10% lifetime chance that the latent infection will progress to overt, active tuberculous disease. In those with HIV, the risk of developing active TB increases to nearly 10% a year. If effective treatment is not given, the death rate for active TB cases is up to 66%.
TB infection begins when the mycobacteria reach the alveolar air sacs of the lungs, where they invade and replicate within endosomes of alveolar macrophages. Macrophages identify the bacterium as foreign and attempt to eliminate it by phagocytosis. During this process, the bacterium is enveloped by the macrophage and stored temporarily in a membrane-bound vesicle called a phagosome. The phagosome then combines with a lysosome to create a phagolysosome. In the phagolysosome, the cell attempts to use reactive oxygen species and acid to kill the bacterium. However, "M. tuberculosis" has a thick, waxy mycolic acid capsule that protects it from these toxic substances. "M. tuberculosis" is able to reproduce inside the macrophage and will eventually kill the immune cell.
The primary site of infection in the lungs, known as the "Ghon focus", is generally located in either the upper part of the lower lobe, or the lower part of the upper lobe. Tuberculosis of the lungs may also occur via infection from the blood stream. This is known as a Simon focus and is typically found in the top of the lung. This hematogenous transmission can also spread infection to more distant sites, such as peripheral lymph nodes, the kidneys, the brain, and the bones. All parts of the body can be affected by the disease, though for unknown reasons it rarely affects the heart, skeletal muscles, pancreas, or thyroid.
Tuberculosis is classified as one of the granulomatous inflammatory diseases. Macrophages, epithelioid cells, T lymphocytes, B lymphocytes, and fibroblasts aggregate to form granulomas, with lymphocytes surrounding the infected macrophages. When other macrophages attack the infected macrophage, they fuse together to form a giant multinucleated cell in the alveolar lumen. The granuloma may prevent dissemination of the mycobacteria and provide a local environment for interaction of cells of the immune system. However, more recent evidence suggests that the bacteria use the granulomas to avoid destruction by the host's immune system. Macrophages and dendritic cells in the granulomas are unable to present antigen to lymphocytes; thus the immune response is suppressed. Bacteria inside the granuloma can become dormant, resulting in latent infection. Another feature of the granulomas is the development of abnormal cell death (necrosis) in the center of tubercles. To the naked eye, this has the texture of soft, white cheese and is termed caseous necrosis.
If TB bacteria gain entry to the blood stream from an area of damaged tissue, they can spread throughout the body and set up many foci of infection, all appearing as tiny, white tubercles in the tissues. This severe form of TB disease, most common in young children and those with HIV, is called miliary tuberculosis. People with this disseminated TB have a high fatality rate even with treatment (about 30%).
In many people, the infection waxes and wanes. Tissue destruction and necrosis are often balanced by healing and fibrosis. Affected tissue is replaced by scarring and cavities filled with caseous necrotic material. During active disease, some of these cavities are joined to the air passages (bronchi) and this material can be coughed up. It contains living bacteria, and thus can spread the infection. Treatment with appropriate antibiotics kills bacteria and allows healing to take place. Upon cure, affected areas are eventually replaced by scar tissue.
Diagnosing active tuberculosis based only on signs and symptoms is difficult, as is diagnosing the disease in those who have a weakened immune system. A diagnosis of TB should, however, be considered in those with signs of lung disease or constitutional symptoms lasting longer than two weeks. A chest X-ray and multiple sputum cultures for acid-fast bacilli are typically part of the initial evaluation. Interferon-γ release assays and tuberculin skin tests are of little use in most of the developing world. Interferon gamma release assays (IGRA) have similar limitations in those with HIV.
A definitive diagnosis of TB is made by identifying "M. tuberculosis" in a clinical sample (e.g., sputum, pus, or a tissue biopsy). However, the difficult culture process for this slow-growing organism can take two to six weeks for blood or sputum culture. Thus, treatment is often begun before cultures are confirmed.
Nucleic acid amplification tests and adenosine deaminase testing may allow rapid diagnosis of TB. These tests, however, are not routinely recommended, as they rarely alter how a person is treated. Blood tests to detect antibodies are not specific or sensitive, so they are not recommended.
The Mantoux tuberculin skin test is often used to screen people at high risk for TB. Those who have been previously immunized with the Bacille Calmette-Guerin vaccine may have a false-positive test result. The test may be falsely negative in those with sarcoidosis, Hodgkin's lymphoma, malnutrition, and most notably, active tuberculosis. Interferon gamma release assays, on a blood sample, are recommended in those who are positive to the Mantoux test. These are not affected by immunization or most environmental mycobacteria, so they generate fewer false-positive results. However, they are affected by "M. szulgai", "M. marinum", and "M. kansasii". IGRAs may increase sensitivity when used in addition to the skin test, but may be less sensitive than the skin test when used alone.
The US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has recommended screening people who are at high risk for latent tuberculosis with either tuberculin skin tests or interferon-gamma release assays. While some have recommend testing health care workers, evidence of benefit for this is poor . The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) stopped recommending yearly testing of health care workers without known exposure in 2019.
Tuberculosis prevention and control efforts rely primarily on the vaccination of infants and the detection and appropriate treatment of active cases. The World Health Organization (WHO) has achieved some success with improved treatment regimens, and a small decrease in case numbers.
The only available vaccine is Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG). In children it decreases the risk of getting the infection by 20% and the risk of infection turning into active disease by nearly 60%.
It is the most widely used vaccine worldwide, with more than 90% of all children being vaccinated. The immunity it induces decreases after about ten years. As tuberculosis is uncommon in most of Canada, Western Europe, and the United States, BCG is administered to only those people at high risk. Part of the reasoning against the use of the vaccine is that it makes the tuberculin skin test falsely positive, reducing the test's usefulness as a screening tool. Several vaccines are being developed.
Intradermal MVA85A Vaccine in addition to BCG injection is not effective in preventing tuberculosis.
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared TB a "global health emergency" in 1993, and in 2006, the Stop TB Partnership developed a Global Plan to Stop Tuberculosis that aimed to save 14 million lives between its launch and 2015. A number of targets they set were not achieved by 2015, mostly due to the increase in HIV-associated tuberculosis and the emergence of multiple drug-resistant tuberculosis. A tuberculosis classification system developed by the American Thoracic Society is used primarily in public health programs.
The benefits and risks of giving anti-tubercular drugs in those exposed to MDR-TB is unclear.
Treatment of TB uses antibiotics to kill the bacteria. Effective TB treatment is difficult, due to the unusual structure and chemical composition of the mycobacterial cell wall, which hinders the entry of drugs and makes many antibiotics ineffective.
Active TB is best treated with combinations of several antibiotics to reduce the risk of the bacteria developing antibiotic resistance. The routine use of rifabutin instead of rifampicin in HIV-positive people with tuberculosis is of unclear benefit .
Latent TB is treated with either isoniazid or rifampin alone, or a combination of isoniazid with either rifampicin or rifapentine.
The treatment takes three to nine months depending on the medications used. People with latent infections are treated to prevent them from progressing to active TB disease later in life.
Education or counselling may improve the latent tuberculosis treatment completion rates.
The recommended treatment of new-onset pulmonary tuberculosis, , is six months of a combination of antibiotics containing rifampicin, isoniazid, pyrazinamide, and ethambutol for the first two months, and only rifampicin and isoniazid for the last four months. Where resistance to isoniazid is high, ethambutol may be added for the last four months as an alternative. Treatment with anti-TB drugs for at least 6 months results in higher success rates when compared with treatment less than 6 months; even though the difference is small. Shorter treatment regimen may be recommended for those with compliance issues. There is also no evidence to support shorter anti-tubeculosis treatment regimen when compared to 6 months treatment regimen.
If tuberculosis recurs, testing to determine which antibiotics it is sensitive to is important before determining treatment. If multiple drug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) is detected, treatment with at least four effective antibiotics for 18 to 24 months is recommended.
Directly observed therapy, i.e., having a health care provider watch the person take their medications, is recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) in an effort to reduce the number of people not appropriately taking antibiotics. The evidence to support this practice over people simply taking their medications independently is of poor quality. There is no strong evidence indicating that directly observed therapy improves the number of people who were cured or the number of people who complete their medicine. Moderate quality evidence suggests that there is also no difference if people are observed at home versus at a clinic, or by a family member versus a health care worker. Methods to remind people of the importance of treatment and appointments may result in a small but important improvement. There is also not enough evidence to support intermittent rifampicin-containing therapy given two to three times a week has equal effectiveness as daily dose regimen on improving cure rates and reducing relapsing rates. There is also not enough evidence on effectiveness of giving intermittent twice or thrice weekly short course regimen compared to daily dosing regimen in treating children with tuberculosis.
Primary resistance occurs when a person becomes infected with a resistant strain of TB. A person with fully susceptible MTB may develop secondary (acquired) resistance during therapy because of inadequate treatment, not taking the prescribed regimen appropriately (lack of compliance), or using low-quality medication. Drug-resistant TB is a serious public health issue in many developing countries, as its treatment is longer and requires more expensive drugs. MDR-TB is defined as resistance to the two most effective first-line TB drugs: rifampicin and isoniazid. Extensively drug-resistant TB is also resistant to three or more of the six classes of second-line drugs. Totally drug-resistant TB is resistant to all currently used drugs. It was first observed in 2003 in Italy, but not widely reported until 2012, and has also been found in Iran and India. Bedaquiline is tentatively supported for use in multiple drug-resistant TB.
XDR-TB is a term sometimes used to define "extensively resistant" TB, and constitutes one in ten cases of MDR-TB. Cases of XDR TB have been identified in more than 90% of countries. There is some efficacy for linezolid to treat those with XDR-TB but side effects and discontinuation of medications were common.
For those with known rifampicin or MDR-TB, Genotype® MTBDRsl Assay performed on culture isolates or smear positive specimens may be useful to detect second-line anti-tubercular drug resistance.
Progression from TB infection to overt TB disease occurs when the bacilli overcome the immune system defenses and begin to multiply. In primary TB disease (some 1–5% of cases), this occurs soon after the initial infection. However, in the majority of cases, a latent infection occurs with no obvious symptoms. These dormant bacilli produce active tuberculosis in 5–10% of these latent cases, often many years after infection.
The risk of reactivation increases with immunosuppression, such as that caused by infection with HIV. In people coinfected with "M. tuberculosis" and HIV, the risk of reactivation increases to 10% per year. Studies using DNA fingerprinting of "M. tuberculosis" strains have shown reinfection contributes more substantially to recurrent TB than previously thought, with estimates that it might account for more than 50% of reactivated cases in areas where TB is common. The chance of death from a case of tuberculosis is about 4% , down from 8% in 1995.
Roughly one-quarter of the world's population has been infected with "M. tuberculosis", with new infections occurring in about 1% of the population each year. However, most infections with "M. tuberculosis" do not cause TB disease, and 90–95% of infections remain asymptomatic. In 2012, an estimated 8.6 million chronic cases were active. In 2010, 8.8 million new cases of TB were diagnosed, and 1.20–1.45 million deaths occurred, most of these occurring in developing countries. Of these 1.45 million deaths, about 0.35 million occur in those also infected with HIV.
In 2018, tuberculosis was the leading cause of death worldwide from a single infectious agent. The total number of tuberculosis cases has been decreasing since 2005, while new cases have decreased since 2002. China has achieved particularly dramatic progress, with about an 80% reduction in its TB mortality rate between 1990 and 2010. The number of new cases has declined by 17% between 2004 and 2014. Tuberculosis is more common in developing countries; about 80% of the population in many Asian and African countries test positive in tuberculin tests, while only 5–10% of the US population test positive. Hopes of totally controlling the disease have been dramatically dampened because of a number of factors, including the difficulty of developing an effective vaccine, the expensive and time-consuming diagnostic process, the necessity of many months of treatment, the increase in HIV-associated tuberculosis, and the emergence of drug-resistant cases in the 1980s.
In 2007, the country with the highest estimated incidence rate of TB was Swaziland, with 1,200 cases per 100,000 people. India had the largest total incidence, with an estimated 2.0 million new cases. In developed countries, tuberculosis is less common and is found mainly in urban areas. Rates per 100,000 people in different areas of the world were: globally 178, Africa 332, the Americas 36, Eastern Mediterranean 173, Europe 63, Southeast Asia 278, and Western Pacific 139 in 2010. In Canada and Australia, tuberculosis is many times more common among the aboriginal peoples, especially in remote areas. In the United States Native Americans have a fivefold greater mortality from TB, and racial and ethnic minorities accounted for 84% of all reported TB cases.
The rate of TB varies with age. In Africa, it primarily affects adolescents and young adults. However, in countries where incidence rates have declined dramatically (such as the United States), TB is mainly a disease of older people and the immunocompromised (risk factors are listed above). Worldwide, 22 "high-burden" states or countries together experience 80% of cases as well as 83% of deaths.
Tuberculosis has existed since antiquity. The oldest unambiguously detected "M. tuberculosis" gives evidence of the disease in the remains of bison in Wyoming dated to around 17,000 years ago. However, whether tuberculosis originated in bovines, then transferred to humans, or whether both bovine and human tuberculosis diverged from a common ancestor, remains unclear. A comparison of the genes of "M. tuberculosis" complex (MTBC) in humans to MTBC in animals suggests humans did not acquire MTBC from animals during animal domestication, as researchers previously believed. Both strains of the tuberculosis bacteria share a common ancestor, which could have infected humans even before the Neolithic Revolution. Skeletal remains show some prehistoric humans (4000 BC) had TB, and researchers have found tubercular decay in the spines of Egyptian mummies dating from 3000 to 2400 BC. Genetic studies suggest the presence of TB in the Americas from about 100 AD.
Before the Industrial Revolution, folklore often associated tuberculosis with vampires. When one member of a family died from the disease, the other infected members would lose their health slowly. People believed this was caused by the original person with TB draining the life from the other family members.
Although Richard Morton established the pulmonary form associated with tubercles as a pathology in 1689, due to the variety of its symptoms, TB was not identified as a single disease until the 1820s. J. L. Schönlein coined the name "tuberculosis" in 1839. Between 1838 and 1845, Dr. John Croghan, the owner of Mammoth Cave in Kentucky from 1839 onwards, brought a number of people with tuberculosis into the cave in the hope of curing the disease with the constant temperature and purity of the cave air; each died within a year. Hermann Brehmer opened the first TB sanatorium in 1859 in Görbersdorf (now Sokołowsko) in Silesia.
Robert Koch identified and described the bacillus causing tuberculosis, "M. tuberculosis", on 24 March 1882. He received the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 1905 for this discovery. Koch did not believe the cattle and human tuberculosis diseases were similar, which delayed the recognition of infected milk as a source of infection. During the first half of the 1900s the risk of transmission from this source was dramatically reduced after the application of the pasteurization process. Koch announced a glycerine extract of the tubercle bacilli as a "remedy" for tuberculosis in 1890, calling it "tuberculin". Although it was not effective, it was later successfully adapted as a screening test for the presence of pre-symptomatic tuberculosis. World Tuberculosis Day is marked on 24 March each year, the anniversary of Koch's original scientific announcement.
Albert Calmette and Camille Guérin achieved the first genuine success in immunization against tuberculosis in 1906, using attenuated bovine-strain tuberculosis. It was called bacille Calmette–Guérin (BCG). The BCG vaccine was first used on humans in 1921 in France, but achieved widespread acceptance in the US, Great Britain, and Germany only after World War II.
Tuberculosis caused widespread public concern in the 19th and early 20th centuries as the disease became common among the urban poor. In 1815 one in four deaths in England was due to "consumption". By 1918, TB still caused one in six deaths in France. After TB was determined to be contagious, in the 1880s, it was put on a notifiable-disease list in Britain; campaigns started to stop people from spitting in public places, and the infected poor were "encouraged" to enter sanatoria that resembled prisons (the sanatoria for the middle and upper classes offered excellent care and constant medical attention). Whatever the benefits of the "fresh air" and labor in the sanatoria, even under the best conditions, 50% of those who entered died within five years ( 1916). When the Medical Research Council formed in Britain in 1913, it initially focused on tuberculosis research.
In Europe, rates of tuberculosis began to rise in the early 1600s to a peak level in the 1800s, when it caused nearly 25% of all deaths. By the 1950s mortality in Europe had decreased about 90%. Improvements in sanitation, vaccination, and other public-health measures began significantly reducing rates of tuberculosis even before the arrival of streptomycin and other antibiotics, although the disease remained a significant threat. In 1946 the development of the antibiotic streptomycin made effective treatment and cure of TB a reality. Prior to the introduction of this medication, the only treatment was surgical intervention, including the "pneumothorax technique", which involved collapsing an infected lung to "rest" it and to allow tuberculous lesions to heal.
Because of the emergence of MDR-TB, surgery has been re-introduced for certain cases of TB infections. It involves the removal of infected chest cavities ("bullae") in the lungs to reduce the number of bacteria and to increase exposure of the remaining bacteria to antibiotics in the bloodstream. Hopes of completely eliminating TB ended with the rise of drug-resistant strains in the 1980s. The subsequent resurgence of tuberculosis resulted in the declaration of a global health emergency by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1993.
Tuberculosis has been known by many names from the technical to the familiar. "Phthisis" (Φθισις) is a Greek word for consumption, an old term for pulmonary tuberculosis; around 460 BCE, Hippocrates described phthisis as a disease of dry seasons. The abbreviation "TB" is short for "tubercle bacillus". "Consumption" was the most common nineteenth century English word for the disease. The Latin root "con" meaning "completely" is linked to "sumere" meaning "to take up from under." In "The Life and Death of Mr Badman" by John Bunyan, the author calls consumption "the captain of all these men of death." "Great white plague" has also been used.
Tuberculosis was for centuries associated with poetic and artistic qualities among those infected, and was also known as "the romantic disease". Major artistic figures such as the poets John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Edgar Allan Poe, the composer Frédéric Chopin, the playwright Anton Chekhov, the novelists Franz Kafka, Katherine Mansfield, Charlotte Brontë, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Thomas Mann, W. Somerset Maugham, George Orwell, and Robert Louis Stevenson, and the artists Alice Neel, Jean-Antoine Watteau, Elizabeth Siddal, Marie Bashkirtseff, Edvard Munch, Aubrey Beardsley and Amedeo Modigliani either had the disease or were surrounded by people who did. A widespread belief was that tuberculosis assisted artistic talent. Physical mechanisms proposed for this effect included the slight fever and toxaemia that it caused, allegedly helping them to see life more clearly and to act decisively.
Tuberculosis formed an often-reused theme in literature, as in Thomas Mann's "The Magic Mountain", set in a sanatorium; in music, as in Van Morrison's song "T.B. Sheets"; in opera, as in Puccini's "La bohème" and Verdi's "La Traviata"; in art, as in Monet's painting of his first wife Camille on her deathbed; and in film, such as the 1945 "The Bells of St. Mary's" starring Ingrid Bergman as a nun with tuberculosis.
The World Health Organization (WHO), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the U.S. government are subsidizing a fast-acting diagnostic tuberculosis test for use in low- and middle-income countries as of 2012. In addition to being fast-acting, the test can determine if there is resistance to the antibiotic rifampicin which may indicate multi-drug resistant tuberculosis and is accurate in those who are also infected with HIV. Many resource-poor places have access to only sputum microscopy.
India had the highest total number of TB cases worldwide in 2010, in part due to poor disease management within the private and public health care sector. Programs such as the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Program are working to reduce TB levels among people receiving public health care.
A 2014 the EIU-healthcare report finds there is a need to address apathy and urges for increased funding. The report cites among others Lucica Ditui "[TB] is like an orphan. It has been neglected even in countries with a high burden and often forgotten by donors and those investing in health interventions."
Slow progress has led to frustration, expressed by the executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria – Mark Dybul: "we have the tools to end TB as a pandemic and public health threat on the planet, but we are not doing it." Several international organizations are pushing for more transparency in treatment, and more countries are implementing mandatory reporting of cases to the government as of 2014, although adherence is often variable. Commercial treatment providers may at times overprescribe second-line drugs as well as supplementary treatment, promoting demands for further regulations. The government of Brazil provides universal TB-care, which reduces this problem. Conversely, falling rates of TB-infection may not relate to the number of programs directed at reducing infection rates but may be tied to increased level of education, income, and health of the population. Costs of the disease, as calculated by the World Bank in 2009 may exceed US$150 billion per year in "high burden" countries. Lack of progress eradicating the disease may also be due to lack of patient follow-up – as among the 250M rural migrants in China.
There is insufficient data to show that active contact tracing helps to improve case detection rates for tuberculosis. Interventions such as house-to-house visits, educational leaflets, mass media strategies, educational sessions may increase tuberculosis detection rates in short-term. There is no study that compare new method of contact tracing such as social network analysis with existing contact tracing methods.
Slow progress in preventing the disease may in part be due to stigma associated with TB. Stigma may be due to the fear of transmission from affected individuals. This stigma may additionally arise due to links between TB and poverty, and in Africa, AIDS. Such stigmatization may be both real and perceived; for example, in Ghana individuals with TB are banned from attending public gatherings.
Stigma towards TB may result in delays in seeking treatment, lower treatment compliance, and family members keeping cause of death secret – allowing the disease to spread further. In contrast, in Russia stigma was associated with increased treatment compliance. TB stigma also affects socially marginalized individuals to a greater degree and varies between regions.
One way to decrease stigma may be through the promotion of "TB clubs", where those infected may share experiences and offer support, or through counseling. Some studies have shown TB education programs to be effective in decreasing stigma, and may thus be effective in increasing treatment adherence. Despite this, studies on the relationship between reduced stigma and mortality are lacking , and similar efforts to decrease stigma surrounding AIDS have been minimally effective. Some have claimed the stigma to be worse than the disease, and healthcare providers may unintentionally reinforce stigma, as those with TB are often perceived as difficult or otherwise undesirable. A greater understanding of the social and cultural dimensions of tuberculosis may also help with stigma reduction.
The BCG vaccine has limitations, and research to develop new TB vaccines is ongoing. A number of potential candidates are currently in phase I and II clinical trials. Two main approaches are used to attempt to improve the efficacy of available vaccines. One approach involves adding a subunit vaccine to BCG, while the other strategy is attempting to create new and better live vaccines. MVA85A, an example of a subunit vaccine, is in trials in South Africa as of 2006, is based on a genetically modified vaccinia virus. Vaccines are hoped to play a significant role in treatment of both latent and active disease.
To encourage further discovery, researchers and policymakers are promoting new economic models of vaccine development as of 2006, including prizes, tax incentives, and advance market commitments. A number of groups, including the Stop TB Partnership, the South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative, and the Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation, are involved with research. Among these, the Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation received a gift of more than $280 million (US) from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to develop and license an improved vaccine against tuberculosis for use in high burden countries.
A number of medications are being studied as of 2012 for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, including bedaquiline and delamanid. Bedaquiline received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval in late 2012. The safety and effectiveness of these new agents are uncertain as of 2012, because they are based on the results of relatively small studies. However, existing data suggest that patients taking bedaquiline in addition to standard TB therapy are five times more likely to die than those without the new drug, which has resulted in medical journal articles raising health policy questions about why the FDA approved the drug and whether financial ties to the company making bedaquiline influenced physicians' support for its use.
Steroids add-on therapy has not shown any benefits for people with active pulmonary tuberculosis infection.
Mycobacteria infect many different animals, including birds, rodents, and reptiles. The subspecies "Mycobacterium tuberculosis", though, is rarely present in wild animals. An effort to eradicate bovine tuberculosis caused by "Mycobacterium bovis" from the cattle and deer herds of New Zealand has been relatively successful. Efforts in Great Britain have been less successful.
, tuberculosis appears to be widespread among captive elephants in the US. It is believed that the animals originally acquired the disease from humans, a process called reverse zoonosis. Because the disease can spread through the air to infect both humans and other animals, it is a public health concern affecting circuses and zoos. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30653 |
Triangle
A triangle is a polygon with three edges and three vertices. It is one of the basic shapes in geometry. A triangle with vertices "A", "B", and "C" is denoted formula_1.
In Euclidean geometry any three points, when non-collinear, determine a unique triangle and simultaneously, a unique plane (i.e. a two-dimensional Euclidean space). In other words, there is only one plane that contains that triangle, and every triangle is contained in some plane. If the entire geometry is only the Euclidean plane, there is only one plane and all triangles are contained in it; however, in higher-dimensional Euclidean spaces, this is no longer true. This article is about triangles in Euclidean geometry, and in particular, the Euclidean plane, except where otherwise noted.
Triangles can be classified according to the lengths of their sides:
Hatch marks, also called tick marks, are used in diagrams of triangles and other geometric figures to identify sides of equal lengths. A side can be marked with a pattern of "ticks", short line segments in the form of tally marks; two sides have equal lengths if they are both marked with the same pattern. In a triangle, the pattern is usually no more than 3 ticks. An equilateral triangle has the same pattern on all 3 sides, an isosceles triangle has the same pattern on just 2 sides, and a scalene triangle has different patterns on all sides since no sides are equal. Similarly, patterns of 1, 2, or 3 concentric arcs inside the angles are used to indicate equal angles. An equilateral triangle has the same pattern on all 3 angles, an isosceles triangle has the same pattern on just 2 angles, and a scalene triangle has different patterns on all angles since no angles are equal.
Triangles can also be classified according to their internal angles, measured here in degrees.
A triangle that has two angles with the same measure also has two sides with the same length, and therefore it is an isosceles triangle. It follows that in a triangle where all angles have the same measure, all three sides have the same length, and such a triangle is therefore equilateral.
Triangles are assumed to be two-dimensional plane figures, unless the context provides otherwise (see Non-planar triangles, below). In rigorous treatments, a triangle is therefore called a "2-simplex" (see also Polytope). Elementary facts about triangles were presented by Euclid in books 1–4 of his "Elements", around 300 BC.
The sum of the measures of the interior angles of a triangle in Euclidean space is always 180 degrees. This fact is equivalent to Euclid's parallel postulate. This allows determination of the measure of the third angle of any triangle given the measure of two angles. An "exterior angle" of a triangle is an angle that is a linear pair (and hence supplementary) to an interior angle. The measure of an exterior angle of a triangle is equal to the sum of the measures of the two interior angles that are not adjacent to it; this is the exterior angle theorem. The sum of the measures of the three exterior angles (one for each vertex) of any triangle is 360 degrees.
Two triangles are said to be "similar" if every angle of one triangle has the same measure as the corresponding angle in the other triangle. The corresponding sides of similar triangles have lengths that are in the same proportion, and this property is also sufficient to establish similarity.
Some basic theorems about similar triangles are:
Two triangles that are congruent have exactly the same size and shape: all pairs of corresponding interior angles are equal in measure, and all pairs of corresponding sides have the same length. (This is a total of six equalities, but three are often sufficient to prove congruence.)
Some individually necessary and sufficient conditions for a pair of triangles to be congruent are:
Some individually sufficient conditions are:
An important condition is:
Using right triangles and the concept of similarity, the trigonometric functions sine and cosine can be defined. These are functions of an angle which are investigated in trigonometry.
A central theorem is the Pythagorean theorem, which states in any right triangle, the square of the length of the hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares of the lengths of the two other sides. If the hypotenuse has length "c", and the legs have lengths "a" and "b", then the theorem states that
The converse is true: if the lengths of the sides of a triangle satisfy the above equation, then the triangle has a right angle opposite side "c".
Some other facts about right triangles:
For all triangles, angles and sides are related by the law of cosines and law of sines (also called the "cosine rule" and "sine rule").
The triangle inequality states that the sum of the lengths of any two sides of a triangle must be greater than or equal to the length of the third side. That sum can equal the length of the third side only in the case of a degenerate triangle, one with collinear vertices. It is not possible for that sum to be less than the length of the third side. A triangle with three given positive side lengths exists if and only if those side lengths satisfy the triangle inequality.
Three given angles form a non-degenerate triangle (and indeed an infinitude of them) if and only if both of these conditions hold: (a) each of the angles is positive, and (b) the angles sum to 180°. If degenerate triangles are permitted, angles of 0° are permitted.
Three positive angles "α", "β", and "γ", each of them less than 180°, are the angles of a triangle if and only if any one of the following conditions holds:
the last equality applying only if none of the angles is 90° (so the tangent function's value is always finite).
There are thousands of different constructions that find a special point associated with (and often inside) a triangle, satisfying some unique property: see the article Encyclopedia of Triangle Centers for a catalogue of them. Often they are constructed by finding three lines associated in a symmetrical way with the three sides (or vertices) and then proving that the three lines meet in a single point: an important tool for proving the existence of these is Ceva's theorem, which gives a criterion for determining when three such lines are concurrent. Similarly, lines associated with a triangle are often constructed by proving that three symmetrically constructed points are collinear: here Menelaus' theorem gives a useful general criterion. In this section just a few of the most commonly encountered constructions are explained.
A perpendicular bisector of a side of a triangle is a straight line passing through the midpoint of the side and being perpendicular to it, i.e. forming a right angle with it. The three perpendicular bisectors meet in a single point, the triangle's circumcenter, usually denoted by O; this point is the center of the circumcircle, the circle passing through all three vertices. The diameter of this circle, called the "circumdiameter", can be found from the law of sines stated above. The circumcircle's radius is called the "circumradius".
Thales' theorem implies that if the circumcenter is located on a side of the triangle, then the opposite angle is a right one. If the circumcenter is located inside the triangle, then the triangle is acute; if the circumcenter is located outside the triangle, then the triangle is obtuse.
An altitude of a triangle is a straight line through a vertex and perpendicular to (i.e. forming a right angle with) the opposite side. This opposite side is called the "base" of the altitude, and the point where the altitude intersects the base (or its extension) is called the "foot" of the altitude. The length of the altitude is the distance between the base and the vertex. The three altitudes intersect in a single point, called the orthocenter of the triangle, usually denoted by H. The orthocenter lies inside the triangle if and only if the triangle is acute.
An angle bisector of a triangle is a straight line through a vertex which cuts the corresponding angle in half. The three angle bisectors intersect in a single point, the incenter, usually denoted by I, the center of the triangle's incircle. The incircle is the circle which lies inside the triangle and touches all three sides. Its radius is called the "inradius". There are three other important circles, the excircles; they lie outside the triangle and touch one side as well as the extensions of the other two. The centers of the in- and excircles form an orthocentric system.
A median of a triangle is a straight line through a vertex and the midpoint of the opposite side, and divides the triangle into two equal areas. The three medians intersect in a single point, the triangle's centroid or geometric barycenter, usually denoted by G. The centroid of a rigid triangular object (cut out of a thin sheet of uniform density) is also its center of mass: the object can be balanced on its centroid in a uniform gravitational field. The centroid cuts every median in the ratio 2:1, i.e. the distance between a vertex and the centroid is twice the distance between the centroid and the midpoint of the opposite side.
The midpoints of the three sides and the feet of the three altitudes all lie on a single circle, the triangle's nine-point circle. The remaining three points for which it is named are the midpoints of the portion of altitude between the vertices and the orthocenter. The radius of the nine-point circle is half that of the circumcircle. It touches the incircle (at the Feuerbach point) and the three excircles.
The orthocenter (blue point), center of the nine-point circle (red), centroid (orange), and circumcenter (green) all lie on a single line, known as Euler's line (red line). The center of the nine-point circle lies at the midpoint between the orthocenter and the circumcenter, and the distance between the centroid and the circumcenter is half that between the centroid and the orthocenter.
The center of the incircle is not in general located on Euler's line.
If one reflects a median in the angle bisector that passes through the same vertex, one obtains a symmedian. The three symmedians intersect in a single point, the symmedian point of the triangle.
There are various standard methods for calculating the length of a side or the measure of an angle. Certain methods are suited to calculating values in a right-angled triangle; more complex methods may be required in other situations.
In right triangles, the trigonometric ratios of sine, cosine and tangent can be used to find unknown angles and the lengths of unknown sides. The sides of the triangle are known as follows:
The "sine" of an angle is the ratio of the length of the opposite side to the length of the hypotenuse. In our case
This ratio does not depend on the particular right triangle chosen, as long as it contains the angle "A", since all those triangles are similar.
The "cosine" of an angle is the ratio of the length of the adjacent side to the length of the hypotenuse. In our case
The "tangent" of an angle is the ratio of the length of the opposite side to the length of the adjacent side. In our case
The acronym "SOH-CAH-TOA" is a useful mnemonic for these ratios.
The inverse trigonometric functions can be used to calculate the internal angles for a right angled triangle with the length of any two sides.
Arcsin can be used to calculate an angle from the length of the opposite side and the length of the hypotenuse.
Arccos can be used to calculate an angle from the length of the adjacent side and the length of the hypotenuse.
Arctan can be used to calculate an angle from the length of the opposite side and the length of the adjacent side.
In introductory geometry and trigonometry courses, the notation sin−1, cos−1, etc., are often used in place of arcsin, arccos, etc. However, the arcsin, arccos, etc., notation is standard in higher mathematics where trigonometric functions are commonly raised to powers, as this avoids confusion between multiplicative inverse and compositional inverse.
The law of sines, or sine rule, states that the ratio of the length of a side to the sine of its corresponding opposite angle is constant, that is
This ratio is equal to the diameter of the circumscribed circle of the given triangle. Another interpretation of this theorem is that every triangle with angles α, β and γ is similar to a triangle with side lengths equal to sin α, sin β and sin γ. This triangle can be constructed by first constructing a circle of diameter 1, and inscribing in it two of the angles of the triangle. The length of the sides of that triangle will be sin α, sin β and sin γ. The side whose length is sin α is opposite to the angle whose measure is α, etc.
The law of cosines, or cosine rule, connects the length of an unknown side of a triangle to the length of the other sides and the angle opposite to the unknown side. As per the law:
For a triangle with length of sides "a", "b", "c" and angles of α, β, γ respectively, given two known lengths of a triangle "a" and "b", and the angle between the two known sides γ (or the angle opposite to the unknown side "c"), to calculate the third side "c", the following formula can be used:
If the lengths of all three sides of any triangle are known the three angles can be calculated:
The law of tangents, or tangent rule, can be used to find a side or an angle when two sides and an angle or two angles and a side are known. It states that:
"Solution of triangles" is the main trigonometric problem: to find missing characteristics of a triangle (three angles, the lengths of the three sides etc.) when at least three of these characteristics are given. The triangle can be located on a plane or on a sphere. This problem often occurs in various trigonometric applications, such as geodesy, astronomy, construction, navigation etc.
Calculating the area "T" of a triangle is an elementary problem encountered often in many different situations. The best known and simplest formula is:
where "b" is the length of the base of the triangle, and "h" is the height or altitude of the triangle. The term "base" denotes any side, and "height" denotes the length of a perpendicular from the vertex opposite the base onto the line containing the base. In 499 CE Aryabhata, used this illustrated method in the "Aryabhatiya" (section 2.6).
Although simple, this formula is only useful if the height can be readily found, which is not always the case. For example, the surveyor of a triangular field might find it relatively easy to measure the length of each side, but relatively difficult to construct a 'height'. Various methods may be used in practice, depending on what is known about the triangle. The following is a selection of frequently used formulae for the area of a triangle.
The height of a triangle can be found through the application of trigonometry.
"Knowing SAS": Using the labels in the image on the right, the altitude is . Substituting this in the formula formula_26 derived above, the area of the triangle can be expressed as:
(where α is the interior angle at "A", β is the interior angle at "B", formula_28 is the interior angle at "C" and "c" is the line AB).
Furthermore, since sin α = sin ("π" − α) = sin (β + formula_28), and similarly for the other two angles:
"Knowing AAS":
and analogously if the known side is "a" or "c".
"Knowing ASA":
and analogously if the known side is "b" or "c".
The shape of the triangle is determined by the lengths of the sides. Therefore, the area can also be derived from the lengths of the sides. By Heron's formula:
where formula_34 is the semiperimeter, or half of the triangle's perimeter.
Three other equivalent ways of writing Heron's formula are
The area of a parallelogram embedded in a three-dimensional Euclidean space can be calculated using vectors. Let vectors AB and AC point respectively from "A" to "B" and from "A" to "C". The area of parallelogram "ABDC" is then
which is the magnitude of the cross product of vectors AB and AC. The area of triangle ABC is half of this,
The area of triangle "ABC" can also be expressed in terms of dot products as follows:
In two-dimensional Euclidean space, expressing vector AB as a free vector in Cartesian space equal to ("x"1,"y"1) and AC as ("x"2,"y"2), this can be rewritten as:
If vertex "A" is located at the origin (0, 0) of a Cartesian coordinate system and the coordinates of the other two vertices are given by and , then the area can be computed as times the absolute value of the determinant
For three general vertices, the equation is:
which can be written as
If the points are labeled sequentially in the counterclockwise direction, the above determinant expressions are positive and the absolute value signs can be omitted. The above formula is known as the shoelace formula or the surveyor's formula.
If we locate the vertices in the complex plane and denote them in counterclockwise sequence as , , and , and denote their complex conjugates as formula_45, formula_46, and formula_47, then the formula
is equivalent to the shoelace formula.
In three dimensions, the area of a general triangle , and ) is the Pythagorean sum of the areas of the respective projections on the three principal planes (i.e. "x" = 0, "y" = 0 and "z" = 0):
The area within any closed curve, such as a triangle, is given by the line integral around the curve of the algebraic or signed distance of a point on the curve from an arbitrary oriented straight line "L". Points to the right of "L" as oriented are taken to be at negative distance from "L", while the weight for the integral is taken to be the component of arc length parallel to "L" rather than arc length itself.
This method is well suited to computation of the area of an arbitrary polygon. Taking "L" to be the "x"-axis, the line integral between consecutive vertices ("xi","yi") and ("x""i"+1,"y""i"+1) is given by the base times the mean height, namely . The sign of the area is an overall indicator of the direction of traversal, with negative area indicating counterclockwise traversal. The area of a triangle then falls out as the case of a polygon with three sides.
While the line integral method has in common with other coordinate-based methods the arbitrary choice of a coordinate system, unlike the others it makes no arbitrary choice of vertex of the triangle as origin or of side as base. Furthermore, the choice of coordinate system defined by "L" commits to only two degrees of freedom rather than the usual three, since the weight is a local distance (e.g. in the above) whence the method does not require choosing an axis normal to "L".
When working in polar coordinates it is not necessary to convert to Cartesian coordinates to use line integration, since the line integral between consecutive vertices ("ri",θ"i") and ("r""i"+1,θ"i"+1) of a polygon is given directly by . This is valid for all values of θ, with some decrease in numerical accuracy when |θ| is many orders of magnitude greater than π. With this formulation negative area indicates clockwise traversal, which should be kept in mind when mixing polar and cartesian coordinates. Just as the choice of "y"-axis () is immaterial for line integration in cartesian coordinates, so is the choice of zero heading () immaterial here.
Three formulas have the same structure as Heron's formula but are expressed in terms of different variables. First, denoting the medians from sides "a", "b", and "c" respectively as "ma", "mb", and "mc" and their semi-sum as σ, we have
Next, denoting the altitudes from sides "a", "b", and "c" respectively as "ha", "hb", and "hc", and denoting the semi-sum of the reciprocals of the altitudes as formula_51 we have
And denoting the semi-sum of the angles' sines as , we have
where "D" is the diameter of the circumcircle: formula_54
See Pick's theorem for a technique for finding the area of any arbitrary lattice polygon (one drawn on a grid with vertically and horizontally adjacent lattice points at equal distances, and with vertices on lattice points).
The theorem states:
where "formula_56" is the number of internal lattice points and "B" is the number of lattice points lying on the border of the polygon.
Numerous other area formulas exist, such as
where "r" is the inradius, and "s" is the semiperimeter (in fact, this formula holds for "all" tangential polygons), and
where formula_59 are the radii of the excircles tangent to sides "a, b, c" respectively.
We also have
and
for circumdiameter "D"; and
for angle α ≠ 90°.
The area can also be expressed as
In 1885, Baker gave a collection of over a hundred distinct area formulas for the triangle. These include:
for circumradius (radius of the circumcircle) "R", and
The area "T" of any triangle with perimeter "p" satisfies
with equality holding if and only if the triangle is equilateral.
Other upper bounds on the area "T" are given by
and
both again holding if and only if the triangle is equilateral.
There are infinitely many lines that bisect the area of a triangle. Three of them are the medians, which are the only area bisectors that go through the centroid. Three other area bisectors are parallel to the triangle's sides.
Any line through a triangle that splits both the triangle's area and its perimeter in half goes through the triangle's incenter. There can be one, two, or three of these for any given triangle.
The formulas in this section are true for all Euclidean triangles.
The medians and the sides are related by
and
and equivalently for "mb" and "mc".
For angle A opposite side "a", the length of the internal angle bisector is given by
for semiperimeter "s", where the bisector length is measured from the vertex to where it meets the opposite side.
The interior perpendicular bisectors are given by
where the sides are formula_78 and the area is formula_79
The altitude from, for example, the side of length "a" is
The following formulas involve the circumradius "R" and the inradius "r":
where "ha" etc. are the altitudes to the subscripted sides;
and
The product of two sides of a triangle equals the altitude to the third side times the diameter "D" of the circumcircle:
Suppose two adjacent but non-overlapping triangles share the same side of length "f" and share the same circumcircle, so that the side of length "f" is a chord of the circumcircle and the triangles have side lengths ("a", "b", "f") and ("c", "d", "f"), with the two triangles together forming a cyclic quadrilateral with side lengths in sequence ("a", "b", "c", "d"). Then
Let "G" be the centroid of a triangle with vertices "A", "B", and "C", and let "P" be any interior point. Then the distances between the points are related by
The sum of the squares of the triangle's sides equals three times the sum of the squared distances of the centroid from the vertices:
Let "qa", "qb", and "qc" be the distances from the centroid to the sides of lengths "a", "b", and "c". Then
and
for area "T".
Carnot's theorem states that the sum of the distances from the circumcenter to the three sides equals the sum of the circumradius and the inradius. Here a segment's length is considered to be negative if and only if the segment lies entirely outside the triangle. This method is especially useful for deducing the properties of more abstract forms of triangles, such as the ones induced by Lie algebras, that otherwise have the same properties as usual triangles.
Euler's theorem states that the distance "d" between the circumcenter and the incenter is given by
or equivalently
where "R" is the circumradius and "r" is the inradius. Thus for all triangles "R" ≥ 2"r", with equality holding for equilateral triangles.
If we denote that the orthocenter divides one altitude into segments of lengths "u" and "v", another altitude into segment lengths "w" and "x", and the third altitude into segment lengths "y" and "z", then "uv" = "wx" = "yz".
The distance from a side to the circumcenter equals half the distance from the opposite vertex to the orthocenter.
The sum of the squares of the distances from the vertices to the orthocenter "H" plus the sum of the squares of the sides equals twelve times the square of the circumradius:
In addition to the law of sines, the law of cosines, the law of tangents, and the trigonometric existence conditions given earlier, for any triangle
Morley's trisector theorem states that in any triangle, the three points of intersection of the adjacent angle trisectors form an equilateral triangle, called the Morley triangle.
As discussed above, every triangle has a unique inscribed circle (incircle) that is interior to the triangle and tangent to all three sides.
Every triangle has a unique Steiner inellipse which is interior to the triangle and tangent at the midpoints of the sides. Marden's theorem shows how to find the foci of this ellipse. This ellipse has the greatest area of any ellipse tangent to all three sides of the triangle.
The Mandart inellipse of a triangle is the ellipse inscribed within the triangle tangent to its sides at the contact points of its excircles.
For any ellipse inscribed in a triangle "ABC", let the foci be "P" and "Q". Then
Every convex polygon with area "T" can be inscribed in a triangle of area at most equal to 2"T". Equality holds (exclusively) for a parallelogram.
The Lemoine hexagon is a cyclic hexagon with vertices given by the six intersections of the sides of a triangle with the three lines that are parallel to the sides and that pass through its symmedian point. In either its simple form or its self-intersecting form, the Lemoine hexagon is interior to the triangle with two vertices on each side of the triangle.
Every acute triangle has three inscribed squares (squares in its interior such that all four of a square's vertices lie on a side of the triangle, so two of them lie on the same side and hence one side of the square coincides with part of a side of the triangle). In a right triangle two of the squares coincide and have a vertex at the triangle's right angle, so a right triangle has only two "distinct" inscribed squares. An obtuse triangle has only one inscribed square, with a side coinciding with part of the triangle's longest side. Within a given triangle, a longer common side is associated with a smaller inscribed square. If an inscribed square has side of length "q""a" and the triangle has a side of length "a", part of which side coincides with a side of the square, then "q""a", "a", the altitude "h""a" from the side "a", and the triangle's area "T" are related according to
The largest possible ratio of the area of the inscribed square to the area of the triangle is 1/2, which occurs when , , and the altitude of the triangle from the base of length "a" is equal to "a". The smallest possible ratio of the side of one inscribed square to the side of another in the same non-obtuse triangle is formula_98 Both of these extreme cases occur for the isosceles right triangle.
From an interior point in a reference triangle, the nearest points on the three sides serve as the vertices of the pedal triangle of that point. If the interior point is the circumcenter of the reference triangle, the vertices of the pedal triangle are the midpoints of the reference triangle's sides, and so the pedal triangle is called the midpoint triangle or medial triangle. The midpoint triangle subdivides the reference triangle into four congruent triangles which are similar to the reference triangle.
The Gergonne triangle or intouch triangle of a reference triangle has its vertices at the three points of tangency of the reference triangle's sides with its incircle. The extouch triangle of a reference triangle has its vertices at the points of tangency of the reference triangle's excircles with its sides (not extended).
The tangential triangle of a reference triangle (other than a right triangle) is the triangle whose sides are on the tangent lines to the reference triangle's circumcircle at its vertices.
As mentioned above, every triangle has a unique circumcircle, a circle passing through all three vertices, whose center is the intersection of the perpendicular bisectors of the triangle's sides.
Further, every triangle has a unique Steiner circumellipse, which passes through the triangle's vertices and has its center at the triangle's centroid. Of all ellipses going through the triangle's vertices, it has the smallest area.
The Kiepert hyperbola is the unique conic which passes through the triangle's three vertices, its centroid, and its circumcenter.
Of all triangles contained in a given convex polygon, there exists a triangle with maximal area whose vertices are all vertices of the given polygon.
One way to identify locations of points in (or outside) a triangle is to place the triangle in an arbitrary location and orientation in the Cartesian plane, and to use Cartesian coordinates. While convenient for many purposes, this approach has the disadvantage of all points' coordinate values being dependent on the arbitrary placement in the plane.
Two systems avoid that feature, so that the coordinates of a point are not affected by moving the triangle, rotating it, or reflecting it as in a mirror, any of which give a congruent triangle, or even by rescaling it to give a similar triangle:
A non-planar triangle is a triangle which is not contained in a (flat) plane. Some examples of non-planar triangles in non-Euclidean geometries are spherical triangles in spherical geometry and hyperbolic triangles in hyperbolic geometry.
While the measures of the internal angles in planar triangles always sum to 180°, a hyperbolic triangle has measures of angles that sum to less than 180°, and a spherical triangle has measures of angles that sum to more than 180°. A hyperbolic triangle can be obtained by drawing on a negatively curved surface, such as a saddle surface, and a spherical triangle can be obtained by drawing on a positively curved surface such as a sphere. Thus, if one draws a giant triangle on the surface of the Earth, one will find that the sum of the measures of its angles is greater than 180°; in fact it will be between 180° and 540°. In particular it is possible to draw a triangle on a sphere such that the measure of each of its internal angles is equal to 90°, adding up to a total of 270°.
Specifically, on a sphere the sum of the angles of a triangle is
where "f" is the fraction of the sphere's area which is enclosed by the triangle. For example, suppose that we draw a triangle on the Earth's surface with vertices at the North Pole, at a point on the equator at 0° longitude, and a point on the equator at 90° West longitude. The great circle line between the latter two points is the equator, and the great circle line between either of those points and the North Pole is a line of longitude; so there are right angles at the two points on the equator. Moreover, the angle at the North Pole is also 90° because the other two vertices differ by 90° of longitude. So the sum of the angles in this triangle is . The triangle encloses 1/4 of the northern hemisphere (90°/360° as viewed from the North Pole) and therefore 1/8 of the Earth's surface, so in the formula ; thus the formula correctly gives the sum of the triangle's angles as 270°.
From the above angle sum formula we can also see that the Earth's surface is locally flat: If we draw an arbitrarily small triangle in the neighborhood of one point on the Earth's surface, the fraction "f" of the Earth's surface which is enclosed by the triangle will be arbitrarily close to zero. In this case the angle sum formula simplifies to 180°, which we know is what Euclidean geometry tells us for triangles on a flat surface.
Rectangles have been the most popular and common geometric form for buildings since the shape is easy to stack and organize; as a standard, it is easy to design furniture and fixtures to fit inside rectangularly shaped buildings. But triangles, while more difficult to use conceptually, provide a great deal of strength. As computer technology helps architects design creative new buildings, triangular shapes are becoming increasingly prevalent as parts of buildings and as the primary shape for some types of skyscrapers as well as building materials. In Tokyo in 1989, architects had wondered whether it was possible to build a 500-story tower to provide affordable office space for this densely packed city, but with the danger to buildings from earthquakes, architects considered that a triangular shape would be necessary if such a building were to be built.
In New York City, as Broadway crisscrosses major avenues, the resulting blocks are cut like triangles, and buildings have been built on these shapes; one such building is the triangularly shaped Flatiron Building which real estate people admit has a "warren of awkward spaces that do not easily accommodate modern office furniture" but that has not prevented the structure from becoming a landmark icon. Designers have made houses in Norway using triangular themes. Triangle shapes have appeared in churches as well as public buildings including colleges as well as supports for innovative home designs.
Triangles are sturdy; while a rectangle can collapse into a parallelogram from pressure to one of its points, triangles have a natural strength which supports structures against lateral pressures. A triangle will not change shape unless its sides are bent or extended or broken or if its joints break; in essence, each of the three sides supports the other two. A rectangle, in contrast, is more dependent on the strength of its joints in a structural sense. Some innovative designers have proposed making bricks not out of rectangles, but with triangular shapes which can be combined in three dimensions. It is likely that triangles will be used increasingly in new ways as architecture increases in complexity. It is important to remember that triangles are strong in terms of rigidity, but while packed in a tessellating arrangement triangles are not as strong as hexagons under compression (hence the prevalence of hexagonal forms in nature). Tessellated triangles still maintain superior strength for cantilevering however, and this is the basis for one of the strongest man made structures, the tetrahedral truss. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30654 |
Torino scale
The Torino Scale is a method for categorizing the impact hazard associated with near-Earth objects (NEOs) such as asteroids and comets.
It is intended as a communication tool for astronomers and the public to assess the seriousness of collision predictions, by combining probability statistics and known kinetic damage potentials into a single threat value. The Palermo Technical Impact Hazard Scale is a similar, but more complex scale.
The Torino Scale uses an integer scale from 0 to 10. A 0 indicates an object has a negligibly small chance of collision with the Earth, compared with the usual "background noise" of collision events, or is too small to penetrate Earth's atmosphere intact. A 10 indicates that a collision is certain, and the impacting object is large enough to precipitate a global disaster.
An object is assigned a 0 to 10 value based on its collision probability and the kinetic energy (expressed in megatons of TNT) of the possible collision.
The Torino Scale is defined only for potential impacts less than 100 years in the future.
"For an object with multiple potential collisions on a set of dates, a Torino Scale value should be determined for each date. It may be convenient to summarize such an object by the greatest Torino Scale value within the set."
The Torino Scale was created by Professor Richard P. Binzel in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The first version, called "A Near-Earth Object Hazard Index", was presented at a United Nations conference in 1995 and was published by Binzel in the subsequent conference proceedings ("Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences," volume 822, 1997.)
A revised version of the "Hazard Index" was presented at a June 1999 international conference on NEOs held in Torino (Turin), Italy. The conference participants voted to adopt the revised version, where the bestowed name "Torino Scale" recognizes the spirit of international cooperation displayed at that conference toward research efforts to understand the hazards posed by NEOs. ("Torino Scale" is the proper usage, not "Turin Scale.")
Due to exaggerated press coverage of Level 1 asteroids, a rewording of the Torino Scale was published in 2005, adding more details and renaming the categories: in particular, Level 1 was changed from "Events meriting careful monitoring" to "Normal".
The Torino Scale has served as the model for the Rio Scale which quantifies the validity and societal impact of SETI data.
The Torino Scale also uses a color code scale: white, green, yellow, orange, red. Each color code has an overall meaning:
No object has ever been rated above level 4.
The Chicxulub impact, believed by most scientists to be a significant factor in the extinction of the dinosaurs, has been estimated at 100 million (108) megatons, or Torino Scale 10.
The impacts which created the Barringer Crater and the Tunguska event in 1908 are both estimated to be in the 3–10 megaton range, corresponding to Torino Scale 8. The 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor had a total kinetic energy prior to impact of about 0.5 megatons, corresponding to Torino Scale 0. Between 2000 and 2013, 26 asteroid impacts with an energy of 1–600 kilotons were detected.
The biggest hydrogen bomb ever exploded, the Tsar Bomba, was around 50 megatons.
The 1883 eruption of Krakatoa was the equivalent of roughly 200 megatons.
The comet C/2013 A1, which passed close to Mars in 2014, was originally estimated to have a potential impact energy of 5 million to 24 billion megatons, and in March 2013 was estimated to have a Mars impact probability of ~1:1250, corresponding to the Martian equivalent of Torino Scale 6. The impact probability was reduced to ~1:120000 in April 2013, corresponding to Torino Scale 1 or 2.
none
This is a partial list of near-Earth asteroids that have been listed with a Torino Scale rating of 1+ and been lowered to 0 or been removed from the Sentry Risk Table altogether. Most objects that reach a Torino Scale of 1 have a short observation arc of less than 2 weeks and are quickly removed as the observation arc gets longer and more accurate. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30656 |
Terabyte
The terabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The prefix "tera" represents the fourth power of 1000, and means 1012 in the International System of Units (SI), and therefore one terabyte is one trillion (short scale) bytes. The unit symbol for the terabyte is TB.
A related unit, the tebibyte (TiB), using a binary prefix, is equal to 10244 bytes. One terabyte is about 0.9095 TiB. Despite the introduction of these standardized binary prefixes, the terabyte is still also commonly used in some computer operating systems, primarily Microsoft Windows, to denote (10244 or 240) bytes for disk drive capacity.
The prefix "tera" was defined for the International System of Units in 1960. It is derived from the Greek word , meaning "monster"., but it has also connotation to the Greek word "tetra", meaning "four", in analogy to the subsequent prefix names being correlated to magnitude of the decimal exponent.
Usage of "terabyte" in information technology products includes:
Examples of the use of "terabyte" to describe data sizes in different fields are: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=30657 |
Romani people
The Romani (also spelled Romany , ), colloquially known as Roma, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, traditionally nomadic itinerants living mostly in Europe, and diaspora populations in the Americas. The Romani as a people originate from the northern Indian subcontinent, from the Rajasthan, Haryana, and Punjab regions of modern-day India.
Genetic findings appear to confirm that the Romani "came from a single group that left northwestern India" in about 512 CE. Genetic research published in the "European Journal of Human Genetics" "revealed that over 70% of males belong to a single lineage that appears unique to the Roma". They are dispersed, but their most concentrated populations are located in Europe, especially Central, Eastern and Southern Europe (including Turkey, Spain and Southern France). The Romani arrived in Mid-West Asia and Europe around 1007. They have been associated with another Indo-Aryan group, the Dom people: the two groups have been said to have separated from each other or, at least, to share a similar history. Specifically, the ancestors of both the Romani and the Dom left North India sometime between the 6th and 11th century.
The Romani are widely known in English by the exonym Gypsies (or Gipsies), which is considered by some Roma people to be pejorative due to its connotations of illegality and irregularity. Beginning in 1888, the Gypsy Lore Society started to publish a journal that was meant to dispel rumors about their lifestyle.
Since the 19th century, some Romani have also migrated to the Americas. There are an estimated one million Roma in the United States; and 800,000 in Brazil, most of whose ancestors emigrated in the 19th century from Eastern Europe. Brazil also includes a notable Romani community descended from people deported by the Portuguese Empire during the Portuguese Inquisition. In migrations since the late 19th century, Romani have also moved to other countries in South America and to Canada.
In February 2016, during the International Roma Conference, the Indian Minister of External Affairs stated that the people of the Roma community were children of India. The conference ended with a recommendation to the government of India to recognize the Roma community spread across 30 countries as a part of the Indian diaspora.
The Romani language is divided into several dialects which together have an estimated number of speakers of more than two million. The total number of Romani people is at least twice as high (several times as high according to high estimates). Many Romani are native speakers of the dominant language in their country of residence or of mixed languages combining the dominant language with a dialect of Romani; those varieties are sometimes called Para-Romani.
Rom means man or husband in the Romani language. It has the variants "dom" and "lom", which may be related to the Sanskrit words "dam-pati" (lord of the house, husband), "dama" (to subdue), "lom" (hair), "lomaka" (hairy), "loman", "roman" (hairy), "romaça" (man with beard and long hair). Another possible origin is from Sanskrit डोम "doma" (member of a low caste of travelling musicians and dancers).
In the Romani language, "Rom" is a masculine noun, meaning 'man of the Roma ethnic group' or 'man, husband', with the plural "Roma". The feminine of "Rom" in the Romani language is "Romni". However, in most cases, in other languages "Rom" is now used for people of both genders.
"Romani" is the feminine adjective, while "Romano" is the masculine adjective. Some Romanies use "Rom" or "Roma" as an ethnic name, while others (such as the Sinti, or the Romanichal) do not use this term as a self-ascription for the entire ethnic group.
Sometimes, "rom" and "romani" are spelled with a double "r", i.e., "rrom" and "rromani". In this case "rr" is used to represent the phoneme (also written as "ř" and "rh"), which in some Romani dialects has remained different from the one written with a single "r". The "rr" spelling is common in certain institutions (such as the INALCO Institute in Paris), or used in certain countries, e.g., Romania, to distinguish from the endonym/homonym for Romanians ("sg. român, pl. români").
In the English language (according to the Oxford English Dictionary), "Rom" is a noun (with the plural "Roma" or "Roms") and an adjective, while "Romani" ("Romany") is also a noun (with the plural "Romani", "the Romani", "Romanies", or "Romanis") and an adjective. Both "Rom" and "Romani" have been in use in English since the 19th century as an alternative for Gypsy. "Romani" was sometimes spelled "Rommany", but more often "Romany", while today "Romani" is the most popular spelling. Occasionally, the double "r" spelling (e.g., "Rroma", "Rromani") mentioned above is also encountered in English texts.
The term "Roma" is increasingly encountered, as a generic term for the Romani people.
Because all Romanis use the word "Romani" as an adjective, the term became a noun for the entire ethnic group. Today, the term "Romani" is used by some organizations, including the United Nations and the US Library of Congress. However, the Council of Europe and other organizations consider that "Roma" is the correct term referring to all related groups, regardless of their country of origin, and recommend that "Romani" be restricted to the language and culture: Romani language, Romani culture.
The standard assumption is that the demonyms of the Romani people, Lom and Dom share the same origin.
The English term "Gypsy" (or "Gipsy") originates from the Middle English "gypcian", short for "Egipcien". The Spanish term "Gitano" and French "Gitan" have similar etymologies. They are ultimately derived from the Greek ("Aigyptioi"), meaning Egyptian, via Latin. This designation owes its existence to the belief, common in the Middle Ages, that the Romani, or some related group (such as the Middle Eastern Dom people), were itinerant Egyptians. This belief appears to derive from verses in the biblical Book of Ezekiel (29: 6 and 12-13) referring to the Egyptians being scattered among the nations by an angry God. According to one narrative, they were exiled from Egypt as punishment for allegedly harbouring the infant Jesus. In his book 'The Zincali: an account of the Gypsies of Spain', George Borrow notes that when they first appeared in Germany it was under the character of Egyptians doing penance for their having refused hospitality to the Virgin and her son. As described in Victor Hugo's novel "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", the medieval French referred to the Romanies as "Egyptiens".
This exonym is sometimes written with capital letter, to show that it designates an ethnic group. However, the word is sometimes considered derogatory because of its negative and stereotypical associations. The Council of Europe consider that "Gypsy" or equivalent terms, as well as administrative terms such as "Gens du Voyage" (referring in fact to an ethnic group but not acknowledging ethnic identification) are not in line with European recommendations. In North America, the word "Gypsy" is most commonly used as a reference to Romani ethnicity, though lifestyle and fashion are at times also referenced by using this word.
Another common designation of the Romani people is "Cingane" (alt. Tsinganoi, Zigar, Zigeuner), which likely derives from "Athinganoi", the name of a Christian sect with whom the Romani (or some related group) became associated in the Middle Ages.
For a variety of reasons, many Romanis choose not to register their ethnic identity in official censuses. There are an estimated 10 million Romani people in Europe (as of 2019), although some high estimates by Romani organizations give numbers as high as 14 million. Significant Romani populations are found in the Balkans, in some Central European states, in Spain, France, Russia and Ukraine. In the European Union there are an estimated 6 million Romanis. Several million more Romanis may live outside Europe, in particular in the Middle East and in the Americas.
Like the Roma in general, many different ethnonyms are given to subgroups of Roma. Sometimes a subgroup uses more than one endonym, is commonly known by an exonym or erroneously by the endonym of another subgroup. The only name approaching an all-encompassing self-description is "Rom". Even when subgroups don't use the name, they all acknowledge a common origin and a dichotomy between themselves and "Gadjo" (non-Roma). For instance, while the main group of Roma in German-speaking countries refer to themselves as Sinti, their name for their original language is "Romanes".
Subgroups have been described as, in part, a result of the Hindu caste system, which the founding population of "Rom" almost certainly experienced in their South Asian "urheimat".
Many groups use names apparently derived from the Romani word "kalo" or "calo", meaning "black" or "absorbing all light". This closely resembles words for "black" or "dark" in Indo-Aryan languages (e.g., Sanskrit काल "kāla": "black", "of a dark colour"). Likewise, the name of the Dom or Domba people of North India – to whom the Roma have genetic, cultural and linguistic links – has come to imply "dark-skinned", in some Indian languages. Hence names such as "kale" and "calé" may have originated as an exonym or a euphemism for Roma.
Other endonyms for Romani include, for example:
The Roma people have a number of distinct populations, the largest being the Roma and the Iberian Calé or Caló, who reached Anatolia and the Balkans about the early 12th century, from a migration out of northwestern India beginning about 600 years earlier. They settled in present-day Turkey, Greece, Serbia, Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Hungary and Slovakia, by order of volume, and Spain. From the Balkans, they migrated throughout Europe and, in the nineteenth and later centuries, to the Americas. The Romani population in the United States is estimated at more than one million. Brazil has the second largest Romani population in the Americas, estimated at approximately 800,000 by the 2011 census. The Romani people are mainly called by non-Romani ethnic Brazilians as "ciganos". Most of them belong to the ethnic subgroup "Calés" (Kale), of the Iberian peninsula. Juscelino Kubitschek, Brazilian president during 1956–1961 term, was 50% Czech Romani by his mother's bloodline; and Washington Luís, last president of the First Brazilian Republic (1926–1930 term), had Portuguese Kale ancestry.
There is no official or reliable count of the Romani populations worldwide. Many Romani refuse to register their ethnic identity in official censuses for fear of discrimination. Others are descendants of intermarriage with local populations and no longer identify only as Romani, or not at all.
As of the early 2000s, an estimated 3.8 to 9 million Romani people lived in Europe and Asia Minor. although some Romani organizations estimate numbers as high as 14 million. Significant Romani populations are found in the Balkan peninsula, in some Central European states, in Spain, France, Russia, and Ukraine. The total number of Romani living outside Europe are primarily in the Middle East and North Africa and in the Americas, and are estimated in total at more than two million. Some countries do not collect data by ethnicity.
The Romani people identify as distinct ethnicities based in part on territorial, cultural and dialectal differences, and self-designation.
Genetic findings suggest an Indian origin for Roma. Because Romani groups did not keep chronicles of their history or have oral accounts of it, most hypotheses about the Romani's migration early history are based on linguistic theory. There is also no known record of a migration from India to Europe from medieval times that can be connected indisputably to Roma.
According to a legend reported in the Persian epic poem, the "Shahnameh", from Iran and repeated by several modern authors, the Sasanian king Bahrām V Gōr learned towards the end of his reign (421–39) that the poor could not afford to enjoy music, and he asked the king of India to send him ten thousand "luris", lute-playing experts. When the luris arrived, Bahrām gave each one an ox, a donkey, and a donkey-load of wheat so that they could live on agriculture and play music for free for the poor. But the luris ate the oxen and the wheat and came back a year later with their cheeks hollowed with hunger. The king, angered with their having wasted what he had given them, ordered them to pack up their bags and go wandering around the world on their donkeys.
The linguistic evidence has indisputably shown that the roots of the Romani language lie in India: the language has grammatical characteristics of Indian languages and shares with them a large part of the basic lexicon, for example, regarding body parts or daily routines.
More exactly, Romani shares the basic lexicon with Hindi and Punjabi. It shares many phonetic features with Marwari, while its grammar is closest to Bengali.
Romani and Domari share some similarities: agglutination of postpositions of the second Layer (or case marking clitics) to the nominal stem, concord markers for the past tense, the neutralisation of gender marking in the plural, and the use of the oblique case as an accusative. This has prompted much discussion about the relationships between these two languages. Domari was once thought to be a "sister language" of Romani, the two languages having split after the departure from the Indian subcontinent but later research suggests that the differences between them are significant enough to treat them as two separate languages within the Central zone (Hindustani) group of languages. The Dom and the Rom therefore likely descend from two different migration waves out of India, separated by several centuries.
In phonology, Romani language shares a number of isoglosses with the Central branch of Indo-Aryan languages especially in the realization of some sounds of the Old Indo-Aryan. However, it also preserves a number of dental clusters. In regards to verb morphology, Romani follows exactly the same pattern of northwestern languages such as Kashmiri and Shina through the adoption of oblique enclitic pronouns as person markers, lending credence to the theory of their Central Indian origin and a subsequent migration to northwestern India. Though the retention of dental clusters suggests a break from central languages during the transition from Old to Middle Indo-Aryan, the overall morphology suggests that the language participated in some of the significant developments leading toward the emergence of New Indo-Aryan languages.
Genetic findings in 2012 suggest the Romani originated in northwestern India and migrated as a group. According to the study, the ancestors of present scheduled castes and scheduled tribes populations of northern India, traditionally referred to collectively as the Ḍoma, are the likely ancestral populations of modern European Roma. In December 2012, additional findings appeared to confirm the "Roma came from a single group that left northwestern India about 1,500 years ago". They reached the Balkans about 900 years ago and then spread throughout Europe. The team also found the Roma to display genetic isolation, as well as "differential gene flow in time and space with non-Romani Europeans".
Genetic research published in "European Journal of Human Genetics" "has revealed that over 70% of males belong to a single lineage that appears unique to the Roma".
Genetic evidence supports the medieval migration from India. The Romani have been described as "a conglomerate of genetically isolated founder populations", while a number of common Mendelian disorders among Romanies from all over Europe indicates "a common origin and founder effect".
A study from 2001 by Gresham et al. suggests "a limited number of related founders, compatible with a small group of migrants splitting from a distinct caste or tribal group". The same study found that "a single lineage... found across Romani populations, accounts for almost one-third of Romani males". A 2004 study by Morar et al. concluded that the Romani population "was founded approximately 32–40 generations ago, with secondary and tertiary founder events occurring approximately 16–25 generations ago".
Haplogroup H-M82 is a major lineage cluster in the Balkan Romani group, accounting for approximately 60% of the total. Haplogroup H is uncommon in Europe but present in the Indian subcontinent and Sri Lanka.
A study of 444 people representing three different ethnic groups in North Macedonia found mtDNA haplogroups M5a1 and H7a1a were dominant in Romanies (13.7% and 10.3%, respectively).
Y-DNA composition of Romani in North Macedonia, based on 57 samples:
Y-DNA Haplogroup H1a occurs in Romani at frequencies 7–70%. Unlike ethnic Hungarians, among Hungarian and Slovakian Romani subpopulations, Haplogroup E-M78 and I1 usually occur above 10% and sometimes over 20%. While among Slovakian and Tiszavasvari Romani the dominant haplogroup is H1a, among Tokaj Romani is Haplogroup J2a (23%), while among Taktaharkány Romani is Haplogroup I2a (21%). Five, rather consistent founder lineages throughout the subpopulations, were found among Romani – J-M67 and J-M92 (J2), H-M52 (H1a1), and I-P259 (I1?). Haplogroup I-P259 as H is not found at frequencies of over 3 percent among host populations, while haplogroups E and I are absent in South Asia. The lineages E-V13, I-P37 (I2a) and R-M17 (R1a) may represent gene flow from the host populations. Bulgarian, Romanian and Greek Romani are dominated by Haplogroup H-M82 (H1a1), while among Spanish Romani J2 is prevalent. In Serbia among Kosovo and Belgrade Romani Haplogroup H prevails, while among Vojvodina Romani, H drops to 7 percent and E-V13 rises to a prevailing level.
Among non-Roma Europeans Haplogroup H is extremely rare, peaking at 7 percent among Albanians from Tirana and 11 percent among Bulgarian Turks. It occurs at 5 percent among Hungarians, although the carriers might be of Romani origin. Among non Roma-speaking Europeans at 2 percent among Slovaks, 2 percent among Croats, 1 percent among Macedonians from Skopje, 3 percent among Macedonian Albanians, 1 percent among Serbs from Belgrade, 3 percent among Bulgarians from Sofia, 1 percent among Austrians and Swiss, 3 percent among Romanians from Ploiesti, 1 percent among Turks.
They may have emerged from the modern Indian state of Rajasthan, migrating to the northwest (the Punjab region, Sindh and Baluchistan of the Indian subcontinent) around 250 BC. Their subsequent westward migration, possibly in waves, is now believed to have occurred beginning in about CE 500.
It has also been suggested that emigration from India may have taken place in the context of the raids by Mahmud of Ghazni. As these soldiers were defeated, they were moved west with their families into the Byzantine Empire. The author Ralph Lilley Turner theorised a central Indian origin of Romani followed by a migration to Northwest India as it shares a number of ancient isoglosses with Central Indo-Aryan languages in relation to realization of some sounds of Old Indo-Aryan. This is lent further credence by its sharing exactly the same pattern of northwestern languages such as Kashmiri and Shina through the adoption of oblique enclitic pronouns as person markers. The overall morphology suggests that Romani participated in some of the significant developments leading toward the emergence of New Indo-Aryan languages, thus indicating that the proto-Romani did not leave the Indian subcontinent until late in the second half of the first millennium.
Though according to a 2012 genomic study, the Romani reached the Balkans as early as the 12th century, the first historical records of the Romani reaching south-eastern Europe are from the 14th century: in 1322, after leaving Ireland on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Irish Franciscan friar Symon Semeonis encountered a migrant group of Romani outside the town of Candia (modern Heraklion), in Crete, calling them "the descendants of Cain"; his account is the earliest surviving description by a Western chronicler of the Romani in Europe.
In 1350, Ludolph of Saxony mentioned a similar people with a unique language whom he called "Mandapolos", a word some think derives from the Greek word "mantes" (meaning prophet or fortune teller).
Around 1360, a fiefdom called the "Feudum Acinganorum" was established in Corfu, which mainly used Romani serfs and to which the Romani on the island were subservient.
By the 1440s, they were recorded in Germany; and by the 16th century, Scotland and Sweden. Some Romani migrated from Persia through North Africa, reaching the Iberian Peninsula in the 15th century. The two currents met in France.
Their early history shows a mixed reception. Although 1385 marks the first recorded transaction for a Romani slave in Wallachia, they were issued safe conduct by Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund in 1417. Romanies were ordered expelled from the Meissen region of Germany in 1416, Lucerne in 1471, Milan in 1493, France in 1504, Catalonia in 1512, Sweden in 1525, England in 1530 (see Egyptians Act 1530), and Denmark in 1536. In 1510, any Romani found in Switzerland were ordered put to death, with similar rules established in England in 1554, and Denmark in 1589, whereas Portugal began deportations of Romanies to its colonies in 1538.
A 1596 English statute gave Romanis special privileges that other wanderers lacked. France passed a similar law in 1683. Catherine the Great of Russia declared the Romanies "crown slaves" (a status superior to serfs), but also kept them out of certain parts of the capital. In 1595, Ștefan Răzvan overcame his birth into slavery, and became the Voivode (Prince) of Moldavia.
Since a royal edict by Charles II in 1695, Spanish Romanis had been restricted to certain towns. An official edict in 1717 restricted them to only 75 towns and districts, so that they would not be concentrated in any one region. In the Great Gypsy Round-up, Romani were arrested and imprisoned by the Spanish Monarchy in 1749.
During the latter part of the 17th century, around the time of the Franco-Dutch War, both France and Holland needed thousands of men to fight. Some recruitment took the form of rounding up vagrants and the poor to work the galleys and provide labour force for the armies. With this background, Romanis were targets of both the French and the Dutch.
After the wars, and into the first decade of the 18th century, Romanis were slaughtered with impunity throughout Holland. Romanis, called ‘heiden’ by the Dutch, wandered throughout the rural areas of Europe and became the societal pariahs of the age. "Heidenjachten", translated as "heathen hunt" happened throughout Holland in an attempt to eradicate them.
Although some Romani could be kept as slaves in Wallachia and Moldavia until abolition in 1856, the majority traveled as free nomads with their wagons, as alluded to in the spoked wheel symbol in the Romani flag. Elsewhere in Europe, they were subjected to ethnic cleansing, abduction of their children, and forced labor. In England, Romani were sometimes expelled from small communities or hanged; in France, they were branded and their heads were shaved; in Moravia and Bohemia, the women were marked by their ears being severed. As a result, large groups of the Romani moved to the East, toward Poland, which was more tolerant, and Russia, where the Romani were treated more fairly as long as they paid the annual taxes.
Romani began emigrating to North America in colonial times, with small groups recorded in Virginia and French Louisiana. Larger-scale Roma emigration to the United States began in the 1860s, with groups of Romanichal from Great Britain. The largest number immigrated in the early 20th century, mainly from the Vlax group of Kalderash. Many Romani also settled in South America.
During World War II, the Nazis embarked on a systematic genocide of the Romani, a process known in Romani as the "Porajmos". Romanies were marked for extermination and sentenced to forced labor and imprisonment in concentration camps. They were often killed on sight, especially by the Einsatzgruppen (paramilitary death squads) on the Eastern Front. The total number of victims has been variously estimated at between 220,000 and 1,500,000.
The treatment of the Romani in Nazi puppet states differed markedly. In the Independent State of Croatia, the Ustaša killed almost the entire Roma population of 25,000. The concentration camp system of Jasenovac, run by the Ustaša militia and the Croat political police, were responsible for the deaths of between 15,000 and 20,000 Roma.
In Czechoslovakia, they were labeled a "socially degraded stratum", and Romani women were sterilized as part of a state policy to reduce their population. This policy was implemented with large financial incentives, threats of denying future welfare payments, with misinformation, or after administering drugs.
An official inquiry from the Czech Republic, resulting in a report (December 2005), concluded that the Communist authorities had practised an assimilation policy towards Romanis, which "included efforts by social services to control the birth rate in the Romani community. The problem of sexual sterilisation carried out in the Czech Republic, either with improper motivation or illegally, exists," said the Czech Public Defender of Rights, recommending state compensation for women affected between 1973 and 1991. New cases were revealed up until 2004, in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Germany, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland "all have histories of coercive sterilization of minorities and other groups".
The traditional Romanies place a high value on the extended family. Virginity is essential in unmarried women. Both men and women often marry young; there has been controversy in several countries over the Romani practice of child marriage. Romani law establishes that the man's family must pay a bride price to the bride's parents, but only traditional families still follow this rule.
Once married, the woman joins the husband's family, where her main job is to tend to her husband's and her children's needs, as well as to take care of her in-laws. The power structure in the traditional Romani household has at its top the oldest man or grandfather, and men in general have more authority than women. Women gain respect and authority as they get older. Young wives begin gaining authority once they have children.
Romani social behavior is strictly regulated by Hindu purity laws ("marime" or "marhime"), still respected by most Roma (and by most older generations of Sinti). This regulation affects many aspects of life, and is applied to actions, people and things: parts of the human body are considered impure: the genital organs (because they produce emissions), as well as the rest of the lower body. Clothes for the lower body, as well as the clothes of menstruating women, are washed separately. Items used for eating are also washed in a different place. Childbirth is considered impure, and must occur outside the dwelling place. The mother is considered impure for forty days after giving birth.
Death is considered impure, and affects the whole family of the dead, who remain impure for a period of time. In contrast to the practice of cremating the dead, Romani dead must be buried. Cremation and burial are both known from the time of the Rigveda, and both are widely practiced in Hinduism today (although the tendency is for Hindus to practice cremation, while some communities in South India tend to bury their dead). Some animals are also considered impure, for instance, cats, because they lick their hindquarters. Horses, in contrast, are not considered impure because they cannot do so.
In Romani philosophy, Romanipen (also "romanypen", "romanipe", "romanype", "romanimos", "romaimos", "romaniya") is the totality of the Romani spirit, Romani culture, Romani Law, being a Romani, a set of Romani strains.
An ethnic Romani is considered a gadjo in the Romani society if he has no Romanipen. Sometimes a non-Romani may be considered a Romani if he has Romanipen. Usually this is an adopted child. It has been hypothesized that it owes more to a framework of culture rather than simply an adherence to historically received rules.
Most Romani people are Christian, others Muslim; some retained their ancient faith of Hinduism from their original homeland of India, while others have their own religion and political organization.
The ancestors of modern-day Romani people were Hindu, but adopted Christianity or Islam depending on the regions through which they had migrated. Muslim Roma are found in Turkey, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Egypt, Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Bulgaria, forming a very significant proportion of the Romani people. In neighboring countries such as Serbia and Greece, most Romani inhabitants follow the practice of Orthodoxy. It is likely that the adherence to differing religions prevented families from engaging in intermarriage.
In Spain, most Gitanos are Roman Catholics.
Some brotherhoods have organized Gitanos in their Holy Week devotions.
They are popularly known as "".
However, the proportion of followers of Evangelical Christianity among Gitanos is higher than among the rest of Spaniards.
Their version of "el culto" integrates Flamenco music.
Blessed Ceferino Giménez Malla is recently considered a patron saint of the Romani people in Roman Catholicism. Saint Sarah, or Sara e Kali, has also been venerated as a patron saint in her shrine at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, France. Since the turn of the 21st century, Sara e Kali is understood to have been Kali, an Indian deity brought from India by the refugee ancestors of the Roma people; as the Roma became Christianized, she was absorbed in a syncretic way and venerated as a saint.
Saint Sarah is now increasingly being considered as "a Romani Goddess, the Protectress of the Roma" and an "indisputable link with Mother India".
Romanies often adopt the dominant religion of their host country in the event that a ceremony associated with a formal religious institution is necessary, such as a baptism or funeral (their particular belief systems and indigenous religion and worship remain preserved regardless of such adoption processes). The Roma continue to practice "Shaktism", a practice with origins in India, whereby a female consort is required for the worship of a god. Adherence to this practice means that for the Roma who worship the Christian God, prayer is conducted through the Virgin Mary, or her mother, Saint Anne. Shaktism continues over one thousand years after the people's separation from India.
Besides the Roma elders (who serve as spiritual leaders), priests, churches, or bibles do not exist among the Romanies the only exception is the Pentecostal Roma.
For the Roma communities that have resided in the Balkans for numerous centuries, often referred to as "Turkish Gypsies", the following histories apply for religious beliefs:
In Ukraine and Russia, the Roma populations are also Muslim as the families of Balkan migrants continue to live in these locations. Their ancestors settled on the Crimean peninsula during the 17th and 18th centuries, but then migrated to Ukraine, southern Russia and the Povolzhie (along the Volga River). Formally, Islam is the religion that these communities align themselves with and the people are recognized for their staunch preservation of the Romani language and identity.
In Poland and Slovakia, their populations are Roman Catholic, many times adopting and following local, cultural Catholicism as a syncretic system of belief that incorporates distinct Roma beliefs and cultural aspects. For example, many Polish Roma delay their Church wedding due to the belief that sacramental marriage is accompanied by divine ratification, creating a virtually indissoluble union until the couple consummate, after which the sacramental marriage is dissoluble only by the death of a spouse. Therefore, for Polish Roma once married one can't ever divorce. Another aspect of Polish Roma's Catholicism is a tradition of pilgrimage to the Jasna Góra Monastery.
Most Eastern European Romanies are Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or Muslim. Those in Western Europe and the United States are mostly Roman Catholic or Protestant in southern Spain, many Romanies are Pentecostal, but this is a small minority that has emerged in contemporary times. In Egypt, the Romanies are split into Christian and Muslim populations.
Romani music plays an important role in Central and Eastern European countries such as Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Albania, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia and Romania, and the style and performance practices of Romani musicians have influenced European classical composers such as Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms. The "lăutari" who perform at traditional Romanian weddings are virtually all Romani.
Probably the most internationally prominent contemporary performers in the "lăutari" tradition are Taraful Haiducilor. Bulgaria's popular "wedding music", too, is almost exclusively performed by Romani musicians such as Ivo Papasov, a virtuoso clarinetist closely associated with this genre and Bulgarian pop-folk singer Azis.
Many famous classical musicians, such as the Hungarian pianist Georges Cziffra, are Romani, as are many prominent performers of manele. Zdob și Zdub, one of the most prominent rock bands in Moldova, although not Romanies themselves, draw heavily on Romani music, as do Spitalul de Urgență in Romania, Shantel in Germany, Goran Bregović in Serbia, Darko Rundek in Croatia, Beirut and Gogol Bordello in the United States.
Another tradition of Romani music is the genre of the Romani brass band, with such notable practitioners as Boban Marković of Serbia, and the brass "lăutari" groups Fanfare Ciocărlia and Fanfare din Cozmesti of Romania.
Dances such as the flamenco of Spain and Oriental dances of Egypt are said to have originated from the Romani.
The distinctive sound of Romani music has also strongly influenced bolero, jazz, and flamenco (especially "cante jondo") in Spain. European-style gypsy jazz ("jazz Manouche" or "Sinti jazz") is still widely practiced among the original creators (the Romanie People); one who acknowledged this artistic debt was guitarist Django Reinhardt. Contemporary artists in this tradition known internationally include Stochelo Rosenberg, Biréli Lagrène, Jimmy Rosenberg, Paulus Schäfer and Tchavolo Schmitt.
The Romanies of Turkey have achieved musical acclaim from national and local audiences. Local performers usually perform for special holidays. Their music is usually performed on instruments such as the darbuka, gırnata and cümbüş.
Romani contemporary art is art created by Romani people. It emerged at the climax of the process that began in Central and Eastern Europe in the late-1980s, when the interpretation of the cultural practice of minorities was enabled by a paradigm shift, commonly referred to in specialist literature as the Cultural turn. The idea of the "cultural turn" was introduced; and this was also the time when the notion of cultural democracy became crystallized in the debates carried on at various public forums. Civil society gained strength, and civil politics appeared, which is a prerequisite for cultural democracy. This shift of attitude in scholarly circles derived from concerns specific not only to ethnicity, but also to society, gender and class.
Most Romani speak one of several dialects of the Romani language, an Indo-Aryan language, with roots in Sanskrit. They also often speak the languages of the countries they live in. Typically, they also incorporate loanwords and calques into Romani from the languages of those countries and especially words for terms that the Romani language does not have. Most of the "Ciganos" of Portugal, the Gitanos of Spain, the Romanichal of the UK, and Scandinavian Travellers have lost their knowledge of pure Romani, and respectively speak the mixed languages Caló, Angloromany, and Scandoromani. Most of the speaker communities in these regions consist of later immigrants from eastern or central Europe.
There are no concrete statistics for the number of Romani speakers, both in Europe and globally. However, a conservative estimation has been made at 3.5 million speakers in Europe and a further 500,000 elsewhere, although the actual number may be considerably higher. This makes Romani the second largest minority language in Europe, behind Catalan.
In relation to dialect diversity, Romani works in the same way as most other European languages. Cross-dialect communication is dominated by the following features:
One of the most enduring persecutions against the Romani people was their enslavement. Slavery was widely practiced in medieval Europe, including the territory of present-day Romania from before the founding of the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia in the 13th–14th century. Legislation decreed that all the Romani living in these states, as well as any others who immigrated there, were classified as slaves. Slavery was gradually abolished during the 1840s and 1850s.
The exact origins of slavery in the Danubian Principalities are not known. There is some debate over whether the Romani people came to Wallachia and Moldavia as free men or were brought as slaves. Historian Nicolae Iorga associated the Roma people's arrival with the 1241 Mongol invasion of Europe and considered their slavery as a vestige of that era, in which the Romanians took the Roma as slaves from the Mongols and preserved their status to use their labor. Other historians believe that the Romani were enslaved while captured during the battles with the Tatars. The practice of enslaving war prisoners may also have been adopted from the Mongols.
Some Romani may have been slaves or auxiliary troops of the Mongols or Tatars, but most of them migrated from south of the Danube at the end of the 14th century, some time after the foundation of Wallachia. By then, the institution of slavery was already established in Moldavia and possibly in both principalities. After the Roma migrated into the area, slavery became a widespread practice by the majority population. The Tatar slaves, smaller in numbers, were eventually merged into the Roma population.
Some branches of the Romani people reached Western Europe in the 15th century, fleeing as refugees from the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans. Although the Romani were refugees from the conflicts in southeastern Europe, they were often suspected by certain populations in the West of being associated with the Ottoman invasion because their physical appearance seemed Turkish. (The Imperial Diet at Landau and Freiburg in 1496–1498 declared that the Romani were spies of the Turks). In Western Europe, such suspicions and discrimination against a people who were a visible minority resulted in persecution, often violent, with efforts to achieve ethnic cleansing until the modern era. In times of social tension, the Romani suffered as scapegoats; for instance, they were accused of bringing the plague during times of epidemics.
On 30 July 1749, Spain conducted "The Great Roundup" of Romani (Gitanos) in its territory. The Spanish Crown ordered a nationwide raid that led to the break-up of families as all able-bodied men were interned into forced labor camps in an attempt at ethnic cleansing. The measure was eventually reversed and the Romanis were freed as protests began to arise in different communities, sedentary romanis being highly esteemed and protected in rural Spain.
Later in the 19th century, Romani immigration was forbidden on a racial basis in areas outside Europe, mostly in the English-speaking world. Argentina in 1880 prohibited immigration by Roma, as did the United States in 1885.
In the Habsburg Monarchy under Maria Theresa (1740–1780), a series of decrees tried to force the Romanies to permanently settle, removed rights to horse and wagon ownership (1754), renamed them as "New Citizens" and forced Romani boys into military service if they had no trade (1761), forced them to register with the local authorities (1767), and prohibited marriage between Romanies (1773). Her successor Josef II prohibited the wearing of traditional Romani clothing and the use of the Romani language, punishable by flogging.
In Spain, attempts to assimilate the Gitanos were under way as early as 1619, when Gitanos were forcibly settled, the use of the Romani language was prohibited, Gitano men and women were sent to separate workhouses and their children sent to orphanages. King Charles III took on a more progressive attitude to Gitano assimilation, proclaiming their equal rights as Spanish citizens and ending official denigration based on their race. While he prohibited the nomadic lifestyle, the use of the Calo language, Romani clothing, their trade in horses and other itinerant trades, he also forbade any form of discrimination against them or barring them from the guilds. The use of the word "gitano" was also forbidden to further assimilation, substituted for "New Castilian", which was also applied to former Jews and Muslims.
Most historians agree that Charles III pragmática failed for three main reasons, ultimately derived from its implementation outside major cities and in marginal areas: The difficulty the Gitano community faced in changing its nomadic lifestyle, the marginal lifestyle in which the community had been driven by society and the serious difficulties of applying the pragmática in the fields of education and work. One author ascribes its failure to the overall rejection by the wider population of the integration of the Gitanos.
Other examples of forced assimilation include Norway, where a law was passed in 1896 permitting the state to remove children from their parents and place them in state institutions. This resulted in some 1,500 Romani children being taken from their parents in the 20th century.
The persecution of the Romanies reached a peak during World War II in the Porajmos genocide perpetrated by Nazi Germany. In 1935, the Nuremberg laws stripped the Romani people living in Nazi Germany of their citizenship, after which they were subjected to violence, imprisonment in concentration camps and later genocide in extermination camps. The policy was extended in areas occupied by the Nazis during the war, and it was also applied by their allies, notably the Independent State of Croatia, Romania, and Hungary.
Because no accurate pre-war census figures exist for the Romanis, it is impossible to accurately assess the actual number of victims. Most estimates for numbers of Romani victims of the Holocaust fall between 200,000 and 500,000, although figures ranging between 90,000 and 1.5 million have been proposed. Lower estimates do not include those killed in all Axis-controlled countries. A detailed study by Sybil Milton, formerly senior historian at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum gave a figure of at least a minimum of 220,000, possibly closer to 500,000. Ian Hancock, Director of the Program of Romani Studies and the Romani Archives and Documentation Center at the University of Texas at Austin, argues in favour of a higher figure of between 500,000 and 1,500,000.
In Central Europe, the extermination in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was so thorough that the Bohemian Romani language became extinct.
In Europe, Romani people are associated with poverty, and are accused of high rates of crime and behaviours that are perceived by the rest of the population as being antisocial or inappropriate. Partly for this reason, discrimination against the Romani people has continued to the present day, although efforts are being made to address them. Amnesty International reports continued instances of Antizigan discrimination during the 20th century, particularly in Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, and Kosovo. The European Union has recognized that discrimination against Romani must be addressed, and with the national Roma integration strategy they encourage member states to work towards greater Romani inclusion and upholding the rights of the Romani in the European union.
In Eastern Europe, Roma children often attend Roma Special Schools, separate from non-Roma children, which puts them at an educational disadvantage.
The Romanis of Kosovo have been severely persecuted by ethnic Albanians since the end of the Kosovo War, and the region's Romani community is, for the most part, annihilated.
Czechoslovakia carried out a policy of sterilization of Romani women, starting in 1973. The dissidents of the Charter 77 denounced it in 1977–78 as a genocide, but the practice continued through the Velvet Revolution of 1989. A 2005 report by the Czech Republic's independent ombudsman, Otakar Motejl, identified dozens of cases of coercive sterilization between 1979 and 2001, and called for criminal investigations and possible prosecution against several health care workers and administrators.
In 2008, following the rape and subsequent murder of an Italian woman in Rome at the hands of a young man from a local Romani encampment, the Italian government declared that Italy's Romani population represented a national security risk and that swift action was required to address the "emergenza nomadi" ("nomad emergency"). Specifically, officials in the Italian government accused the Romanies of being responsible for rising crime rates in urban areas.
The 2008 deaths of Cristina and Violetta Djeordsevic, two Roma children who drowned while Italian beach-goers remained unperturbed, brought international attention to the relationship between Italians and the Roma people. Reviewing the situation in 2012, one Belgian magazine observed:
The 2016 Pew Research poll found that Italians, in particular, hold strong anti-Roma views, with 82% of Italians expressing negative opinions about Roma. In Greece 67%, in Hungary 64%, in France 61%, in Spain 49%, in Poland 47%, in the UK 45%, in Sweden 42%, in Germany 40%, and in the Netherlands 37% had an unfavourable view of Roma. The 2019 Pew Research poll found that 83% of Italians, 76% of Slovaks, 72% of Greeks, 68% of Bulgarians, 66% of Czechs, 61% of Lithuanians, 61% of Hungarians, 54% of Ukrainians, 52% of Russians, 51% of Poles, 44% of French, 40% of Spaniards, and 37% of Germans held unfavorable views of Roma.
Reports of anti-Roma incidents are increasing across Europe. Discrimination against Roma remains widespread in Romania, Slovakia and Bulgaria. Roma communities across Ukraine have been the target of violent attacks.
In the summer of 2010, French authorities demolished at least 51 illegal Roma camps and began the process of repatriating their residents to their countries of origin. This followed tensions between the French state and Roma communities, which had been heightened after French police opened fire and killed a traveller who drove through a police checkpoint, hitting an officer, and attempted to hit two more officers at another checkpoint. In retaliation a group of Roma, armed with hatchets and iron bars, attacked the police station of Saint-Aignan, toppled traffic lights and road signs and burned three cars. The French government has been accused of perpetrating these actions to pursue its political agenda. EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding stated that the European Commission should take legal action against France over the issue, calling the deportations "a disgrace". A leaked file dated 5 August, sent from the Interior Ministry to regional police chiefs, included the instruction: "Three hundred camps or illegal settlements must be cleared within three months, Roma camps are a priority."
Many depictions of Romani people in literature and art present romanticized narratives of mystical powers of fortune telling or irascible or passionate temper paired with an indomitable love of freedom and a habit of criminality. Romani were a popular subject in Venetian painting from the time of Giorgione at the start of the 16th century; the inclusion of such a figure adds an exotic oriental flavour to scenes. A Venetian Renaissance painting by Paris Bordone (ca. 1530, Strasbourg) of the Holy Family in Egypt makes Elizabeth, a Romani fortune-teller; the scene is otherwise located in a distinctly European landscape.
Particularly notable are classics like the story "Carmen" by Prosper Mérimée and the opera based on it by Georges Bizet, Victor Hugo's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame", Herge's "The Castafiore Emerald" and Miguel de Cervantes' "La Gitanilla". The Romani were also depicted in "A Midsummer Night's Dream", "As You Like It", "Othello" and "The Tempest", all by William Shakespeare.
The Romani were also heavily romanticized in the Soviet Union, a classic example being the 1975 film "Tabor ukhodit v Nebo".
A more realistic depiction of contemporary Romani in the Balkans, featuring Romani lay actors speaking in their native dialects, although still playing with established clichés of a Romani penchant for both magic and crime, was presented by Emir Kusturica in his "Time of the Gypsies" (1988) and "Black Cat, White Cat" (1998). The films of Tony Gatlif, a French director of Romani ethnicity, like "Les Princes" (1983), "Latcho Drom" (1993) and "Gadjo Dilo" (1997) also portray romani life.
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Roman Inquisition
The Roman Inquisition, formally the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition, was a system of tribunals developed by the Holy See of the Roman Catholic Church, during the second half of the 16th century, responsible for prosecuting individuals accused of a wide array of crimes relating to religious doctrine or alternative religious doctrine or alternative religious beliefs. In the period after the Medieval Inquisition, it was one of three different manifestations of the wider Catholic Inquisition along with the Spanish Inquisition and Portuguese Inquisition.
Like other iterations of the Inquisition, the Roman Inquisition was responsible for prosecuting individuals accused of committing offenses relating to heresy, including Protestantism, sorcery, immorality, blasphemy, Judaizing and witchcraft, as well as for censorship of printed literature. After 1567, with the execution of Pietro Carnesecchi, an allegedly leading heretic, the Holy Office moved to broaden concerns beyond that of theological matters, such as love magic, witchcraft, superstitions, and cultural morality. However, the treatment was more disciplinary than punitive.
The tribunals of the Roman Inquisition covered most of the Italian peninsula as well as Malta and also existed in isolated pockets of papal jurisdiction in other parts of Europe, including Avignon, a papal enclave within the territory of France. The Roman Inquisition, though, was considerably more bureaucratic and focused on pre-emptive control in addition to the reactive judicial prosecution experienced under other iterations.
Typically, the pope appointed one cardinal to preside over meetings of the Congregation. Though often referred to in historical literature as "Grand Inquisitors", the role was substantially different from the formally appointed Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition. There were usually ten other cardinals who were members of the Congregation, as well as a prelate and two assistants all chosen from the Dominican Order. The Holy Office also had an international group of consultants; experienced scholars of theology and canon law who advised on specific questions. The congregation, in turn, presided over the activity of local tribunals.
The Roman Inquisition began in 1542 as part of the Catholic Church's Counter-Reformation against the spread of Protestantism, but it represented a less harsh affair than the previously established Spanish Inquisition.
In 1588, Pope Sixtus V established 15 congregations of the Roman Curia of which the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition was one. In 1908, the congregation was renamed the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office and in 1965 it was renamed again and is now known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
While the Roman Inquisition was originally designed to combat the spread of Protestantism in Italy, the institution outlived that original purpose and the system of tribunals lasted until the mid 18th century, when pre-unification Italian states began to suppress the local inquisitions, effectively eliminating the power of the church to prosecute heretical crimes.
Nicolaus Copernicus published a formulated model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than the Earth at the center of the universe in his book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres), in 1543. The book was dedicated to Pope Paul III, who was known for his interests in astronomy.
In 1616, the Roman Inquisition's consultants judged the proposition that the sun is immobile and at the center of the universe and that the Earth moves around it, to be "foolish and absurd in philosophy" and that the first was "formally heretical" while the second was "at least erroneous in faith". (The original assessment document from the Inquisition was made widely available in 2014.)
This assessment led to Copernicus's "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres" being placed on the "Index Librorum Prohibitorum" (Index of Forbidden Books).
Galileo Galilei revised the Copernican theories and was admonished for his views on heliocentrism in 1615. The Roman Inquisition concluded that his theory could only be supported as a possibility, not as an established fact. Galileo later defended his views in "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems", which appeared to attack Pope Urban VIII and thus alienated him and the Jesuits, who had both supported Galileo up until this point.
He was tried by the Inquisition in 1633. Galileo was found "vehemently suspect of heresy", forced to recant, and the "Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems" was also placed on the "Index Librorum Prohibitorum" (Index of Forbidden Books). He spent the rest of his life under house arrest at his villa in Arcetri near Florence.
Among the subjects of this Inquisition were Franciscus Patricius, Giordano Bruno, Tommaso Campanella, Gerolamo Cardano, and Cesare Cremonini. Of these, only Bruno was executed, the last by the Roman Inquisition. Campanella was later implicated in a conspiracy to drive the Spanish from Naples and Sicily and was imprisoned for twenty-seven years in various Neapolitan fortresses. He was finally released from the Castel Nuovo in 1626, through Pope Urban VIII, who personally interceded on his behalf with Philip IV of Spain. The miller Domenico Scandella was also burned at the stake on the orders of Pope Clement VIII in 1599 for his belief that God was created from chaos.
The Inquisition also concerned itself with the Benandanti in the Friuli region, but considered them a lesser danger than the Protestant Reformation and only handed out light sentences.
17th century traveler and author, John Bargrave, gave an account of his interactions with the Roman Inquisition. Arriving in the city of Reggio (having travelled from Modena), Bargrave was stopped by the city guard who inspected his books on suspicion some may have been on the "Index Librorum Prohibitorum". Bargrave was brought before the city's chief inquisitor who suggested they converse in Latin rather than Italian so that the guards might be prevented from understanding them. The inquisitor told him that the inquisition were not accustomed to stopping visitors or travellers unless someone had suggested they do so (Bargrave suspected that Jesuits in Rome had made accusations against him). Nonetheless, Bargrave was told he was required to hold a license from the inquisition. Even with a license, Bargrave was prohibited from carrying any books "printed at any heretical city, as Geneva, Amsterdam, Leyden, London, or the like". Bargrave provided a catalogue of his books to the inquisition and was provided with a license to carry them for the rest of his journey.
The Inquisition in Malta (1561 to 1798) is generally considered to have been gentler.
Italian historian Andrea Del Col estimates that out of 51,000–75,000 cases judged by Inquisition in Italy after 1542, around 1,250 resulted in a death sentence.
The Inquisitions have long been one of the primary subjects in the scholarly debates regarding witchcraft accusations of the early modern period. Historian Henry Charles Lea places an emphasis on torture methods employed to force confessions from the convicted. Carlo Ginzburg, in one of his most influential works, "The Night Battles", discussed how Inquisitorial propaganda of demonology distorted popular folk beliefs. In similar light, Elliott P. Currie saw the Inquisitions as one singular, ongoing phenomenon, which drove the witch-hunt to its peak. Currie argued that the methods pioneered by the Inquisition indirectly guided continental Europe to a series of persecutions motivated by profit. Second-wave feminism also saw a surge of historical interpretation of the witch-hunt. A number of 100,000 to 9,000,000 executions was given, all of which was attributed to the Inquisition. Feminist scholars Claudia Honeger and Nelly Moia saw the early modern witch-craze as a product of Inquisitorial influence, namely the "Malleus Maleficarum". Feminist writers Mary Daly, Barbara Walker, and Witch Starhawk argued that the Inquisitions were responsible for countless, "hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions", deaths, most of them women. This notion was similarly echoed by Third-wave feminist writer Elizabeth Connor, who agreed with the notion of "gynocide", or "woman hunting", inaugurated by the "Malleus". The same sentiment regarding the Inquisition's notorious reputation of torture was shared by American writer and attorney Jonathan Kirsch. In his book, "The Grand Inquisitor's Manual: A History of Terror in the Name of God", Kirsch argued that the Inquisition's use of torture not only applied to the witch-craze which peaked in early 17th century, but also to the Salem witch trials. This model of repressive system, Kirsch argued, was also applied in Nazism, Soviet Russia, Japanese internment camps, McCarthyism, and most recently, the War on Terror.
Through further research and available evidence, the Roman Inquisition was seen in a different light. In contrast with feminist arguments, historians like Clarke Garrett, Brian Levack, John Tedeschi, Matteo Duni, and Diane Purkiss pointed out that most witch trials and executions were conducted by local and secular authorities. Clarke Garrett mentioned the quick decline and insignificance of the "Malleus Maleficarum". In-depth historical research regarding minor details of different types of magic, theological heresies, and political climate of The Reformation further revealed that Inquisitorial procedures greatly restrained witch hunting in Italy. Scholars specializing in the Renaissance and Early Modern period such as Guido Ruggiero, Christopher F. Black, and Mary O'Neil also discussed the importance of proper procedures and sparse use of torture. The low rate of torture and lawful interrogation, Black argued, means that trials tended to focus more on individual accusation, instead of groups. For the same reason, the notion of the Black Sabbath was much less accepted in contemporary Italian popular culture. The Holy Office's function in the disenchantment of popular culture also helped advance rationalism by getting rid of superstitions. Jeffrey R. Watt refutes the feminist claim that the Inquisition was responsible for the death of so many women. Watt points out that in 1588 the Roman Curia stated it would only allow testimony about participation in a Sabbath by the practitioners themselves and not by outside witnesses. Additionally, the Inquisition would eventually ban torture for the procurement of a witchcraft confession. The Holy Office also began seeking less harsh punishment for witches and viewed witches as those who had simply lost their way and who could be redeemed, not as apostates deserving death.
Historians who leaned toward the witch-hunt-restraining argument were more inclined to differentiate different Inquisitions, and often drew contrast between Italy versus Central Europe. The number of executed witches is also greatly lowered, to between 45,000 and 60,000. Those who argued for the fault of the Inquisition in the witch-craze are more likely to contrast continental Europe to England, as well as seeing the Inquisitions as one singular event which lasted 600 years since its founding in the 11th or 12th century. The significance and emphasis of the "Malleus Maleficarum" is seen more frequently in arguments which hold the Inquisition accountable for the witch-craze.
The of the Roman Inquisition occurred in 1858, in Bologna, Papal States, when Inquisition agents legally removed a 6-year-old Jewish boy, Edgardo Mortara, from his family. The local inquisitor had learned that the boy had been secretly baptized by his nursemaid when he was in danger of death. It was illegal for a Catholic child in the Papal States to be raised by Jews. Pope Pius IX raised the boy as a Catholic in Rome and he went on to become a priest. The boy's father, Momolo Mortara, spent years seeking help in all quarters, including internationally, to try to reclaim his son. These efforts availed him none at all. The case received international attention and fueled the anti-papal sentiments that helped the Italian nationalism movement and culminated in the 1870 Capture of Rome. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26154 |
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